Cold Crystals and Deep Percussions: Women’s Personal Pleasure Devices.

Recently, I asked women in Second Life whether they use a mechanical device for intimate personal pleasure in Real Life. As expected, the responses were quite interesting and the results are equally sensational.

The question immediately arises why I decided to inquire and write about this topic. Was it a pervert desire or voyeurism that compelled me to seek out the juicy scandalous story? The answer is rather simple-human sexuality is always an interesting and curious subject of inquiry. To this add the feminine mystique, and the situation becomes clearer. The feminine side of the human world is quaintly wrapped in a mystery as if a diaphanous veil reveals just the filtered view. The curious mind always wonders what lies behind this veil.

The question I asked was not simply about female sexuality. It was about supposedly ‘unnatural’ means of attaining sexual pleasure through artificial means. Sexual pleasure is a taboo to be discussed in general, and the question had an added layer of ‘guilt’ associated with it. We also have to consider that use of a mechanical device or self-pleasuring is still imposes a moral dilemma. It is not always easy to accept it as natural. In fact, it may also be perceived even as a carnal sin by many people. As an example, vibrators and women’s personal sexual pleasure devices are illegal to sell in the State of Alabama.

Another curiosity was to test whether anonymity of Second Life makes the players less inhibited in answering questions about their very personal preferences.

If my intent was to only obtain salacious stories, it would have been much easier to ask the question in sex-oriented sims where players have lesser inhibition. As one person said to me, ‘ So you want to know from the more “average” person rather than from those more obviously sexually active? : )’. Exactly! Therefore, I asked the players who were visiting regular music clubs. Randomly selected players were asked the questions through private IMs.

I started with an assumption that people would be willing to readily share their preferences since Second Life avatars are not real. However, this assumption was not completely true. A large number of people simply ignored the question and never replied. Of those who replied, a substantial number was skeptical of my intent despite the reference to my legitimate blog site address. This can only be interpreted as the Second Life residents’ behavior as it would be in the RL. Thus, despite the most commonly held belief that SL and RL are different, anonymity in Second Life did not make the players comfortable to a question about their extremely private matter. Most responders chuckled in distrust and wished a sarcastic ‘good luck’.

All those to whom I sent the question were polite in general despite their occasional irritation or annoyance towards such a bold question from a complete stranger. None hurled profanity at me, which is a testimony of good-natured Second Life female residents in general. Some even laughed, and made witty remarks. My first interviewee felt quite spirited and claimed that a gun in her hand would be the most pleasing device. Another seemingly surprised lady immediately remarked, “NIce line……You at least have to buy me dinner first!’

A number of respondents declined to answer; one said, ‘well, I’m afraid that I don’t know you well enough to reveal that much personal info to you.” Another one replied that she was stunned. Despite that, she told her preference anyway. Many respondents tried to circumvent the question and were successful because I did not want to insist on getting an answer and embarrass anyone.

Because of slight ambiguity in my question, there were a few funny moments too. One lady answered that her MacBook-Pro gave her the most intimate pleasure because of its ‘awesome NVidia graphic card’ and quite ‘strong CPU’. Yet another person stated the obvious by claiming that her body was the ultimate pleasure device.

There were some creative ways of ignoring the question. One lady praised the Hindu scripture quote in my profile and bowed out. Another one claimed that she had not known of any such device. Interestingly, one person made a quite different point, “Does a woman’s charming areas count? My door swings two ways.’

Some answers were interesting in a different way; a lady dancing at a music club confessed, ‘Why on earth would anyone care? Anyway, I don’t have a favorite. I have a toy chest with lots of goodies for all occasions. ’. She was not alone with the stash of armament; another lady, who insisted to dance with me, confided, “My ‘toy’ drawer is very full, it depends on what my mind has woven for the mood I’m in.”
A hard-working lady was satisfied only through her ‘manual labor’ because she considers it ‘more control and more natural’.

One friend weighed in for quite some time before declaring, “I don’t think I can answer that question.” Several friends politely refused to participate in the survey, “I cannot contribute to this one.”

But one promised to come back with a list, and she indeed gave me a list of her favorite devices. She said, ‘ I never got back to you with my list so here it goes.. then I have to hit the sack.’ She proceeded to describe her cache of toys that would make her the queen of a dungeon. However, before logging off she did warn me, ‘I better see something i said in your blog.’ Is she kidding?

Another friend, who does not speak English, had difficulty in understanding my question. As soon as she figured it out, she immediately logged off in horror. She did return afterwards, and, with some help, managed to answer, “then my answer is the number 2”. She was referring to my hint to device names.

Quite a few people thought that the question pertained to a pleasure device in SL. A friend responded, “hehe… mine is my dildo, it’s pink, and I use it when I’m in the mood to watch people having slex. It’s scripted and it looks very real !” When I reminded her that the question was about her RL device, she said, ‘I guess you can say the same for RL, because I like using it while watching porn. lol.’ A builder who sells kinky devices in SL also went on about her preference, ‘anything from KL, lol… or any of my products .’

Several argued that the ‘natural’ version of the gender of preference was the best. However, when pressed for choosing a ‘device’ some were reluctant while other revealed their choice.

So how do the responses break down in numbers? Only women avatars were sent the question. I have no record of how many women were asked the question, but 64 responded. Approximately, 16% women claimed that they either do not use a device in RL or rely exclusively on a male partner for intimate pleasure. Another 34%responders declined to answer the question. It is reasonable to assume that those who declined to answer were indeed ‘device users’. This analysis indicated that 81% of the respondents use mechanical device for personal pleasure. Some 5% of the respondents gave answers that were not considered to be devices and are not considered any further.

Of all the confessed device users, only about 8% relied on their fingers. Most women in user group liked to have a mechanical device. Actually, 67% of device users admit to use a percussion toy. Another way to look at the toys is whether they are insertion type. Fingers were included in insertion type device and a good 83% women preferred insertion type device (including both vibrating or non-vibrating types). The remaining 17% preferred surface percussion instruments. About 5% of insertion users mentioned a device that uses both insertion and surface vibration. While all the mechanical devices seem to be battery operated, at least one person confided of having a heavy duty electrical mechanism.

Among the mechanical assist devices for intense personal pleasure, users of one particular device were especially excited to talk about it. Though a non-percussion device, the Pyrex tempered glass or crystal glass insertion toy has caught the imagination of many because of its thermal versatility.

All in all, the survey was fun to conduct and the results tell that a large number of women use personal pleasure devices but a significant number of them is unwilling to discuss about it. This last point tells us that people in SL behave similar to RL, and that social science studies can be conducted in SL that will truly reflect the RL. Second Life can be a good testing ground for many commercial products without huge expenses involved in similar RL campaigns.

Finally, I would like to thank all the participants who made this survey possible and all the friends who readily discussed and provided view points on this issue.