February 23, 2022

SEX ON THURSDAY | The Curse of the $300 Vibrator

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The woman at the checkout counter of The Pleasure Chest alerted me that there was a sextoy sweepstakes with every purchase. She gestured to a shiny white box on the shelf behind her as I beheld the prize: a $300 vibrator called the Osé 2. I didn’t know a vibrator could sell for the price of an iPad, unless it was gilded with gold and emeralds. The steep cost suggested that the Osé 2 could outperform my $30 toy called Tracy’s Dog, which I, along with everyone in the Amazon review section, was already more than satisfied with. Tracy’s Dog boasted viral reviews, with users raving about how it helped them ditch their husbands or how it made them levitate as they saw God, their legs sticking straight out like those goats who faint when scared. How much better could a vibrator possibly do than a spiritual awakening? 

I looked once more at the futuristic packaging of the Osé 2. I had nothing to lose. Although I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky, I still entered the raffle. I wrote my name on a little slip of paper, put it in a box adorned with calligraphy dicks and left The Pleasure Chest, flashing a quick grin to the woman at the cash register. She smiled back with modest omnipotence, as if she knew something I didn’t. 

A week later, I received an email. The subject line read “Pleasure Chest Giveaway Winner!,” and I clicked on it as fast as I could. It said the Osé 2 was coming in a few days, delivered straight to my doorstep with all the tracking information. It felt like fate, because my faithful Tracy’s Dog had finally gone kaput, and something else needed to fill its niche. 

When my new toy came, I ripped open the box with unmatched fervor, not even using a knife. Upon first laying eyes on its slick silicone frame, I realized that this was the Ferrari of flicking the bean, the Balenciaga of beating your meat, the crème de la crème of cranking the hog. It was designed by a team of robotics experts to mimic a lover’s finger, mouth and tongue all at the same time. The booklet it came with listed its many high-tech features: It could regulate airflow, was waterproof in up to 3 feet of water and featured both customizable settings and a lifetime warranty. It glowed in my hands as I held it up to the light like a sacred artifact, its silicone skin soft like human touch. 

I began to wonder if I could even handle the sheer horsepower of the Osé 2. My racetrack was barely advanced enough for Tracy’s Dog, let alone this superior engine that cost half my rent. I also worried that if I used it once, it would consume me. I would never need human contact again if this robot mouth-finger could simultaneously vibrate every orifice of my body at the frequency of a divine tuning fork. I also felt guilty using such an extravagant piece of ingenuity on such a frivolous activity as masturbation, even if I got it for free. This machine should be massaging the feet of kings and powering space shuttles, not probing the folds of my clit. 

And so I put the contraption back in its velvety box and slid it under my bed out of pure intimidation. I tried to forget I was its winner, that it had chosen me to satisfy. Many months passed before curiosity overcame me, and I finally pressed the Osé 2 against my punani. I closed my eyes and revved the race car’s engine. It was almost excruciatingly pleasurable, even on the gentlest setting. I almost screamed as its mechanical tongue pulsated in time with the fiendish fingering of the G-spot stimulator. It was like eating the most sickeningly sweet lavender cupcake with gold flakes on the frosting. My toes were curling with hedonistic joy, but I couldn’t handle the surging storm of unfiltered dopamine in my brain.

After only one use of this vibrator from the future, I can barely feel anything when someone goes down on me. I question if technology has gone too far. On one hand, the Osé 2 blasted me into space, but on the other hand, I can’t come down. I’m stuck there on the moon, desperate to get back to Earth. I didn’t just see God like those reviewers did with my last vibrator; I became Him. But being God is a lonely existence. I long to be mortal again, to find excitement in the brush of a shy pinky finger against my inner thigh instead of a NASCAR race in my birth canal. 

Since the Osé 2 has a lifetime warranty, I’m not sure if I’ll ever recover. I haven’t even used any of the higher settings yet except to see how fast they go, sometimes to impress friends at parties, and I can barely hold onto the damn thing without it flying away. I can’t get rid of it, either because that would be a waste of the $300 I didn’t even spend (and who wants a used vibrator?). Sometimes I miss the times when Tracy’s Dog did what it needed to do, and life was good — I didn’t know what I was missing. I’ve become a slave to an unbearable pleasure machine, but I’ve also been liberated from everything else. 

Anya Neeze is a student at Cornell University. Comments can be sent to [email protected]. Boink! runs during alternate Sex on Thursdays this semester.