Tyra, a pseudonymous Toronto-based elementary school teacher, was 15 the first time she got off. Only, it wasn’t by her own hand or even with the help of a particularly buzzy vibrator — it was with the showerhead.
“I was just taking my usual shower, and my parents had installed this new showerhead,” she says. “I’d never even seen one like that before. So I took it down, and sprayed myself from top to bottom. But when I got to the bottom, I just remember being like, ‘Oh! That feels really good! Is it supposed to?’”
That prescient moment was the first of many showerhead-inspired good times to follow.
“When I was younger, I’d spend a long time in the pool or even taking a shower, spending time with that showerhead,” she continues. “Now, everywhere I’ve moved since, I’ve made sure I have one similar to it. There’s still nothing like that tickling sensation, like the water gushing over your clit, you gushing back and your legs going weak. I wanna go to take a shower right now!”
Don’t we all? For so many, that first, memorable moment of sexual pleasure is provided by water, whether it’s in a swimming pool, the shower or some other aquatic locale. The discovery is almost always deliciously accidental, too — when you’re young, the shower is really the only place you get free rein, with no parents or siblings barging in, the sound of the rushing water hiding your moans.
Of the women I spoke to — the majority of whom have had intimate relations with their showerheads — a standard of showerhead masturbation is clear: Get yourself a tool with multiple massage and/or pressure settings, and work your way up to “pulsating.” Maybe you start off with the gentle kiss of “mist” mode, a soft, drizzle grazing over you ever so lightly like a crisp, fall breeze lapping across your skin. Next, you ease yourself into “rain” mode, covering more territory, tenderly palming your body to the point your eyes begin to close as you lean further back into the comforts of your shower or tub. As your wetness grows, you tease and prolong your satisfaction by flipping between the all-over steady spray of “waterfall” mode before dipping your toes, and clit, into the focused, propulsive rhythm of “power.”
That said, as things often go, different settings work for different people.
Whether you’re laying back taking a bath or lounging on the edge of your tub, working the head with your legs apart, there’s an angle for everyone. There’s a difference, too, between a showerhead, which offers harder and faster pressure, and a faucet, which Tyra describes as a “slow tease.”
Still, what is it about the spray from our showerheads and faucets of all things that hits just right?
The answer is pretty simple — it mimics the feeling of a very large tongue that would put Gene Simmons to shame, gently and constantly licking back and forth, says Jess O’Reilly, a Toronto-based sexologist and host of the Sex With Dr. Jess podcast. “The running water creates a blended sensation that’s a combination of texture, temperature, pressure and movement,” she explains. “Some people say it feels like a constant tongue, and others just love the movement over their lips.”
O’Reilly tells me that it’s not so much that it mimics a vibrator (because then you’d just use your vibrator), “but that it functions as a built-in sex toy. Part of why running water over the external area can feel so good is due to the clitoris and labia. Just be sure not to spray water into the vagina.”
In other words, that water pressure is hitting you just about everywhere, not missing a spot, and because you can control the amount, temperature and angle it’s hitting you, it’s an incredibly malleable and improvisational sex toy.
But not everyone is gifted with a handheld showerhead in their bathroom, much less one with a generous set of settings. To pick up the slack, there are a few sex toys that you can use to adapt your faucet to feel like one — e.g., the WaterSlyde, an “aquatic stimulator” that can be attached to your faucet, and aimed directly at your vulva so you don’t have to resort to any slippery acrobatics. There’s also the Femme Fountain, a suction toy that spouts water at multiple intensities and angles for a hot, hands-free set-up.
For Janie Lu, a Toronto-based graduate student, toys like these and her own personal showerhead have helped her find a way around her experience with vaginismus, a painful, involuntary contraction of vaginal muscles during penetration that can occur regardless of how horny someone is or how down they are to bone.
“Honestly, it’s been something I’ve lived with for almost five years now, and it’s a struggle just finding your way through it and getting creative in bed,” she tells me. “Not a lot of partners are very patient, and it’s something I have insecurities about. So I’ve experimented with different kinds of sex toys, but the ones that really help me feel pleasure are water toys, and just having fun with myself in the shower. I can completely disappear into my thoughts in there. I’ve even named my showerhead, but that’s for me to know.”
It’s not uncommon, by the way, for people to resort to everyday household objects to scratch an itch in the moment, animals that we are. “Many people use furniture,” says O’Reilly. “They rub and grind against a pillow, the edge of a mattress or a piece of furniture. Some people also use an electric toothbrush handle. One company even creates attachments for this purpose.”
Still, there’s nothing like a jet of water hitting you where you need it. And there’s certainly something to be said about getting off just like you did when you were a kid, and it being just as effective today — if not a little better.
Truly a tale as old as time.
Sadaf Ahsan
Sadaf Ahsan is a Toronto-based arts and lifestyle writer and editor. She dreams of living a life Nora Ephron would be proud of.
