The Adventurous Couple's Guide to Sex Toys (14 page)

And if you're not interested in human dildos, or bestial or alien ones, where else in the world of dildos and butt plugs can you possibly go? Into the realm of the spirit, of course. Divine Interventions (
divine-interventions.com
) might seem like several (web) pages out of the Book of Blasphemy, but this company is heaven-sent for those who like their finely crafted silicone
dildos served up with a heaping slice of irony (and thoughtfully designed for pleasure). The Baby Jesus Butt Plug is perhaps its best-known product, followed by the Jackhammer Jesus (“Jesus was a carpenter, now he's the powertool”), which is engineered to hit the G-spot with stunning accuracy. Christianity isn't the only religion on show here, since you can also find Buddha's Delight, though I'll wager that followers of Buddhism are less likely to get upset about where people choose to find their bliss.

As it happens, if your imagination is so splendiferous that you don't care for
any
of the thousands of dildo types available from novelty companies, specialty boutiques, or even outer space, well, you can just make your own. Actually, the commercially available make-it-yourself dildo, or Clone-A-Willy (
cloneawilly.com
), kits are sold with the idea that you have a penis at hand that you'd like to duplicate; for many couples, these kits present more than a few novel (and lightly kinky) ideas.

The kits sell for about a hundred dollars, and contain everything you need to make a dildo mold from a penis (or another dildo), plus the hygienic silicone for casting. Kits are also available to cast your dildo in solid chocolate, for tasty eating later. With the silicone kits, casters get two cardboard cylinders, two bottles of powdered casting agent, a bottle of liquid silicone and activator, and a stick (to mix the silicone and activator, which will harden the silicone). Before casting, the man should coat his penis and pubic hair with Vaseline to make it easy to get the mold off him, and of course he'll also need an erection.
This process takes two people: one to mix the cold water and powdered mold-making mix, the other to help maintain the erection. Reason: When you mix the mold, it hardens within about two minutes, so the pressure on the model is high and the timing must be just right. That's why they provide you with two cylinders—two chances to get your timing right.

But after you mix the mold and plunge his penis into it, then wait for it to set (about 5 minutes), you can take your leisurely time mixing the silicone (or melting the chocolate) and pouring it into the mold—go slowly and be sure to tap out any air bubbles. Then, wait. In a couple of hours, the results are a stunning, lifelike cast of the penis, down to the veins, wrinkles, and all.

I
f you could afford to have an extra room in your house devoted entirely to sexy things, or to have such a far-out, swinging pad that you could decorate it with sex toys as art, wouldn't you want to find a catalog that's the erotic version of Design Within Reach? Sadly, no such catalog exists, but online there are enough high-end artisan-crafted sex furniture sites to fill several pages of such a decadent directory. And, in practical terms, sex furniture offers better support for sex positions and play, can ease the strain of sex for people with injuries or limited mobility, and can make angling for G-spot and prostate stimulation easier.

The LuvSeat (
luvseat.com
) is a sex chair available in three styles that incorporates a pneumatic spring and handlebars into an adjustable padded bench for all kinds of creative sex adventures. The website offers suggestions on positions and makes some
pretty outrageous claims about the chair curing premature ejaculation (your mileage may vary), but the sturdy, well-made, attractive chair offers a lot for people who want to play on a solid piece of sex furniture that offers many adjustable options. Each LuvSeat holds up to 500 pounds; comes in black or burgundy padded “ultra vinyl”; has optional foot stirrups, handles, headrests, and seat covers, and comes with a five-year warranty.

Another seat-styled (and quite obvious) piece of sex furniture is the Joy Rider (
thejoyrider.com
), a glossy black square-framed chair that holds a suspended toilet seat. The uses for this sex chair are left to your imagination, and while it's not sex-position friendly for traditional penetration, it certainly looks like it makes oral sex, BDSM, and helplessness predicaments very intense. It's completely collapsible for discreet storage.

With its sleek polished wood base and sumptuous silk brocade cushion, curved in a sexy sideways
S
, the Tantra Chair (
tantrachair.com
) looks more a piece of antique Asian furniture than a sex device—which is exactly what the designers had in mind. While designed to accommodate the positions of the Kama Sutra, the chair also doubles as a really beautiful living room fixture that could easily pass for designer décor. Buyers decide on the finishing details of each chair: It comes in a full range of Thai silk brocades, cottons, or leather; and its base is made of polished mahogany or maple (from sustainable forests). Each chair has a five-year warranty.

Two absolutely stunning sex furniture designs can be found at London-based Coco de Mer (
coco-de-mer-shop.co.uk
), most notably the Poker Table and the Tally Ho Chair. Both look straight out of a 1920s bordello (the really, really expensive kind) and feature polished metal and padded black leather. No one
would know the extra use your Poker Table got up to after hours, unless they took a second look at the extra-sturdy, ornately shaped five-legged base and glossy black leather padded surface. But the Tally Ho Chair is another case entirely; it's impossible to think that even while someone might get caught up in admiring the beauty of its shape and sheen, they'd miss the equestrian shape, black leather leg stirrups, reins, and extra spanking (or kneeling) bench.

 

If you really don't care who sees your kink, and can't suffer bad taste, treat yourself to a custom-made bondage bed from Dungeon Beds (
dungeonbeds.com
). These stunning steel creations cost a lot, but take a look at the quality, style, and options for kinky sex in a bed like the Dore Alley—a stark square shape with metal restraint hoops on all corners, crossbars for suspension, and votive candle lighting. The designers and fabricators behind Dungeon Beds have over a dozen years of furniture-making experience, and it shows in each of their incredible designs. But they haven't stopped with beds. The discriminating kinky decorator can also choose from bondage-friendly nightstands, bedside hanging shelves, and a steel cage dining table that allows you to lock a naughty someone in a cage beneath the dining table where you and dinner guests can take turns feeding or teasing the captive throughout your
very interesting
dinner party.

Can't spare the expense or flashiness of a Dore Alley bed, but still want to add more functionality to the bed you already have? A couple of companies make bondage bed sheets and bed straps that come out for a night of fun, then get washed and put discreetly away for future use. The most widely available, Sportsheets (
sportsheets.com
), offers a Bondage Bedsheets package that includes a fitted, velvet-like, Velcro-compatible bedcover with four anchor pads; these attach to Sports Cuffs to bind an arm or leg, which then can quickly be attached to an anchor pad on the bed sheet. The firm also has an Under The Bed kit, an under-mattress pad that includes cuffs and tethers for beds lacking anchor points for restraints.

Weightless sex isn't just for naughty astronauts, swingers' conventions, or BDSM dungeons. Sex slings and swings are now widely available in adult stores and retail sites, and while all the usual cautions about quality should be mentioned, most models are durable, are of excellent quality, and can be relied on to hold a body (or even two) weightlessly while the players engage in any sex acts they can physically perform. They're also a boon for people with disabilities or limited mobility. Besides making the missionary position into a deliciously delightful experience where one partner can manipulate the other by effortlessly moving the swing or sling, these toys also make oral sex outrageous, doggy-style unbelievable, and activities like hand jobs and fisting simply incredible.

For ages, swings have been called
slings
by the BDSM community, but recently new types of suspension toys and haphazard naming practices among manufacturers have created a bit of confusion. Semantics aside, for our discussion a body harness is a specialized piece of nylon or leather that either acts as a sex position strap to keep part of the body aloft during penetration, or is sort of an adult carrying harness—acting like a sling. But in the world of sex toys, a sling is literally a swing that hangs suspended from the ceiling or a frame supplied by the manufacturer, so that a body can lie back in it and enjoy the ride. Typically, all swings and slings support up to 200 or even 400 pounds, but this differs between manufacturers and depends on how you set up your hangy thing.

The Body Swing is an inexpensive harness that straps to a man's body (or the person doing the penetrating); the penetra-tee sits up on the front of the wearer, fully supported by the
harness. It has padded stirrups so the rider can get leverage, while the padded shoulder straps ease the strain on the harness wearer.

The Love Swing is an actual swing that hangs from a central connection point in a doorway frame or ceiling beam, and like most swings it comes with instructions for installation and investigating the load-bearing capacity of your hang points. (Its manufacturer wants you to play safely.) Here, you're basically hanging from and resting on straps. This swing's straps support the back and butt (or waist and knees) of the person in the swing. It also features padded stirrups for extra foot-ankle stability.

Classic slings hang from four points, but function like a swing and support the entire body with a piece of soft (yet thick) leather that the user can lie back on. Most have stirrups for feet or ankles, and many have rigging points for wrist bondage, so that the rider is flat on their back, weightless yet immobile. These are very expensive and can be hung from sturdy beams in a ceiling, or on sling stands that often cost the same as or more than the sling itself; you're paying for quality and options. Most steel bondage frames and sling stands are made of sturdy steel and bring with them a variety of suspension options besides using them with a sling (like upright flogging, suspension, vertical spread-eagle, and humiliation); they're usually easy to disassemble for storage.

Somewhere between a sex sling and sex furniture is the giddily named Bonk'er (
bonkum.com
), a set of standing suspension poles that curve into a heart shape over a bed, with rigging points for stirrups or a sling or both. The Bonk'er is sold in sets of two poles or four, is made of strong steel tubing and leather, and, according to its website, has been tested to withstand 350 pounds per set of two. It's sort of like having a trapeze
set over your bed; users can lie back in it with legs held aloft, or a sling can be set up right over your bed. There are lots of possibilities here, and, should you run out of ideas, each set comes with a position guide booklet and a two-hour, explicit DVD demonstrating the Bonk'er in use. Some assembly is required.

While it's true that you can use any piece of furniture around your house to make a sex position more interesting or comfortable, you might not find your ottoman ideal for doggy-style, and a pile of pillows might make you feel more like the princess and the pea than a sex goddess. Especially when your pillows slip, or need to be readjusted when the going gets (nice and) rough. Sex position pillows are made expressly for sexual comfort and ease, and if you've never tried one, then you really don't know what you're missing.

The sex position pillows you'll want to look for are ones made of soft yet resilient foam, firm and with waterproof and removable (washable) covers. Knockoff companies will try to sell you poor imitations—inflatable pillows that will be cold and uncomfortable, will scratch on the plastic seams, are defective and leak air, or will pop before you do. Not to say that a Pilates ball isn't an excellent sex position toy—and it is, especially for oral sex.

The cream of the crop in sex position pillows is a brand called Liberator (
liberatorshapes.com
). Not only are the products stylish and thoughtfully designed, but the company came up with a stunning variety of props, pillows, and chaise-style furniture
and accessories to make sex positions easier on everyone. This is especially good news for people with mobility issues. For instance, the Wedge and the Ramp are designed for use alone or in tandem to provide surfaces that make penetration easier and deeper, or to elevate the hips for intense G-spot stimulation or comfortable doggy-style penetration. Other models like the Esse are created with Kama Sutra positions in mind, and all their products come with full-color brochures with tasteful photographs of positions to use with the new purchase. Of course, a look at Liberator's clean, simple website will give you plenty of ideas all on your own (such as how to reproduce the pillows and positions at home, yourself). Their products aren't cheap—expect to start by spending at least two hundred dollars on a single pillow. But the waterproofing and removable covers are a nice touch.