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Notes -
For any of you who's familiar with New York Times's Wirecutter, which publishes products reviews and lists hot deals:
As of right now, among deals on toys, subwoofers, and mattresses, there are also two vibrators, both around $100.
As far as I can tell, there are no deals on sex toys for men (I'm ignoring vibrators' cross sex appeal here, or how men may use toys to pleasure their female partners).
I don't expect this observation by itself to generate much new insight, as it seems fairly obvious that culturally, men tend to be viewed as perverted or losers for pleasuring themselves with tools, while for women it's fun and almost virtuous (well, certainly less slutty than finding a casual partner). I can see a Wirecutter staff member publishing a review of her personal experience testing various toys, but cannot fathom a male staff member talking about how this particular lifelike doll had very full lips but that one has perkier breasts, and this third company makes ethnic dolls for your fantasies. If you Google Wirecutter and sex toys, all the articles that come up are exclusively focused on women or gay men (i.e. anal stuff).
So my question is more about a prediction for how culture may evolve along this front. By what year do you think Wirecutter will publish reviews and deals on sex toys targeted at straight men looking for thrusting fun?
The year that I'll pull out of my ass is...2032
I think it is a combination of factors identified by other comments here.
On the economic front, there is a much larger market for toys that can penetrate than toys whose purpose is to be penetrated. This is because just about everyone, of whatever sex or sexuality, has an orifice that can be penetrated for sexual pleasure. Even if the toy is not for use on yourself your partner very likely has such an orifice. By contrast the use of a toy meant for being penetrated pretty much requires the user have a penis. There's also pricing to consider. One can generally get a good quality dildo/butt plug/vibrator for around $100. Fleshlights can be similar in price but full on sex dolls generally cost in excess of a thousand dollars, sometimes multiple thousands.
There's also a disproportionate gap (I think) in the relative utility of each kind of toy. That is, what is the alternative experience to using such a toy like? My impression is that the natural alternatives to a dildo or vibrator (generally one's fingers) are quite lacking. The smaller size makes them less satisfying and they have additional concerns (nails) that need to be managed. By contrast the alternative to using a fleshlight or sex doll is generally one's hand. I have never used a sex doll but have used a fleshlight. While it was better than my hand I'm not sure it was so much better that it would be worth paying money to do. There's also a significant gap in ease of use and cleanup after use. Many penetrative toys can just be thrown in the dishwasher but toys you penetrate generally require more involved and intensive cleanup.
Finally I think there is a substantial social stigma against men using sex toys. Not because of a perceived danger or disgust with male sexuality, but because our idea of what it means to be manly or masculine is closely tied with being able to have sex with women. There's a perception that the only reason a man would use a sex toy is because of an inability to find a partner to get him off, and that inability reflects a lack of status. I hope this is something that can change in the future, because I think this association does a lot of damage to men, but I'm not terribly optimistic about it.
I think these are the biggest reasons why sex toys for men are not as popular in culture as sex toys for women.
The cleanup is what I would put as a much larger factor than one might think. I actually did pay for one and the...logistics of the whole thing has acted as a deterrent to using it.
It's bad enough when you live alone (it's like a vastly more depressing version of "post-nut clarity") but a lot of men don't and also have to factor that in.
Yep, clean-up was by far the worst problem. Having to wash everything was bad but having to leave it out somewhere to dry...horrible
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The only one of these I ever owned was invertable (you could turn it inside out) which made it not too bad to clean or hide. It looked like the kind of thing you might decorate a desk with when inverted. Still it was too much work by comparison.
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All great points, except--
That's disgusting. Just because it can be doesn't mean it should. I get it's very unlikely to spread disease this way, but I can't get past the yuck factor. Maybe it's as irrational as how spit magically becomes 10x more disgusting to swallow once you spit it out into a cup, but I call for the world to shame and shun those who clean sex toys with dishwashers.
Haha, I feel the reaction. I've never actually washed mine in a dishwasher for similar reasons, even though I know I could.
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