Last month, our own Lola Lovely wrote about the LaunchPad, and while I happen to know and like Lola and would agree with her chosen last name – and maybe also because of that – I was thrown off by the report.

Now, I haven’t tried the LaunchPad (yet!), but reading about it as a weird awkward contraption for some seedy guy to bang his iPad with, made me think about the way male sex toys – and male masturbation – are perceived in society.

While sex toys for women have long been accepted as a common thing that not only the more adventurous of women use, for some reason male sex toys seem to have a stigma we can’t quite shake off.

But where does this smirched reputation come from? Is it male or female? And, does it matter?

I think a lot of men are weird about sex toys because they associate masturbatory gadgets with either something only women do, or something that’s a little too out of their “manly” comfort zone. Guys are trained to be guys, and it’s a stereotype that’s spread into society not unlike girly-girls. Certain things are still perceived weirdly, no matter how progressive some stuff seems to be around us.

The Stigma on Male Sex Toys

Perhaps it’s the fact that when people talk about men masturbating, there’s a bit of a “loser” connotation to it. Whenever someone jokes about a dude “being very close to his right hand” or something of the sort, it’s assumed that guy must have some kind of problem. He can’t get laid… otherwise he wouldn’t spend that much of his time jacking off.

We live in a world that has been slowly growing into empowering women’s sexuality and creating an egalitarian sexual culture; and while women watching porn and using sex toys is being encouraged and celebrated – as it should – the same can’t be said for men. Normally, when a guy admits to buying porn or toys for his own pleasure, he’s mostly perceived as a creepy, gross man who probably can’t get a real person to fuck him.

For some of us, masturbation is not only a way to get sexual release, but a pleasurable way to be in contact with ourselves. And trust me, I’m not trying to be self-pandering, but masturbation is also a spectacular source of great solo time that’s heavily linked to a well-rounded, almost meditative state.

The creepy stigma on male masturbation contraptions needs to change. We are constantly evolving in ways to obtain pleasure and enhance the ones that we have already found. There’s no shame in wanting to upgrade our experiences and exploring the things that make us feel good. We need to stop shaming guys for wanting to do that and embrace the pleasurable moments. All of them.

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