Male sex toys are seemingly taboo in our society. We can talk about dildos and vibrators as casually as we talk about our coffee orders, yet we seem to shy away from the idea of a man pleasuring himself with anything other than his hand. The reality is that fake vaginas have been around as long as masturbation — we’ve just been afraid to talk about them.
If you actually take the time to seek them out, our sex toy options seem limitless. We have Fleshlights molded to our favorite porn star’s vaginas. We have contraptions like the Autoblow that are specifically designed to simulate the feeling of someone sucking you off. On the horizon, sex dolls have already begun to buzz around our minds, offering society a new smorgasbord of sexual satisfaction.
Despite the conservative knee-jerk reaction to blame porn on our desire to f*ck things other than other people, this is nothing new. Men have been sticking their dicks into weird shit since they figured out they could.
Humble Beginnings
From the beginning of time, men were figuring out weird ways to get off. In Ancient Greece, men who liked a little pickle with their ham would use stale bread as a dildo, with olive oil as lube. As the centuries passed, men began filling warm towels with jelly and other lube-like substances and going to town — because they freaking could. Eventually, however, the Christian church rebelled against masturbation, particularly citing that it was evil for young men to do it, which left young guys having nothing to hump but their pillows for years.
In 1904, alchemist Rene Schwaeble recorded meeting a ‘Dr. P.’ in Paris, where he was working on inflatable dolls for randy gentlemen’s pleasure. Four years later, inflatable dolls were being mass produced with multiple orifices for men to shove themselves into.
It was the first time artificial vaginas were produced, despite how simple they would seem to us now. The creepiest part of the first blow-up dolls? The manufacturers offered consumers the option to create a custom doll that could look like any “live or dead person.”
As previously mentioned, despite the fact that inflatable dolls were being produced, it was still taboo for men to possess fake vaginas. It wouldn’t be until 1960 that the Supreme Court would rule sex shops to be legal in the United States, meaning that men could finally enter shops and purchase porn and fake vaginas legally. Coupled with the virginal mindset of the '50s and '60s, men were still left with few artificial things to bang, so they began inventing their own.
Digital Awakenings
The internet was invented in 1990, and with it saw the ultimate shift in how men fake-f*ck. The worldwide web opened men to a whole new world of blow-up dolls that could be delivered to your door, and porn that could be consumed from the comfort of your own office.
This radical shift is how culture consumed sex changed the way men began to see fake vaginas. Men began to post on message boards on the easiest ways to get off using couch cushions, condoms, and generous amounts of petroleum jelly. Men came together online to cum together using homemade fake vaginas. Even today, there are a slew of websites dedicated to the practice of coming up with the most realistic fake vaginas.
Because people could now order sex toys from their home, the fake vagina market also began to boom. The term “pocket pussy” became common in the adult industry, with manufacturers investing large sums of money into the creation of silicon-based devices that were small enough for men to carry around. From there, the variations continued. Men were soon able to purchase pocket pussies with assholes included; there were some that had fake pubic hair, not to mention every skin tone. Pretty soon men were banging fake vaginas like it was their job.
Seeing The Fleshlight
Then, in 1995, a man decided to make the world of fake-f*cking more realistic. Using a think tank that containing his own sons and a primary investment of $50,000, Steve Shubin set out to create what we now know as the Fleshlight. Shubin knew there was a market for a pocket pussy, but none that he had seen felt realistic enough. He told Vice, “As a man, you know this: If something doesn't feel real, we're not going to be excited about the physical contact with it. So that was a first priority."
Shubin and his team worked hard to de-stigmatize male masturbation, and their solution was to place their fake vagina in something that would look normal sitting out in a living room. Add one perfectly innocent flashlight, and the Fleshlight was born. From there, Fleshlight has boomed to becoming one of the largest providers of male sex-toys. They've even expanded their brand to include FleshJack, a line catered to gay men who want to bang an artificial asshole instead of an artificial pussy.
Porn stars have come forward and have allowed Fleshlight to mold their vaginas and asses so that men can feel like they’re getting it on with their favorite adult film star. Since the Fleshlight came into being, the conversation surrounding male sex toys has shifted. Everyone wants to buy one, or at least try one. No longer are men microwaving banana peels to bang or taking cues from American Pie.
No one is suggesting these artificial vaginas replace women. Even creators and manufacturers understand how it would seem this way, however. The solution, they say, is to educate both sexes as to why men want to get intimate with fake vaginas. If variety is the spice of life, male sex toys can be the perfect spice to any healthy sexual relationship.
Looking into the future, manufacturers are likely going to blend these sex toys with virtual reality headsets to craft virtual sexual experiences unlike any other. Will it replace real sex? Never. Will it allow men to explore new sexual experiences other than simply getting it on with another person? Hell yeah. Men have been sticking their dicks into weird things for centuries — we've just have been too shy to talk openly about it.
