Everyone who has bought sex toys before has purchased them for the first time in one way or another. It’s important to remember that everyone was a beginner at some point, especially if you feel overwhelmed or intimidated at the prospect of sex toy shopping. Unfortunately, the process shouldn’t be as simple as finding dildos for sale near you, making a purchase, and calling it a day. Several things should be considered before you commit to your wallet.
If you’re trying to buy sex toys for the first time, we promise you don’t need to feel overwhelmed or alone! Sex and sex toys are shrouded in taboo, but almost everyone has used or seen one at some point in their adult lives. Because of this, no one should feel embarrassed about looking up dildos for sale, but many of us do. If you feel embarrassed or unsure, please continue reading our top tips for buying sex toys.
1. Read Reviews
During the research process, we strongly recommend you search for and read reviews on a product before making a purchase. This doesn’t mean you can only purchase the most expensive and highest quality dildos for sale on the market, but this does mean that you should have some standards before you take your new toys into the bedroom.
Sex toys, including the dildos for sale in physical and online retailers, are slightly less likely to have reviews. We assume this is because people are embarrassed about tying their name or identity to a taboo purchase, but this also means that each review left behind has much more weight. Please read the reviews if you’re concerned about anything, including size, material, battery life, shape, hardness, or anything else!
Sometimes reviews will help inform our decisions in several ways. Too many low reviews might mean that certain dildos never see our online shopping carts for sale. However, if you find that most negative reviews have little or nothing to do with your concerns, you can give a few different toys a chance. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have your standards, just that your priorities might differ from someone else’s.
If you’re struggling to find written reviews for particular toys or dildos for sale, we recommend looking for other reviews. Certain people make videos reviewing different sex toys, and others make detailed blog posts about several toys at once. Considering these outlets may help inform your decision.
2. Consider How You’ll Use Your Toys
We also recommend determining how you would like to use your first toy or set of sex toys. This is because, especially if you decide to use a toy in a rectum, you will need a flared base. Toys that don’t come with a flared base or another easy way to remove themselves from the anus may get stuck, putting sexual participants in danger if items get lost up there.
There are also other aspects to consider. If you want to use your toys without condoms, ensure they are made only from body-safe and non-porous materials. These might include safely sealed and varnished woods, glass, and body-grade silicone. However, other materials, such as jellies, would not be safe to insert into your body without a condom.
Some toys are also manufactured to vibrate, oscillate, or move when you turn them on. If you don’t care about this, you may save money on toys that don’t have these extra functions. But if you want more motion during your play, you may need to do a bit extra research to find these additional features. Certain toys will also have multiple settings you can cycle through.
3. Keep Lube in Mind
You may have never used lube if you’ve never purchased sex toys. Or even if you have used a personal lubricant, you may not know everything that you should about lube and safety. If you already have a particular type of lubricant in your home and don’t want to purchase another one, keep this in mind while shopping. What do we mean?
If you have an oil-based lube type at home and you don’t want to buy additional lubricants, we highly advise you to stay away from toys that are porous in material. These toys may leech chemicals into your body and may also be more challenging to clean, which is why we would typically advise using a condom over these. However, oil-based lubes erode condoms, which means you get no protection from STIs or STDs, pregnancy, or toxic chemicals.
Silicone-based lube may have an adverse reaction with silicone-based toys, which may seriously harm you or your partners. The safest lube is often a water-based lubricant, as these are unlikely to react with your toys, erode physical barriers of protection, or result in an allergic reaction. Even if you have other lube at home, we strongly recommend picking up some water-based lubricant the next time you’re at the drug store or shopping for toys.
Conclusion
If you want to purchase sex toys for the first time, there’s no reason to be embarrassed about being a beginner or feeling confused. What matters most is that you and your sexual partners feel informed before making a purchase and that you all feel safe. If you need assistance buying sex toys for the first time, we hope you found our suggestions helpful.