Love and Sex

Your hard-on, your sleeve

by: EYE WEEKLY Staff
March 10, 2010 4:00 PM
Comments: (0)

When it comes to sex toys, a double standard is at work. When women masturbate with a vibrator, it’s often considered erotic and sensual, a way to discover their inner desires and find the orgasm deep within. But when men masturbate, often they have to make do with the standbys of their childhood, finding creative solace in pillows, mattress frames and tube socks. It’s not only a waste of clean laundry, it seems somewhat unsensual. Where’s the justice in that?

Yet masturbation sleeves have been around since there were sex stores to begin with. But Fleshlight (the most popular of the sleeves) ownership is like Fight Club — rule number one is that mum’s the word.

Come As You Are worker/owner Cory Silverberg is a proud Fleshlight user who estimates that he sells between two and three dozen of them a week in-store and online. And while he says that the product certainly isn’t a replacement for a partner, “what it is is phenomenal. The way I describe the feeling is that it’s a very enveloping and lush experience,” says Silverberg. “The material is incredibly soft, but it’s also snug and highly stimulating.”

Similar to the texture of those sticky slap hands you bought out of a vending machine in childhood (but without any of the accumulated grit, thank god), Fleshlights feel snug and yielding to the touch, tender and firm. They are an odourless and completely detached piece of fake anatomy, no different from a dildo or a vibrator. (In fact, the new Fleshlight Vibro available for $100 actually includes three bullet vibes.) They are easy to clean (the insertable sleeve is open-ended so you can run water through it, and turn it inside out to let it air dry) and even customizable, able to be mounted easily on a mattress or stuck inside a shoe (as Fleshlight web-users suggest). Some sleeves offer increased sensation through the unique ridges on the material, or an increased tightness, while the Fleshlight Stamina Unit, $75, is designed as training unit to make men last longer during sex — a plus for the many women who buy the toy.

“One in four Fleshlight customers are women buying for their male partners,” points out Silverberg. “We also have couples [of all genders and orientations] coming in and buying a Fleshlight together. Certainly we have people who come in saying they want a Fleshlight because they are in a monogamous long-distance relationship and they feel like it will satisfy them when their partner isn’t around. But again, these toys aren’t replacements for people.”

For those worried the toy will “replace the real thing”, Silverberg offers assurance that a comparison can’t be made. “We think comparing sex toys to human body parts is sort of like comparing live music to recorded music. They are both pleasurable, they may evoke the same sorts of feelings and responses, but whenever you compare them you take away from the enjoyment of either.”

Do you use a Fleshlight? Let us know how it's working for you in the Comments section below.

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