Venus Envy Advisory: Really Big Toys

Welcome to our collaboration with the Leveller: their newest column focusing on sexual health and pleasure. We’ve teamed up and are providing you, our valued readership, with a forum to ask questions related to those quirks, queries, and curiosities you’ve always harboured and didn’t know whom to ask. Well, now is your chance! Please submit your questions to editors.the.leveller@gmail.com.

Dear VE,

‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through my mind, 
thoughts were a flurry, I was sure in a bind. 
I’d spent the day with some friends, we all opened gifts – 
was I sure quite surprised, my reaction was swift!
Around my living room my mates and I sat, 
each gift on full view and my next was begat.

In a lovely blue box, bedecked with a bow,
lay a massive twelve-incher, my goodness! A dildo!
My face turned beet red, though my interest was piqued;
if my parents were here, they sure would have freaked!

Now please understand, my pickle is thus…
I’m sure not adept so your advice is a plus:
The gift is ideal, it’s really fantastic.
That being said, I’m not really elastic.

Where can one go, oh what can one do? 
I’m so uninformed about what to review.
Is there a class one can take?
Some books to peruse?
Please guide me, VE, I’ll follow your cues.

So please give some aid, for I’m eager and pleading.
Thank you, VE. Cheers and all seasons greetings.

Too Tight in Tanglewood.

Dear Too Tight in Tanglewood,

A lot of people get the majority of their sex information from porn. Sometimes it’s pretty obvious that the scene is strictly fantasy, and unlikely to ever happen in real life. But this is one situation where I want to emphasize the huge difference in porn sex versus real-life sex, because porn spawns a lot of myths here.

You know how in porn there’s a 2-minute window between the pizza guy showing up and the pizza guy putting his massive cock inside someone? That is really unrealistic – and not only because they totally ignore the pizza.

In reality, large insertables are a labour of lust. The basic principles of making bigger better are going slow, using a ton of lube and accepting your body’s limitations. You don’t say where specifically you want to insert this dildo, but all that goes doubly if anything is going in your ass.

Start with an activity that relaxes you, and gets your brain and body in the mood. If you’re playing with a partner, this is a good time to ask for a massage. You want to make sure that you’re good and turned on for the whole process, since that will help your muscles relax and your sphincters open.

When you’re ready to go deep, start with something small and cover it with lube. You might try a smaller toy, or even your lubed-up fingers if you’ve got the flexibility and dexterity to make that work. Then the idea is to gradually increase the size of what you’re playing with, going finger-by-finger or having a set of toys in varying sizes. For vaginal play, even a bunch of condom-covered cucumbers would work, but do not put anything in your butt that doesn’t have a flared base!

Whatever you’re using, insert it and play with it so that it starts to feel good and the size feels easy, then add more lube and move up to the next size. If you get to a point where something feels uncomfortable, stop moving it and just sit with it inside you. Breathe deeply. Play with whatever bits you have that make you feel a little more turned on, until it starts to feel easier and more comfortable.

And if it never gets more comfortable, then you know that you’ve hit your body’s limit of how much it can take for the day. Please don’t ever try to push things past this limit, because that’s how real damage happens – especially if you’re using something anally. This is also why we don’t recommend using any numbing creams or sprays.

Maybe this is radical, but I think you should actually be able feel the sex that you’re having so that you can, you know, enjoy it.

Great sex is not goal-oriented. When it’s time for more, bigger, harder – your body will let you know.

— Sam Whittle, Sex Educator and Owner of Venus Envy