Three Six Nine: Catalogs

I do receive email from a couple of high-end sex toy shops out there over the aether.  I signed up for them largely as a source for gifts to young ladies of my acquaintance. They've been useful for that, though I want to note that there is something very depressing about shopping for sex toys. 

It isn't that the recipients haven't liked them. It's not that at all. Young ladies have been amused, aroused, and often quite grateful for the gifts. After all, any educated young lady here in the third decade of the new century is likely to appreciate a Lelo vibrator or a set of masks and blindfolds. Ben-wa balls remain a classic gift as well.

But there's something depressing about it all. A high-end sex toy shop (let's say, e.g., Good Vibrations) has nothing really to offer males. Lovely and adventuresome young ladies can experiment with sex toys and feel empowered. There's no male equivalent for that. Sex toys nominally designed for males are depressing things. They lack any sort of erotic allure, and they all seem to symbolize failure.

Consider the so-called Fleshlight. There's no equivalence with a Lelo vibrator. The Lelo enhances pleasure. It teaches young ladies how to make their bodies respond. It can be used on a lovely girl by a partner. A Fleshlight, though, is a clear symbol of failure. A male user is inserting himself in a vibrating tube because he's incapable of having a partner. A girl can use a Lelo on herself while describing sensations to a partner. A male with a Fleshlight has nothing erotic to say, and almost by definition he has no one to say it to.

I cannot imagine using any of the "For Him" toys in the Good Vibrations catalog. I cannot imagine placing my person-- my ummm...parts --in some kind of battery-operated sheath. The thought of putting myself into some electrically-powered cylinder (or putting some electrical appliance into my body) is rather terrifying. And I'm certainly not about to put my parts into something powered by clockwork mechanisms. That would be...well, just no. I'm not about to risk some electrical mishap, let alone some mechanical failure, just to use an item that tells the world that I'm a social and sexual failure. 

The only sort of sex toy that I can imagine using wouldn't be a sheath or cylinder (all too reminiscent of jokes about watermelons or pies or pieces of liver). It could only be some kind of cyberpunk headset that would act directly on my brain. Something that would trigger pleasure impulses and sensations in my brain would have a sci-fi air about it. It wouldn't be about some battery-powered tube. It wouldn't touch anything near one's parts. It would be about neuroscience and maybe virtual reality. It wouldn't seem so much about physical failure. 

By the way, you get extra points if you can identify the liver and pie references. 

Male pleasure remains a source of derisive, contemptuous amusement. Males pleasuring themselves are risible. The very idea draws cruel mockery. No young lady has to face derision for using a Lelo. Male pleasure has no sense of adventure attached. 

I can give gifts designed to enhance pleasure, but there is no plausible way I could receive a gift designed to enhance my own pleasure. I can't even think of a way to discuss the topic with a young lady of my acquaintance. We really have no present set of talking points for male pleasure, and no hi-tech work being done to create male pleasure enhancers that don't make one a sad joke.