I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve always been sort of skeptical about Liberator products. I’ve seen them advertised and touted for a long time, even by people whose opinions I really trust (like Tristan Taormino) but I still didn’t get it. I’ll admit it, I thought they were overglorified pillows. It isn’t easy for me to say but let me declare that I was certainly wrong.

I was lucky enough to get to try out a Wedge/Ramp Combo recently and my mind? Consider it blown. These items have quickly become a big part of my sex life and when we go out of town to see Michael and Ariel I often find myself wishing we had brought them along. Luckily they come with very nice carrying cases so we are able to on occasion.

I’ve waited awhile to write this review because I really wanted to put them through their paces and try them out in a variety of ways before declaring an opinion. Now I’ve decided that they are both worth the price and more. Here are my top 5 reasons that a Wedge/Ramp Combo should be on your holiday shopping list.

1. Positions Positions Positions. You can do some things that you haven’t even dreamed of using these as props. They also make positions that you may do all the time suddenly more sustainable and comfortable. If you have a disability or injury, positions that you haven’t done in years suddenly become available again. If you have a height differential with your partner, you can make up for it. Or, if you’re like me and you regularly have more than one sex partner in the bed, you can create some great staging areas for multi-partner sex.

2. G-spot. The main point of a lot of the positions that you can achieve with the Liberator products is G-spot stimulation. The Wedge/Ramp is their signature product because they can be used to achieve excellent, deep thrusting and perfect angles.

3. Removable and washable liner and travel cases. I’ve washed the microfiber covers a few times now and they are coming out without any fading or wear and tear. I’m confident that they will last a long time and continue to be comfortable and functional. The travel bags are also great for protecting them when not in use. If you live in a home with animals, you’ll be thankful for these because they keep pet hair and other debris off of your sex furniture.

4. Made in America. I actually visited the Liberator factor and flagship store in Atlanta about a month ago. I was given a tour of the place by the Vice President of the company and shown the entire operation. Everything they sell is made there from cutting the foam cores to sewing the microfiber covers and making the restraints that go on their Black Label bondage series. The lingerie on the site? Designed and manufactured in-house. Do you know how rare it is to see a sex product made in America with quality standards? I was seriously impressed and you’ll have a chance to be impressed too because the interview and part of the tour will be on a future episode of my Bedroom Radio podcast.

5. Right now they are on sale and you can get a great free gift. I don’t normally talk a lot about prices on this site but as of today Liberator has an excellent sale on the Wedge/Ramp Combo and it is selling for $195. You can get an additional 15% off (of your entire order at the store) by entering discount code “JOLLIES” at checkout. And to further sweeten the deal, you get a free Love Artist kit with a Wedge/Ramp Combo, it includes Silk Bondage Sashes, a Kama Sutra DVD, a Snake Charmer Cock Ring, the Liberator Position Guide, a Zomi Adult Toy Case, and a Sample of Pjur Bodyglide. If you haven’t caught on yet, this is a really good deal on some great goodies – you would get all of these things for $166. I’ve seen crappy, made in China, rabbit vibes sell for $125 easily, this is an amazing value.

I left the Liberator factory last month wanting a job there and fully ready to sing their praises. This is a company with a unique product and a great track record for quality and customer service. Now that I’ve tried their products I want to try more and am blown away about their usefulness for great sex.

My gut reaction when I read about Natural Harvest, a cookbook of semen-based recipes was that I had found something that even I found a bit beyond the pale. And then I thought about it more and I’m sort of intrigued. Anyone out there cook with semen before?

The We-Vibe

The makers of the We-Vibe were kind enough to send me one a few months ago and I’ve been thinking a lot about it ever since. Let me start by telling you the procedural things about it. It is a dual-stimulation vibrator that is meant to be worn during hetero intercourse. The smaller end slides inside the vagina and the top part curves around and hugs the clit. Since the small part is pretty small, it still leaves room for a penis to enter.

The We-Vibe is silicone and rechargeable and comes in a nice little carrying case. The construction of it seems to be high quality. And I enjoyed trying it out.

Jay and I actually played with it on our first day at Dark Odyssey in order to christen our newly made-up camp bed. I was wet and we added more lube to the toy to get it nice and slippery before sliding it in. The vibrations instantly felt very nice and I wiggled it into place with my fingers while stroking his hard cock in my hand. When he slid into me, I felt instantly extra-full. The bit of additional bulk from the toy stretched me nicely and his cock made the internal part press harder into my g-spot.

As we fucked the vibrations remained just intense enough to keep me at the edge and I came very quickly. In short I loved the thing. Breathless after my orgasm, I looked up at him and said “so, what do you think of it.”

“Eh,” he replied, “I can’t really feel you the way I want to. It feels like fucking plastic.”

I frowned and furrowed my brow and we agreed to take it out for the rest of our playtime.

So, my experience of the We-Vibe? Excellent. His? Neutral at best. Ladies, I think that this could be an amazing solo-play toy and I also think it can be a great addition to partner sex. However, I don’t buy the couple aspect of this, the utility seems heavily skewed toward the female in our experience of it.

Pleasure Tops from Babeland

This is a very unique toy that mimics the shape of a high-end toy like The Cone (which I haven’t tried but have always been curious about). As far as I can tell, though, Pleasure Top actually goes farther because it includes a well-engineered clit stimulating thumb on the side.

When I first got this item out of the box, it wasn’t immediately obvious how to proceed with it. The entire thing was smaller than I expected and I couldn’t quite imagine straddling it. However, I grabbed my Liberator wedge and placed the pleasure top on the corner of it. At this height straddling made sense again.

I was instantly happy I had been patient with figuring out this toy because it absolutely worked fantastically. I’m sensitive to vibrations and found that the slight penetration coupled with the perfectly-shaped clit stimulator was a winner and reminded me of some of my best experiences with the Rock Chick.

The Pleasure Top is made of phlalate-free silicone that has a great, cushy texture making it wonderful to rock back and forth on the toy. I also tried it on my back and liked it better than the experience of some rabbit vibrators I’ve tried. Overall, this is an economical and increadibly unique toy. If you think that you’ve tried everything, this is a new experience to have and there are a variety of ways to enjoy it.

It is a detached brand of frantic that I’m channelling as I watch the eggs poach. I fiddle with the gas, poke at one with a slotted spoon and furrow my brow. Ariel’s sister comes in the kitchen and hands me a champagne cocktail and I distractedly thank her. I begin to lift the eggs out of the poaching liquid and glance at the hollondaise that is sitting nearby in a warm water bath.

I do a double take. My creamy, rich emulsion is distinctly separated. The butter floating on top and the rest settling in blotchy mess at the bottom of the bowl. My heart doesn’t really sink until my frantic whisking has no effect.

“The hollondaise broke.”

A few ears perk up. Jay has no idea what it could possibly mean for a sauce to break. Michael has some but no idea how to fix it. Frazzled, I decide to start another sauce and curse myself for breazily agreeing to attempt Eggs Benedict.

With some assistance in clarifying the butter, the second sauce comes together quickly. And just as soon as it is luscious and gorgeous, it, too is a mess. I get clever and decide to add some cream to bring it back together. Then I get desperate and decide to add a corn-starch slurry. Nothing works.

Tears are stinging my eyes and I feel my face flushed. I wonder if I’ve ever had a moment before when I was this embarassed. I dejectedly announce that there will be no hollondaise unless someone else makes it. I can’t breath very well and I feel tiny and incompetent and I wander to the back of the house where Michael is in the bedroom.

He sees the utterly stricken look on my face and tells me to lay down on the bed.

“I broke the sauce again and I tried to fix it. I failed.”

I know how dramatic I am making this seem but this feels like a real tragedy to me. I wanted to desperately to please everyone and have everything be perfect. I wanted to make them all love me. But, instead of generating this perfect emulsion, a culinary feat, I’ve destroyed an entire pound of butter and have a runny mess to show for it.

Michael is running his hands through my hair while I babble about my failure. He places a palm on my chest, covering my heart. This is a move that Barbara Carellas taught me and that I taught him and it doesn’t matter where it comes from, it makes my entire body relax. I breath deeply and listen to him speak.

“You know that Ariel’s sister doesn’t care if there is no hollondaise. And she already adores you. I know this because you make Ariel so happy and that is all she wants to see. Someone that makes her sister happy.”

I listen to his words, ones I already knew to be true but that bear repeating. The warmth from his hand is radiating through me now and I feel calm again. He kisses me on the forehead and asks if I’m ready to face the world again.

I am.

Cyberglass Felicity from VibeReview

Cool, smooth, and unyielding. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a slut for glass toys. I wasn’t always that way, I used to think they would be too hard or pokey or something would go wrong. But, the Felicity is my second glass toy and I’m officially a convert to all things super-hard.

The first thing to know about the Felicity is that it is beautiful. Just look at it! Beautiful clear glass augmented with pretty translucent blue. Those blue swirls and dots provide great texture that stimulates fantastically and makes you feel fabulous. Another great thing to note is that the toy can be used from either end, making it versatile and exciting. The nubby end made me feel full and rubbed against my g-spot in a satisfying way. The crooked end scratched just the right itch in just the right manner.

This is a toy that, when combined with a clitoral vibrator, has brought me to many happy and fulfilling climaxes driven by deep g-spot stimulation. Being glass, it is non-porous and can be fully sterilized so feel free to clean it up and share it with a friend or loved one. You’ll find that the Felicity becomes a trusted addition to your toybox.

Most people that read this blog know that I have an intense relationship with music. My podcast started out being about sex and music and the level to which I sexualize music is pretty clear if you listen to episodes of it. But, I’ve never really written about the stumbling blocks I’ve had with music through the years.

When I met C in 2002 he was my destined to be my first for a lot of things. One of the fundamental pieces of our early romance was music. It was a love affair conducted via file transfer and mixtape. His excitement for me was carried with outpourings of new sounds and arrangements I’d never imagined before. I learned to use music to love and to share music as an act of devotion.

When C and I broke up, this left me in a peculiar place. Plenty of couples have a few songs that they consider “theirs” and of course those songs can, in turn, bring back either wistfulness or painful memories. The problem with my relationship with C is that music was such a big part of it (he a record label owner and club DJ and me being a radio DJ) that it wasn’t particular songs that reminded me of him or even particular artists, it was music itself.

Melody and lyric had been the language that we loved each other in and thus they were too painful to hear when I lost him. This might sound dramatic and silly but it was a reality for me. I was ruined on music for awhile. When Jay and I fell deeper in love I wanted to share it with him but painstakingly picking through my music collection was still too raw. Instead I brought an external hard-drive to his house and dumped a few gig of my library onto his computer and let him sort it out for himself. It was heartless and impersonal.

Finally, years out from my breakup with C, I am falling in love again. This time it isn’t bittersweet because Jay and I cling together, steadfast in our dedication to each other and our life together. He is my cheerleader in my new, fragile loves with Michael and Ariel. And I am, in turn, his. The greatest revelation has been that music has come back to me.

Driving home from visits to see Michael and Ariel, Jay and I found ourselves singing silly love songs at full volume. As I opened my heart to many loves, it opened to old and new melodies to express them in. Every song was about me and I’ve never been so grateful for being a trite cliche.

So, here is a mix CD that they got in the mail from me yesterday (a few tracks are missing because they weren’t on Grooveshark). It is a lot of silly love songs, inside jokes, swelling melodies, and love.

Fun Factory Paul and Paulina from VibeReview

I have had a difficult relationship in my life with rabbit-style vibrators. The first one I owned had perfect girth but the ears were a bit too firm and pokey and the pearls inside were awkward almost to the point of painful. The next I tried was the Lovely Rose which I very much enjoyed but it still wasn’t quite perfect. This time I fretted because the “ear” portion tended to slide around and not rest in the perfect spot.

So, when it came time to try Paul and Paulina I had a whole lot of hopes and expectations tied up in this toy. It is made my Fun Factory so I expected a lot and I found that Paul and Paulina really delivered. It is made of 100% silicone which is a rarity for these types of dual-stimulation vibrators and something that I really appreciated.

I found that Paul and Paulina seemed to deliver on what I was looking for in a lot of crucial ways. It is girthy, the speeds are quite variable, and the clit stimulation is significant and strong. I enjoyed this toy greatly. Unfortunately, I was still left feeling that I might find something more in a dual stimulation toy. The Paul and Paulina isn’t my savior but it has moved up to being leader of the pack.