International Masturbation Month

It is nearing the end of International Masturbation Month. If you’ve been celebrating the month, you might have used your hands celebrate yourself a few times this month as well. While our using our hands during self-pleasuring can be enjoyable, there is value in exploring and experimenting with toys.

The simple fact is toys can do things that your hands can’t. From vibrating to pulsating to rumbling to buzzing, toys can offer us a wide variety of stimulation and sensation that our hands are unable to provide. The beauty of this is that toys allow us to explore new pathways of pleasure in our body. A vibrator for example, may have a particular function that stimulates you in a novel way, giving you an opportunity to experience a pleasurable sensation that you’ve never felt before. These new sensations can help us learn about our body and the ways in which we experience pleasure.

If you’re used to using you hand to self-pleasure in an up-and-down, friction-based way, toys such as strokers and sleeve-like masturbatory aids offer a totally different experience than your hand. The soft silicone of these toys more closely resembles the texture and firmness of another person’s body, which can help you to explore the ways in which you feel overstimulated and need to slow down or the ways in which you feel like you can keep going and last longer. While your hand can help with this, it is usually much more effective – and pleasurable! – to use a toy with some lube.

Overall, toys are great extensions of our own self-pleasuring. Some toys require the use of your hands, others do not. Some toys are small, and you might forget you’re using one. Other toys are large and demand that you be present with them. In all cases, the use of a toy can be a way to lean into your curiosity, explore new sensations, and learn more about your pleasure.