One thing women can’t get enough of in bed

Jana Hocking didn’t used to be a fan, but then curiosity got the better of her and now she can’t stop.

Question: when did we all become so cool with sex toys? Seriously.

When I cast my mind back to the first vibrator I came across, it was on my 21st birthday. A friend had gifted me a pink sparkly one “for a laugh.”

Oh, I did indeed get a laugh out of it, as I waved it above my head in front of all my friends and family, loudly proclaiming “Look what Lucy just gifted me!” We all had a giggle and then back in the box it went to gather dust under my bed.

You see I didn’t think a battery-operated device could do anything half as good as the real deal. Yes, I was a sex-toy snob.

The second time I properly came in contact with a vibrator was when I was working with an all-male crew and considered myself one of the ‘lads, lads, lads!” They thought it would be hilarious to put a really abnormally big one in my handbag on random occasions as a joke.

I did find this pretty funny until one day I opened my bag in Sportsgirl to pay for some earrings and both the sales assistant and I copped an eyeful of dildo. Mortifying. Safe to say, one of my fellow co-workers paid for it dearly when I popped it in his hand luggage before a flight.

Oh how we laughed.

You see, not too many years ago they were seen as a cheeky joke. Something reserved for bucks parties and Sex and the City episodes.

But then lockdown hit. And I, along with many lonely ladies, found them less “LOL” and more “yes please!”

A company specialising in the ‘pleasure’ had sent one as a gift but I had never taken it out of its packaging. But lockdown was long, friends. It was long.

So, one night curiosity/boredom got the better of me and I tried it out. It was one of those shell-shaped vibrators that fit perfectly into the palm of your hand and was for external use. (Which, for reference lads, is where women are more likely to reach orgasm.)

Holy. Mother. Of. God. How could something so small. So plastic. Create a feeling ‘down there’ that was so dang pleasurable.

Only a few months earlier I had ranted on and on about how something plastic or rubbery surely couldn’t do the same thing as a living, breathing human man.

Well it could. And it did. And did, and did, and did. To the point where I was worried that I would become less interested in the real thing.

Lockdown was a vibe. Picture: iStock

Then something else happened. A popular influencer popped up on Instagram waving one around in her pictures. I thought it was so BOLD. People (shamefully myself included) were saying things like “Oh her career is over.” “She’s reached the bottom now, parading dildos on Instagram.” “Wow can you believe what she’s spruiking!”

But that spruiking, and that sex-positive stance eventually made her enough money to buy a house! All because she was brave enough to state publicly, ‘I use sex toys and they’re bloody marvellous’.

She didn’t have to get her kit off. She wasn’t joining porn hub, she was simply stating a very popular opinion.

Before I knew it, friends were hosting events at their houses similar to Tupperwear parties, but with far more enjoyable items.

Brunches involved sharing notes on which brand did the best “double sided wand.” Or recommending the perfect c**k ring for that special man in each of our lives.

Heck, even Gwyneth Paltrow started selling a variety of sexy gadgets on her Goop website. (Now that’s a celebrity collaboration I can get on board with!)

In fact, just this week I was listening to the ‘Call her daddy’ podcast interview with Heidi Klum and, in between brainstorming with host Alex Cooper an idea she had to make a dildo in the shape of a worm, she casually revealed she has a ‘sexy draw’ with all sorts of gadgets.

Could you imagine celebrities openly talking about what gets them off five years ago!

I am loving the level of comfort women now have with their sexuality and finding new ways to orgasm. No more keeping these topics hushed away, kept like dirty little secrets.

Female orgasms can be a tricky thing to come by sometimes, and if a store-bought gadget makes it easier, then subscribe me to your newsletter, send me your recommendations and send me on in every colour.

Here’s to more orgasms in 2024.

Jana Hocking is a columnist and collector of kind-of boyfriends | @jana_hocking