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Hello Crush,
Well the Olympics are over. Wasn’t that a welcome respite from all the political stuff? I’ll admit to incessantly, obsessively getting lost in election politics since the frightening Presidential debate in late June. I needed something to snap me out of the political dark hole I had taken a dive into.
Pommel horse guy did that for me (and evidently, a lot of us). Everyone I talked to about the Olympics got into them in this sort of growing, snowball effect way as the days passed.
Although I will say that I had dinner with a friend from L.A. this week—he is super passionate about the Olympics generally and had volunteered for both the L.A. 1984 and the Salt Lake City 2002 games—and he was miserable over the execution of the hand-off of the Olympic flag from Paris to L.A. for the upcoming 2028 games. His perspective—that of a proud L.A. native—was that the ceremony went from glorious, exciting, classy and well-executed in Paris to common and embarrassing on the beach in L.A. From “class to crass,” is how it was phrased in the Los Angeles Times, he said. I guess Angelenos are feeling a little sensitive. “I’m sure we’re going to put on something spectacular, but you just wouldn’t imagine that from what we saw.”
I wasn’t as struck as he was by the contrast, but then again I’m not an L.A. native. What did you think?
In This Letter. +PrimeCrush Toy Tester Review: Susie's Report on wand vibrators: “I am excited to return this one.” Plus, we are resharing our reviews on the Tenga Solo Premium Cup & Sliquid Sizzle and Soul Lubes. +Re-Reading Erotic Lit Classics: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice. Reviewed By Christian Pan. In her fourth novel, Rice re-contextualizes the familiar 16th-century fairy tale into a fictional world without constraint. +dishing. Nate Silver’s new novel, a memoir from an escort, a tribute to Calvin Trillin, Sylvie Gateau is back & more. +Social Media I Loved This Week. +Our Song of the Week
PrimeCrush Toy Tester Review. Here’s Susie’s Take on the Wired’s Top Pick for a Vibrator
We’ve heard a lot (from our Readers and others) about the vibrator that the NYT’s review column Wired says is the best out there. We think you want to know what CRUSH Reader Susie has to say about it. Thank you, Susie!
We noted (and many of you, dear CRUSH Readers, sent us) the NYT Wired piece on wand vibrators. Not for nothing, but their overall best pick, The Hitachi Magic Wand (Rechargeable), is a vibrator that we had sent out to a few of our toy testers almost two years ago. When we sought their reviews, we heard bupkus back. Nothing.
Our PrimeCrush Toy Tester Reviewers are quick to fill out reviews for things they love, as well as hate. But the things they’re ‘whatever’ over they just don’t get around to reviewing. When we pressed again after reading it was the top pick of Wired’s team, we eventually got some brief responses back that varied from “meh,” to “yeah, no.”
But here’s another, contrary data point: when we asked CRUSH Readers to write in with their favorite sex toys, one Reader replied:
“The Hitachi Magic Wand is my favorite. Yes, it’s the old standby. The rechargeable version doesn’t constrain you to wall outlets, and the variable speeds and tempos just work.”
We wanted to keep digging on this, and decided on another approach. Looking for our own ‘head-to-head’ (so to speak) comparison on wand vibrators, we sent Susie, one of our Sex Toy Testing stalwarts, a few to compare, knowing she’d come back with a candid report. (Susie’s been testing for us since we started this series.)
We Asked One of Our Sex Toy Testers to Compare Wand Vibrators.
Word-for-word, here’s what Susie says.
I had never used a wand vibrator before the three I tested arrived in my mail. Sure, I had seen the Hitachi Magic Wand in Frederick’s of Hollywood while strolling the mall as a teenager, but I had no idea how it worked. So when I made my first vibrator purchase, I bypassed this odd-looking tool for something that looked more familiar – a neon pink vibrating cock. Welcome to the bizarre world of sex toys!
The Hitachi Magic Wand
The Hitachi Magic Wand has been around for decades and is a classic vibrator. The Magic Wand is no frills. From the “As seen on TV” box to the instruction manual that looks like the one that came with my new oscillating fan, you never doubt that the Magic Wand is utilitarian. It is made of hard plastic, which isn’t really comfortable. The strong motor gives it its oomph as well as its loudness. Many people are devoted to their Magic Wands, swearing by their simplicity and speed. There are two settings, and they are strong. There is no build-up with the Magic Wand, and unlike other vibrators, you can put the massive round head around your genitals and have an intense orgasm. No need to insert it anywhere; in fact, please don’t! The Magic Wand is great for people experiencing decreased sensitivity or decreased libido because it speeds things up. I found it to be too much for me initially, so I used it with my clothes on, and that helped with the intensity.
The Dame Com Wand Vibrator
The second wand vibrator I tried was the Dame Com. It was the complete opposite of the Magic Wand. The experience with the Magic Wand is no nonsense, practical, and straightforward. With the Dame Com, they are trying to evoke luxury and beauty. The packaging was beautiful, the soft pink wand nestled in a wave of pinks and purples. The wand itself was incredibly soft, made of medical grade silicone. It is waterproof, so you can take it in the tub or shower. One nice feature of the Com is that it curves so it is more comfortable to handle and use. There are five patterns to try, and they can be set at five different intensity levels. It’s relatively quiet yet has power. I loved the Dame Com. I liked how soft it was and how I could control the intensity. It felt great on other parts of my body, too, especially my breasts. I used the Com solo but can see the potential of introducing it to a partner. While I am still learning how to use a wand vibrator, I am excited to return this one.
The LELO Smart Wand 2 Vibrator
The final wand vibrator I tried was the Lelo Smart Wand 2 (Large). Like the Dame Com, it was beautifully packaged. It was a bold magenta and had a sleek curved gold handle, which was striking to look at. Like the Com, the Smart Wand is waterproof and uses soft silicone. There are 10 settings, though, giving you more options for speed and intensity. The Smart Wand was quiet and easy to use. The different settings allowed for variation in intensity and rhythm. The Smart Wand was heavier than the others, and the head was quite large, which made it feel slightly top heavy (bottom heavy?). I found the head to be too big, and I struggled with getting it to fit comfortably. Lelo offers Smart Wands in a medium, which would be a better fit for me. While Lelo claims the gold on the handle helps create a sturdier handle, I’m not convinced it is necessary nor feels better than all silicone. It does look sleek, so it may matter to someone’s design aesthetic.
Tenga Solo Premium Cup (for men): We’re Re-Sharing Our Review of this Masturbation Toy for Men
Five of our male CRUSH Readers who are Toy Testers agreed to test this disposable Japanese-made masturbation toy; four sent back reviews. (Thanks guys!) It is what it looks like - a lubricated vacuum cup you place over your penis, and then stroke. In addition to the "premium" cup we tested, there are cups with stronger or more gentle suction, dual sensation, softer cups and rolling head cups. These are all disposables (one and done). As you can see from their candid reviews below, while all four expressed some initial hesitation, the experience itself was appreciated. Here are a couple of illustrations of the inside:
Would you recommend the Tenga Solo Premium Cup to other CRUSH Readers?
4 out of 4 toy testers said “Yes.”
Here are some specific comments on the Tenga Solo Premium Cup:
- This is the most real feel and truly an interesting thing. Good to have “on hand” so to speak. I’m pretty exploratory, but I’ve never tried anything like this. Recommended. - “Lee”
- Very surprised how much I liked this. Initial reaction was WTF. After trying it, OMG. - “Harry”
- Once you get lubed up, it feels fantastic and quite realistic. It does seem like a lot for a one-time use but it was certainly pleasing. - “Greg”
- I am usually not a guy who jerks myself off. I am a humper. So my first moments using this were not great. In fact - and I think it was more coincidental than anything - I had a rare cramp in my calf. But I survived that, and when I tried it again I found that it was quite remarkable. In fact, I would say it was as good a masturbation experience as I have ever had. It was not quite as good as the real thing - a quality blow job, for example. But it felt amazing. It was also quite efficient, in terms of how easy it was to use without making a mess. I could even see it being a fun toy to use with a partner, if you wanted to try something different or could not, for whatever reason, do the real thing. If it were cheaper and I was single and not having sex on a regular basis I would probably use it quite often as a masturbation tool. - “Anthony”
SLIQUID SIZZLE & SOUL: We’re Re-sharing CRUSH Readers’ Favorite Lubricants.
Whenever we talk about sex toys, or really whenever we mention sex, we like to bring up lubricants in the same breath. Why? Because Everything’s Better Wetter: A Few Words About Lube, as Dish wrote (and likes to say). So here’s a reminder on which lubes our Readers like best, just in case you missed it.
We asked PrimeCrush Toy Testers to volunteer the lube brand they had already been using and loved best. Out of 10 responses, only one brand got multiple (4) mentions, Sliquid. Personally, one of my straight-up favorites is their Sliquid Naturals H2O. It uses plant cellulose as a thickening agent, and for that reason it lasts. Like the Sizzle and Soul formulations, it is free of glycerin, parabens, gluten and sulfates and other harmful products and is also 100% vegan-friendly, non-toxic and hypoallergenic. Based on some of our Toy Testers' familiarity with Sliquid, we picked two different Sliquid formulations that were likely to be new to them: the Sizzle and Soul formulations.
To read about the Sliquid offerings and get our Reader’s specific recommendations, continue here.
Re-Reading Erotic Lit Classics: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice. Reviewed By Christian Pan
In this series Christian Pan re-discovers classic erotic literature from a current perspective.
Like many other readers, my first introduction to Anne Rice was with her
debut novel Interview with a Vampire (1976), which I read in the late ́80s.
Expanded from a short story she had written a half-dozen years before, I
found this confessional tale from a 200-year-old vampire to a New Orleans
journalist florid in language as well as sensual in content. While her book
would eventually spawn twelve sequels (!) to comprise the now-popular
“Vampire Chronicles,” not to mention numerous film and television adaptations, initial reception to Rice ́s work was muted, receiving modest sales and mixed critical reviews. Her two immediate follow-ups were sultry and ornate with historical detail: the narrative of The Feast of All Saints (1979) centered on the gens de couleur libres (free people of color) descended by European settlers before the Civil War; while Cry to Heaven (1982), set in 18th-century Italy, recounts the tragic romance between a Venetian nobleman and an opera singer who was castrated as a young boy to keep his soprano vocal range. These literary efforts received even less favorable reviews along with considerably fewer sales than Interview. As a writer, Rice's art and career seemed at a crossroads.
Seen within this context, The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983) feels like the
work of a writer “going for broke”. While her earlier fiction works are quite sensual in their subjects and descriptions, those novels are also coded: they
tantalize and allude to, and titillate through innuendo and implication. But in
her fourth novel, Rice re-contextualizes the familiar 16th-century fairy tale into
a fictional world without constraint; these scenes depict a vast range of sexual
activity, and in a manner far more explicit than anything she had written before. Interestingly, Sleeping Beauty was published during a time of significant social and political conservatism within the United States, an era of censorship that seemed to originate not only from conservatives and evangelicals on the right”, but also from some feminists “on the left”. Figures such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon argued that pornography violated women's rights, and that all such material perpetuated coercion and violence against all women. By contrast, Rice believed women should be permitted to read whatever they wanted, and considered the four books that would eventually make up her “Beauty Quartet” to be her political statement (though, we should note that Rice published these erotic novels under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure, from the French word for “cloak”, and only confirmed her identity as their author more than ten years after the third book in the series was published).
Rice begins her reimagined telling of this familiar fairy tale with a teenage
Beauty “asleep” in a state of enchantment, a bewitched state shared with
everyone else in her family and throughout her castle. For over a century,
others have attempted to awaken her, but they have fallen for numerous
traps and obstacles which have also plunged them into this realm suspended
between life and death. The Prince who does successfully awaken her, however, is sexually dominant, and from a distant kingdom where adolescents serve as sexual slaves for the pleasure of their Lords and Ladies. In exchange for the destruction of the spell against her entire people, Beauty must join him within his realm for three years of servitude.
Continue reading here
dishing by Dish.
+I Started Nate Silver’s Latest Book on Risk. His thesis in On the Edge is that most of the richest people in the world are rich because they are big risk takers (okay, that’s not a new theory: the idea that ‘the greater the risk, the bigger the reward’ has been around), but he extends that to argue that the rest of us — 90% of of the world — would be improving outcomes across a wide range of personal and professional areas in our lives if we took a lot more calculated risks. We just need to know how to improve at risk-taking. Through interviews with an array of successful (and some failed) risk-takers, the hope is that we’ll learn.
+I Also Bought This Memoir Written by an Escort Worker. In CRUSH Letter No 170, I told you that the excerpt in The Cut from An Honest Woman caught my attention because it is focused on the escort’s married clients and their relationships, rather than on her and/or her relationship with her client. Meaning, it has the possibility of giving insight on the primary romantic relationship her clients’ are in. I am curious about that: the reasons for marital infidelity, how that infidelity is “managed” by the couple (openly and directly, open but ignored, or as a secret), the client’s feelings about ”outsourcing” (so to speak) that element to a paid sex worker. Well, now book is out.
+The Only Reason to Watch Season 4 of Emily In Paris Is to See Sylvie. I find Emily herself to be uncompelling: predictable, and garishly dressed. But Sylvie is an inspiration. I wrote Merci! to Emily In Paris for One of the Most Compelling Women in Pop Culture. Sylvie. She’s worth checking out the latest season for. Let’s just hope Sylvie’s story moves closer to center stage.
+Ruth Reichl Shares A Tribute to Calvin Trillin’s Food Writing. Alice, Let’s Eat from Calvin Trillin‘s Tummy Trilogy remains one of my all-time favorite food (and marriage) memoirs. Ruth Reichl, another favorite “food memoirist” shared her tribute this week to Trillin. I loved biting into it.
Ruth Reichl
+I Can’t Wait for the Upcoming Clooney+Pitt Male Bonding Flick. I love depictions of friendships at the stage — whether among men, among women or coed/mixed up. And Wolfs has potential, don’t you think?
+
Having Said That, I’m Bracing Myself for the Next Season of This Midlife Female Bonding Series. I’m not sure I even finished the last season of RHONY. Honestly, I don’t remember anything that happened after seeing Jenna Lyons’s closet, except that there were a lot of annoying product pushes by its stars. That won’t stop me from checking out the newest season when it airs. Here’s the trailer.
Social Media I Loved This Week
@primecrushxo's response to @thematthewhussey's post above:
Song of the Week
Give Me Love by George Harrison
Thanks for being here, in these dog days. Hope your closing out summer doing whatever makes you happiest.
XO,
Dish
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The Crush Letter is a weekly newsletter from Dish Stanley curating articles & intelligence on everything love & connection - friendship, romance, self-love, sex. If you’d like to take a look at some of our best stories go to Read Us. Want the Dish?
