How to choose your first toy

Nobody hands you a guide to this. You get a wall of pink silicone, forty listings that all describe themselves as powerful, and a quiet suspicion that everybody else already knows what they are doing.

They do not. Here is the short course.

One thing before you start, because it changes how carefully you want to choose: you cannot open it, try it and send it back. Nothing with a broken seal comes back unless it is faulty. That is hygiene rather than us being difficult, and it is the rule at every shop in this category. So it is worth ten minutes now.

First. Where is it actually going?

This one question cuts the shop down to a handful of options, and it is the question most people skip.

Clitoral. External only. Bullets, small vibrators, wands. Start here if you are not certain. Most people with a vulva do not orgasm from penetration alone, and buying as though you will is the most common way a first toy ends up in a drawer. You are not broken. The maths was never in your favour.

Internal. Dildos, and vibrators with a curve on them. Firm materials give you pressure. Softer ones give way instead. Neither is better, they simply feel like different things.

Both at once. Rabbits and couples vibrators. Wonderful when the proportions happen to suit your body, infuriating when they do not, which is why they make a much better second purchase than a first.

Anal. Plugs, beads, prostate massagers. Read the fourth section before you buy a single thing for this. Yes, really.

Second. Go smaller than you think. Then smaller again.

Everybody overestimates. Every time.

Photographs have no scale. The same toy shot on a plinth and shot in somebody's hand look like two entirely different products, and only one of those photos is being honest with you.

So find the numbers instead. Length, width at the widest point, and insertable length listed separately from total length. Then hold a tape measure against them, because four centimetres across sounds perfectly reasonable right up until you see it.

Torn between two sizes? Take the smaller one. Too small is a mild shrug. Too big gets used once and then haunts a drawer for three years.

Third. Rumble beats buzz, and this is the one people wish they had known

If it has a motor, this matters more than every other feature put together.

Low frequency motors rumble. You feel it deep, and spread out.

High frequency motors buzz. It sits on the surface, and after a few minutes you may stop feeling very much at all.

Most disappointing first toys are disappointing for this exact reason, and the person who bought it usually decides the problem is them. It is not. It is a cheap motor.

Turn it on in your hand before you commit. Thin and tinny is a buzz. You want the one that sounds low and feels like it is actually doing something.

And twenty patterns is not a feature. You will find one you like inside a week and never touch the other nineteen.

Fourth. Anything going anywhere near your bum needs a flared base

This is the one hard safety rule in the entire guide and it is not up for discussion.

The rectum is not a closed space. Anything without a flared base or a retrieval loop can travel, and getting it back is an emergency department job rather than a tweezers job. You would very much rather be at home than explaining it to a triage nurse.

A flared base is wider than the widest part of the toy and stays outside the body. Check for one before you look at a single photograph.

Then go slower than you think you need to, use far more lube than feels sensible, and start smaller here than you would anywhere else.

Fifth. Check what it is made of

Non porous or nothing. Silicone, borosilicate glass, stainless steel, ABS.

Porous materials have microscopic holes that hold bacteria washing cannot reach. They cannot be properly cleaned and they do not last, which is most of why they are cheap.

If a listing will not tell you what the thing is made of, that is your answer. The full version is in what body safe actually means.

The four boring questions that decide everything

None of these are exciting. All of them decide whether you keep using it, which is the only measure that counts.

Does it charge? Rechargeable every time, if you can. A toy that runs on AAA batteries is flat on precisely the night you want it.

How loud is it? Almost never printed on the box, and it matters enormously with housemates or thin walls. Deep motors carry through a wall less than buzzy ones, which is a happy coincidence given the third section.

Can it go under a tap? Splashproof and waterproof are two different words doing two very different jobs.

How does it clean? Seams, ridges, charging ports. Simple shapes are easier to look after, and the things that are easy to look after are the things that get used.

What to spend

The cheapest tier is cheap because of the material. A porous toy has a short life and cannot be cleaned properly, so it is not the bargain it is pretending to be.

The most expensive tier is frequently a brand and a very nice box.

The middle is where the honest products live. A named material, a stated warranty, and a manufacturer willing to tell you what the thing actually is. Buy the simplest one that answers your five decisions, and ignore the feature list entirely.

Buy lube. Yes, you as well.

Lube is not an admission of anything. It is not evidence that something is wrong with you, and how wet you are is not a score you are being marked on.

It makes almost everything better, it protects the surface of the thing you have just bought, and running out halfway through is nobody's idea of a good evening.

Water based is safe with everything we sell and it is the right answer whenever you are unsure. Silicone lube can wreck a silicone surface. Oil destroys latex condoms.

The short version

Decide where it goes. Go smaller. Choose a deep motor over a long feature list. Flared base for anything anal. Named material or walk away. Buy the lube.

And if the first one turns out not to be right, that is information rather than failure. Almost nobody gets it perfect first time.