If you want to get a woman off — and hopefully, by golly, you do — you used to have two options: Learn better sexual techniques, or outsource her pleasure to a robot, also known as a vibrator you awkwardly incorporate during sex or that she uses after you’re done. But now there’s a third option: Use a newer, better robot together that’s considerably less intrusive and will get her off without you doing any more work. Win-win?
Getting a woman off can be “awkward, tiring or disruptive to one or both partners,” according to the makers of a wearable vibrator called Eva, which was recently featured in The New York Times as a feminist, woman-friendly improvement on sex toys. Their mission is to close the pleasure gap by creating a wearable vibrator that won’t get in the way of getting it on.
This is an important distinction: There are other hands-free vibrators on the market that are inserted into the vagina while also providing clitoral stimulation, or worn as part of a penis ring to be pressed against the clitoris during intercourse for stimulation. But Eva is different because it is hands-free and tucked into the labia so you can still have penetrative sex while wearing it:
They claim it stays in place for some people even when changing sex positions, and that at the highest of three speeds, is powered for a full hour. If all this is true, this means it’s now stupid easy to get a woman off while also having sex, and for men, it could be the best of both worlds — you can now simultaneously make sure your partner is satisfied without lifting (or circulating, rather) a finger.
Necessity drives invention, so we were bound to end up here eventually. Literally everyone is getting off more than straight women. In heterosexual encounters, men get off 95 percent of the time compared to women’s 65 percent success rate (lesbian women climax 86 percent of the time). Some 70 percent of women need direct clitoral stimulation to launch, and though it’s no secret what it takes to pull this off (the “golden trio” — deep kissing, fingering and oral) it’s clear many straight men simply don’t have the inclination and/or skills to do it.
This makes a $105 vibrator one easy answer, with a few caveats:
You Have $105
Not everyone has a spare hundo lying around for sex times.
You Aren’t Threatened by Vibrators
While some studies find men do not find vibrators deeply threatening to their sexual confidence, sex therapists say they are still taboo in many hetero relationships. Writing at The Guardian in 2015, Tracy Clark-Flory notes that just a third of women say they’ve ever used a vibrator with a partner, and just 10 percent of women reported having done that recently. Why? She explains:
There is one main reason for this: men are taught not only that the penis (and its size, shape and ability to get and stay erect) is the symbol of their worth as men, but also that the phallus is the be-all, end-all of sex. If mainstream porn is to be believed, for instance, just the sight of a man’s erect penis should send a woman into an operatic display of ecstasy and penetration should be more than enough to bring about a female orgasm. So it only stands to reason that many men believe that if their dicks don’t bring individual women to climax, they must be inadequate to the task (and so too must be the man attached to it).
She Isn’t Weird About Vibrators, Either
But it’s not just men who have hang-ups about battery-powered love. Clark-Flory notes that lots of women think old-fashioned penetration is the only way to get off, too, and that if they can’t get off that way, there’s something wrong with them that they may be too embarrassed to address.
“The emphasis on penetration-related orgasms keeps men and women feeling insecure — which makes for really terrible sex,” she notes. And even when men aren’t squeamish about vibrators, women still might feel embarrassed anyway or assume men are, she notes. Which is why sex therapists say couples in such situations could try buying a vibrator together to make it a more meaningful experience. Another tried and true option is “sexual honesty”—being able to discuss openly what works and doesn’t and working past those hang-ups.
All this is to say that this vibrator could be a slam dunk for lazy lovers who still care about getting a lady off, but it won’t replace the real work of figuring out your partner and actually being attentive and sensitive to their non-sexual feelings, too. That, unfortunately, requires still doing some work with your mouth — talking. There’s still no good robot to replace that.
Tracy Moore
Tracy Moore is a staff writer at MEL. She covers all the soft sciences like psychology, sex, relationships and parenting, but since this is a men’s magazine, occasionally the hard ones. Formerly at Jezebel.
