By Emma McGowan
Have you heard of the Autoblow 2? It’s a new sex toy for men that’s currently blowing its funding goals out of the water on Indiegogo. With only a few days left to go on their crowdfunding campaign, the creators are almost 300% funded. Claiming to be “the world’s most realistic robotic oral sex simulator for men,” the device has clearly captured the interest of penis-havers across the internet.
If the thought of toys like the Autoblow and its more famous cousin, the Fleshlight, makes you giggle or gag, you’re not alone. As sex toys for women have become increasingly mainstream, men have been left behind when it comes to technology that updates the palm and lube theme.
“Women have a lot of products that are really awesome, but men don’t have that kind of choice,” says Jen McEwen, a former sex toy designer and current founder of adult app store Mikandi as well as Google Glass’ only porn app to date. “There’s also kind of a stigma around men using a product by themselves.”
What’s the deal with that? Why is it that in this one area of sexuality, women are empowered and men are belittled? I reached out to some sex toy experts to find out.
While Crave has mastered beautiful design, the Autoblow 2 is more like the Hitachi Magic Wand: clunky and powered by plugging into the wall. In fact, the only male masturbation aid I can think of that even comes close to the elegant devices we’re seeing for women is the Tenga egg which, unsurprisingly, was designed in Japan.
Joani Blank, the woman who founded Good Vibrations 20 years ago and today is a badass great-grandmother, got straight to the point. “There’s the idea that vibrators and dildos are only for women or gay men who like anal penetration and [straight men] don’t want to think of themselves as either of those,” Blank told me. She also pointed out that most men are perfectly happy with their hand and don’t see a need for toy-assisted jackoff sessions.
Michael Topolovac is the CEO of San Francisco-based sex toy company Crave, which saw astronomical crowdfunding success on the now-defunct site CKIE after being turned away by Kickstarter. He thinks that the stigma of both male and female sex toys has been decreasing in recent years, something he credits to better design. “If you look at our products, they don’t look like you’d imagine a sex toy would look like,” he says. “They look like any other high-end product and that makes them more accessible to both customers and investors.”
While Crave has mastered beautiful design, the Autoblow 2 is more like the Hitachi Magic Wand: clunky and powered by plugging into the wall. In fact, the only male masturbation aid I can think of that even comes close to the elegant devices we’re seeing for women is the Tenga egg which, unsurprisingly, was designed in Japan.
Autoblow 2’s impressive crowdfunding campaign could be a sign that we’re about to see a shift in attitudes toward male masturbatory aids, but that crucial element of pleasing aesthetics needs to come first. Once that's in place, maybe we’ll face a future where Fleshlights and Autoblows are as acceptable as Rabbits and Bullet vibes.