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My Magazine > Editors Archive > Advice > I*m Your Venus
I*m Your Venus   by Greta Christina

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Reviewer Greta Christina has worked in and around the sex industry for over a decade writing about it, editing books about it, and living it. She edited Paying For It, a collection of articles by all kinds of sex workers: dommes, escorts, peep show girls, T-girls. Her novella called Bending is out in Susie Bright's book Three Kinds of Asking For It (published by Simon & Schuster and can be found at amazon.com). In response to overwhelming member requests for reviews of sex toys, sexy films, and other sex whatnots, Ms. Christina brings her girl-about-sex wisdom twice monthly to Fuckbook Of Sex. You can check out Ms. Christina on her web site, gretachristina.com.
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Venus Pyrex Dildo, $29.00
Available at Extreme Restraints
http://www.extremerestraints.com

It's much too common for sex toys makers to think that more is better. New lines of sex toys are so often about "more, more, more": more ridges, more bumps, more grooves, more curves, more size. It shows a sad lack of imagination on the part of the designers. And it shows a gross misunderstanding of how lots of folks actually get off.

I don't always want more. Sometimes I want less. As the Bauhaus architects used to say, sometimes less is more. The Bauhaus architects probably didn't know that they were talking about dildos, but trust me -- they were.

And the Venus Pyrex Dildo is a perfect example of the "less is more" principle.

See, when it comes to glass dildos, you get an awful lot of that "more is better" phenomenon. Maybe because glass dildos are so smooth and slippery and frictionless, the people who make them think they have to compensate by adding a ton of friction-y crap: bumps, ribs, ridges, twists, spirals, swirls, and so on. Even if the surface of the toy is smooth, the shape is usually all complicated, with deep bends, giant bulbous heads, sharply undulating bloops, and what have you.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with any of that. I've played with bumpy, ripply, curvy glass toys, and I've liked them fine. But it does seem like the people who make sex toys take the best characteristics of glass -- its unbelievable smoothness, its ability to deliver rock-hard pressure with almost no friction or resistance -- and then add a bunch of bells and whistles that actually diminish those wonderful assets.

But not the Venus Pyrex Dildo. The people who make the Venus Pyrex Dildo have taken the sweet, silky smoothness of glass... and shaped their toy to accentuate it beautifully.

It's a simple toy, which makes it hard to say much about it. It's a basically straight shaft, with a series of gently flared curves along the length. The curves give your pussy a little something to hang on to -- and they give your hand something to hang on to while you're using the thing -- but you don't really experience the curves as resistance. If anything, the curves give the dildo an even silkier feeling, emphasizing the slick solidity with a subtle ebb and flow. It even looks pretty -- it doesn't have the spectacular color effects that many glass dildos have, but the shape is elegant and lovely, and if you're the one doing the fucking instead of the one getting fucked, the clear glass gives you a good, uninterrupted view of the show.

For variety's sake, the Venus is designed with two different ends. One end has a gentle bloop at the tip and a long, very gentle curve along the length; the other end has a similar bloop at the tip, backed up by a shorter, somewhat more intense flare in the shaft. So take your pick; you can give your pussy (or your partner's pussy) a little handle to hang on to, or you can give it a slow, steady flare that gently pries it apart and doesn't let go. (Or you can give it one and then the other.)

A word here about size. It's so easy with dildos to assume that bigger is better. You read dirty novels that center on twelve-inch throbbing tools; you see dirty videos starring men whose one and only selling point is their gigantic rock-hard cocks. But while huge cocks make for nice fantasy material (as well as a cheap and easy way to convey intensity in porn without really trying), in reality they're over-rated. And the sex toy industry's echo of that pornographic size obsession has made it difficult for those of us who actually prefer -- yes, prefer -- a more reasonably-sized tool. Throbbing or otherwise.

It's funny. Being the mad sensory overload junkie that I am, you'd think I'd be all over the gigantic toys with the bumps and ridges and grooves and things. But my pussy isn't like that. God knows my clit is. My clit is always demanding more, more, more: stronger vibrations, more direct stimulation, firmer pressure that verges on pain, actual pain that does a lot more than verge, legs and labia spread wider for more exposure. I sometimes wonder if, ten years from now, I'm going to be masturbating with a sea anemone strapped to a jackhammer.

But the inside of my pussy is a lot more touchy. My pussy enjoys intense friction for about three minutes, and then rapidly gets annoyed and wants to quit. It's not much of a size queen, either -- it doesn't have to be stretched to the limit to feel perfectly full. And while it likes a little G-spot action, a little goes a long way -- and too much gets overwhelming and irritating very quickly. I like to fuck, but it's a complicated pleasure that doesn't always work.

And it worked just dandy with the Venus Pyrex Dildo.

The size was perfect; at just over an inch across at the widest point, it was thick enough to get my attention, but slim enough to slip inside me with no argument. And once it was in, it wasn't constantly demanding my attention. I could tune it in and out, pay attention to other things -- my partner's fingers on my clit, my own hands on my breasts -- and then turn my attention back to the gentle but unyielding pressure of the dildo in my cunt. I could luxuriate in the sensation of being filled up and thrust into, without having to fight against the irritation of overstimulation. And then I could let my mind drift off again... knowing that I could be patient and come back to my pussy as often as I wanted. With virtually no friction, I could get fucked like this all night long.

My lovely testing assistant liked this toy even more than I did. She has a medical condition that makes penetration uncomfortable... which has sucked for her for a long time, since she really, really likes penetration. A lot. We've been experimenting with ways that she can get fucked without it hurting -- and the Venus Pyrex Dildo was an extremely successful experiment. Between the gentle curves, the gentle size, and the near-complete frictionlessness, she got to have that lovely feeling of fullness, the intimacy of having me slide something inside her... with none of the chafing and irritation she's been getting. And I mean none. We had to take it slowly, but with a gentle pace and plenty of lube, she was totally fine. So if you or your partner has been having pain or discomfort with penetration, I strongly suggest that you give this toy a try -- coupled with a patient attitude and copious amounts of good lube.

Downsides?

Honestly, I can't think of any.

No, really. I mean, I can think of things that might not make this a good toy for everybody. A lot of people are sensation junkies, and do want their dildos to be as bumpy and ridgey and curvy as possible. A lot of people are size queens, and want their dildos to be big, big, big. A lot of people want realism in their dildos; they want to pretend that their dildos are cocks, and they want the fleshiest, veiniest toy they can find. A lot of people want dildos they can use for buttfucking, which this one emphatically isn't -- with its narrow size and its complete lack of a flared base, the Venus would be a terrible toy to put in your butt. And of course, a lot of women want a lot more G-spot pressure than I do.

So I'm not saying this is the universally perfect toy. I'm saying that it does what it sets out to do magnificently. And what it sets out to do -- provide a simple, gently-designed, reasonably-sized glass dildo with all the plusses of glass toys and none of their usual extraneous doodads -- is unusual enough that it deserves attention. Hell, it's even priced magnificently -- less than thirty bucks, which for a quality sex toy is pretty damn cheap. If you want nubs and twists and ridges and things, by all means go for it. But if you want a glass dildo that brings out the very best that glass dildos have to offer, I recommend the Venus Pyrex without hesitation.

You can find the toy at: [extern url='http://www.extremerestraints.com/adultfriend/ve725.html' target='_blank' text='www.extremerestraints.com']


You can visit Greta's blog: [extern url='http://gretachristina.typepad.com' target='_blank' text='gretachristina.typepad.com']
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