As we expected the Erotic Trade Only Show didn’t have many new product launches for me to get excited about unlike Venus/Erofame which take place in Berlin towards the end of the year.

Last year I couldn’t count on both hands the number of new products which were showcased over there.  And I patiently waited until I got the last one of them at the beginning of the year, it came all the way from Korea.  Some things are just worth waiting for. 

The only stand to reveal a selection of new products not just one but 6 was the British company Rocks Off.  They now have a more slender version of the Rock Chick called the Groovy Chick, A silicone tipped RO-100mm bullet called the Soft Tip and a Bullet Bunny which is pretty much self explanatory.

They also launched 3 new male toys the Cheeky Boy is formed on the typical Bad Boy Shape but comprises of 4 interlocking bubbles and the Big Boy is the larger version with just 3 bubbles.  Then there is the Butt Boy which is a conical shaped butt plug mounted on the tip of the standard Rocks Off form.

Alex and I will be testing these new products out over the coming weeks and giving you low down.

Him is an oil based anal lubricant from ID, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of sexual lubes. As its name suggests it is aimed at the male market and comes in unscented and “leather”, rather than the more fruity and floral variants that other lubricants, including scented/flavoured lubes from ID normally favour.

Being oil based Him lubricant cream is long lasting and especially good for anal toys.

In testing we found that only a tiny amount went a long way, so the seemingly high price of the lube makes it a really good buy when you realise how effective it is in comparison with most other lubes. The cream clings to sex toys rather than rub off when you are using them, doubly important for anal play.

A few words of caution however. Being oil based Him lubricant cream is incompatible with latex condoms and will cause them to fail. It may also be incompatible with some sex toys for the same reason – it will dissolve them. Check the instructions on sex toys to ensure they can be used with oil based lubes and if in doubt do not use Him and your favourite toy!

Also ID do not recommend Him for vaginal use.

What they do say is that Him lubricant cream can be used for masturbation.

Him is available from a range of high street and online retailers.

The Bottoms Up Butt Plug Set from Topco are a great place to start in anal play. You get two soft, silicone butt plugs that are both 10cm long (insertable) and 3cm in diameter at their largest points. One is moulded in the form of three beads of increasing size and the other has a cone shaped tip and narrow ridged shaft. I tried out both butt plugs with surprising results.

Using a little water based lube I was able to insert the butt plug with three balls quite easily until I reached the third ball, then things got a little awkward. No amount of cajoling and lube would persuade the third ball to pop into place. I think this is due to the silicone being very soft, causing the thin shaft between the balls to twist as it enters and not push the first and second balls out of the way. We gave up on that butt plug and tried the other.

This was much more useable, comfortable and stimulating. Once the widest part of the head of the butt plug had been gently pushed inside me my body did the rest, drawing it inside until only the ring on the end remained exposed.

I used this butt plug while having sex. It turned out to be great, massaging my prostate so that when I came the orgasm was electric. It left me panting and breathless, then gave me another burst of sensation as I popped it out when my orgasm had subsided. It really took my breath away. Marvellous.

If you want to experiment with anal toys this is a great way to start. You’ll not find a better cheap butt plug set. They are made from body friendly silicone, are easy to insert, remove and clean. And of course as there are two designs it’s almost certain at least one of them will suit you. Just remember as with all anal toys to have plenty of water based lube to hand.

Your Best Mate Billy …

The Lelo Billy anal vibrator is the sort of sex toy that a lot of men would not even consider buying, even if they knew it existed. This is a shame because any man who has tried anal stimulation knows that it can be fun and often intense. To find out more about anal stimulation in general you can read this article.

There are an increasing number of anal sex toys aimed at men and the Billy is exactly that. Lelo primarily produce toys for women but have recently expanded into the male market, firstly with the Bob butt plug and Bo cock ring. The Lelo Billy vibrator is actually a slight modification of their slim Liv vibrator. The only changes being the colour of the insertable silicone section, the replacement of the chrome band at the base of the silicone with a collar to prevent the toy from being inserted too deeply and some changes to the instruction manual and demeanour of the marketing.

Like all Lelo sex toys the Billy is not the cheapest but is ideal for men wishing to experiment with anal sex toys for the first time. For many the £80 (or thereabouts) you will have to pay to get your hands on one may seem like a lot of cash but it does guarantee a quality product that is easy to use, designed specifically for male anal stimulation and reliable. Most of the cheaper sex toys can not claim all that.

Lelo recommend that you use their toy with a water base lube, not silicone as this can damage the silicone section. Being a rechargeable sex toy does mean that you will have to wait before you can use it but the advantages of not having to replace the batteries in it more than makes up for that and goes some way to making the price tag seem a little more reasonable.

In use the Lelo is easy to insert and easy to control allowing users with all levels of experience to have fun experimenting with anal pleasure. The tip is smooth and the soft, smooth finish of the silicone takes and holds lube better than cheaper, smooth toys. The vibrator has five modes and five different intensities giving plenty of scope for experimentation.

Using the Billy alone is great and will help most men experience the intensity of an anally augmented orgasm when masturbating. Used with a partner you can both have fun and if she wants to borrow it – just tell her to buy her own!

Male sex toys and cars. Two things that are of course not so far apart in the male psyche. It’s therefore no surprise that in this sex toy review there will be a lot of car talk though the emphasis will definitely be on the sex toy review and not the Top Gear style big kids in big motors style of review.

It’s every schoolboy’s dream car – the AC Cobra. A vehicle transformed by the replacement of its original straight six Bristol motor by increasingly powerful Ford V8s and with a distinctive shape that means its appearance on any street turns heads. The same is true of the Fun Factory Cobra Libre Male Stimulator. It takes obvious design queues from the AC Cobra, the shape of the opening so very reminiscent of the gaping air intake at the front of the AC. The rear of the Cobra Libre echoes the wheels of a car and the twin motors that drive the Cobra have to be experienced to be believed.

Fun Factory are so into the car motif for the product that they have produced this video. (note the AC Cobra like badge in the top right corner of the video)

OK, to the review proper.

Don’t think that this is a masturbator. The Cobra Libre is a penis stimulator. So what’s the difference?

Well, there are hundreds of different masturbators for men on the market and they all have one thing in common, you put all or at least a significant part of your penis inside them. The stimulation you experience is due to the materials from which they are constructed, their design and the way in which you use them. Some have vibrators, some have ribs and nobly bits inside but none of them is like the Cobra Libre.

The Fun Factory Cobra Libre works by allowing you to push the tip of your penis into the toy and working its magic on the head of your cock. The toy is made from hard plastic except for the opening for your penis which is moulded from soft silicone and does stretch to accommodate your glans. Once inside you are pressed against a transverse ridge which firmly contacts your frenulum.

The Cobra is operated by the use of two slide controls and an on-off button. These controls are simply indentations in the case of the device down which you slide your fingers and allow you to operate the two vibrating motors (which I’m sure Fun Factory would prefer me to call engines) independently. This gives a huge range of intense and pulsing vibrations.

I didn’t know what to expect when I tried the Cobra and what I experienced was as unique as the toy itself. The intensity was incredible, I spent several minutes with my eyes rolled back into my head adjusting and readjusting the Cobra while Suze looked on, a little bemused because of the unique way in which you use the Cobra Libre. There’s no pumping and thrusting as with a conventional masturbator as I mentioned above.

Eventually I stopped the toy and Suze asked “Wasn’t it very good?”.  I simply asked her to masturbate me while I enjoyed the tingling and buzzing from a frenulum that seemed electrified and glans that were buzzing.

Suze grasped my cock and began to slowly bring me to orgasm. However much to her surprise after only a few strokes I came, covering her hand and my stomach in semen.

The Cobra Libre is a great sex toy – I think. I did have problems with the model I had, which I think may be due to it being an early model.  I hope so because getting the device to the point where I could use it took some patience.

The Cobra is a “Click n Charge” model designed to be used with their magnetically fixed two pole charging system. The charger doesn’t sit well at all on the toy and you have to jiggle it about a lot to make a decent contact. Once charging don’t sneeze near it or the contact will be broken and you’re back to fiddling again. More worryingly my unit doesn’t hold its charge. I charged it one day meaning to use it the following evening and the blessed thing had gone flat. It also kept turning itself on during its charging cycle – all of which makes me think it’s faulty.

When I did realise it would not hold charge I charged it immediately prior to use – not very good for a bit of spontaneous solo fun – and then found that occasionally the controls would not respond consistently which  spoilt my fun somewhat.

To summarise, this is a great toy, innovative in design and amazingly good at stimulating your penis. I’m going to contact Fun Factory in the New Year and see if they can send me a replacement unit as I think this one has to be faulty – I have never had problems with a Fun Factory toy before.

Tenga are a Japanese manufacturer of sex toys for men who first came to prominence because of their onacups.  That’s “Ona” as in Onanism – male masturbation. Until the Tenga Flip Hole was released all Tenga toys were sold as single use items and although you could use a condom to ensure they had a longer life it was impossible to wash them out. Not very green.

So the Tenga Flip Hole is a big departure for the company. Launched in 2008 its second incarnation sports a nice shiny black case instead of the original while one and has a completely new internal design. And a “better grip”. We are not sure if that refers to the inside or outside of the masturbator because the model we tried is the original white cased version.

The toy has a hard outer case with two lozenge shapes cut out of the sides. This allows the soft silicone insert to expand when you are using the flip hole. Set into the external surface of the silicone insert are six buttons, three either side allowing you to control the sensation applied to your penis by the toy’s internal contours.

I feel like saying “and now the science part …” at this point but I wont. Tenga describe each of the internal  features, ribs, bobbles and what have you with different names like “End Orb”, “Click Orb” and “Quattro Wave”. It suffices to say there are a lot of internal features to enjoy in conjunction with the three different viscosity of lubricants supplied in the box. Removing part of the case allows the Tenga Flip Hole to split along its length to reveal that each half has a different pattern of stimulating ridges to excite you.  So along with the buttons on the outside there are a huge range of stimulating possibilities to investigate.

Opening up like this means that for the first time the Tenga is totally washable and can be used over and over. The hinge at the top means that you can hang it on the other part of the case that you removed to open the device so it will drip/air dry. Nice design.

In comparison to a “palm pussy” style male masturbator the Tenga is quite bulky, but does look pretty cool. In fact because of the white colour scheme and slick design we have compared it to wanking into an iPod.

Should you spend your hard-earned cash on a Tenga Flip Hole? The toy does have its down sides, it is more expensive than a lot of male masturbators, though not the most expensive we’ve seen. It is also bulkier than you might imagine because there’s a lot going on inside. However it screams quality from the moment you open the box and using it reinforces this.

The control afforded by the ovoid cross section case and the buttons on the insert are a revelation. The toy comes alive when you slide yourself into it and the combination of ingenious internal design and a range of lubes means you’ll have hours of fun straight out of the box. The satisfaction derived from watching the silicone sleeve swell and spill out of the side of the toy when you push your penis into it can not be over stated. It certainly put a smile on my face. As did the fact that it can be used again and again.

Nice one Tenga.

The Monkey Spanker is one of the cheapest male masturbators you can buy. Yes, as the name suggests this product has one function, to aid male masturbation.

The designers of the Monkey Spanker have designed a simple toy, in fact it is difficult to imagine a toy much simpler. It consists of a sandwich of a piece of soft and yielding silicone between two hard pieces of plastic. The hard plastic provides the support required to hold and move the toy while the soft silicone section provides the soft but firm and stimulating sensation required to perform the job in hand.

Except of course that when you are using the Monkey Spanker the job isn’t in your hand, it’s in the Monkey Spanker.

If you’ve never masturbated with a sex toy before you would be forgiven for wondering if something looking so totally unlike a vagina can actually deliver anything more than the soft, yielding and familiar relief that your own hand can. Prepare to be surprised.

The Monkey Spanker has been around for a few years now and yet short of a slight change in design to the handle scheduled “Real Soon Now” it has not been changed in all that time. The reason is that it really works.

This isn’t a toy that attempts to mimic a real woman, it is meant to provide the right stimulation to allow a man to have a good time on his own. With a little water based lube and the right wrist action you’ll wonder why you didn’t buy the Monkey Spanker sooner.

Long, slow stroked down the length of your penis will be enjoyable and for that intense finish short fast strokes just below the head of your penis will stimulate the frenulum intensely.

The Monkey Spanker does come with a vibrating bullet which clips into the handle. It’s nice, but not earth shattering when it comes to enhancing the toy and if you are using this masturbator hard and fast you simply don’t notice the vibrations much anyway.

We would describe the Monkey Spanker as a great, simple, easy to clean male masturbator. It is not perfect nor does it make you feel like you are inside a real woman but with plenty of lube it does its job and doesn’t break the bank. We can’t see how the new design of handle is going to make it much better though … maybe it will stop you getting calluses when you use it too often …