I have bought a fair few sex toys over the years, but up until now these have mainly been for the benefit of my wife or for us to use together. So this time, I thought I’d try something a little different for those odd lonely moments... As always, the Lovehoney delivery system kicked into action and a nondescript brown cardboard package arrived a day or so later. I had read up about Fleshlights previously, so I was quite excited to open it up and see what all the fuss was about. The product packaging is high quality, with pictures of the delightful Ms Chechik on the box and some holographic anti-tamper seals to give me the comfort of knowing that the product remained “factory fresh”. On unpacking the Fleshlight, my initial impression was that it is a well made, quality product. The outer casing is a sort of solid, ivory pearlescent coloured, plastic. It is quite big, certainly a lot larger than your average torch/flashlight from which it presumably gets its name. The large end of the Fleshlight unscrews to reveal the entrance and I couldn’t resist putting my finger in for a quick preemptive feel. Lucky I did, because it ships with a hard plastic tube inside it (probably to help it keep its internal shape). The “skin” is a gloriously soft material, which feels great to the touch. It it probably just a little bit too soft to feel exactly like real skin, but it is really not far off. Being some kind of synthetic material, there is slightly more friction between your fingers and the material than there would be if you were touching real skin. When it came to trying it out for the first time, I thought I’d just try to “dive straight in” without lube. Frankly, this didn’t really work and I realised pretty quickly that a few drops of lube are needed to get inside it. Once fully lubed, inside and thrusting in and out, it feels surprisingly realistic in all respects, except that it is much colder than the real thing which was a bit off putting. The second and subsequent times I have used it, I have tried different ways to warm the sleeve up before using it. I have tried running warm water through it, blowing a hair dryer through it and leaving it on a radiator. The problem is that hot air or hot water only realy warm up the inner surface and it soon feels cold again. My advice would be to stick it on the radiator for half an hour before you want to use it, takes a bit of prior planning but worth it in the end I would suggest. Back to how it felt... Once warmed up and lubed, it really does feel surprisingly realistic and it is great to have that realistic sensation (and realistic look), but also to be able to go for as long as you like at whatever pace you want. At the narrow end of the Fleshlight, there is another endcap. This can be unscrewed to allow air to flow in an out of the other end or conversely tightened to build up some suction. I didn’t find that it really seals tight enough to produce much suction, but you can still tell the difference between it done up and slightly loosened. I found that slightly loosened so as to allow air to flow in and out gave a much more realistic and pleasurable experience. Caution however, as loosening the endcap can result in a bit of spillage once you have “finished”. Clean up is no where near as difficult as I was expecting. The rubber sleeve slides out of the hard plastic outer piece and you can then just wash it through under the tap. I imagine that you are supposed to air dry it at room temperature, but I found that the “skin” is so stretchy that you can easily turn it inside out and dry it all over with a towel, you then turn it back the right way and put it back together, ready for next time. Overall, I think it is a lot of fun and will give you a lot of pleasure, by allowing you to really build up to the finale. I might even consider buying another one with a different internal texture (or entrance) for a bit of variety. However, they are quite expensive, especially if you are only going to use them the odd time that you are home alone and in need of some relief. They are take a bit more preparation (warming up and lube) than a bit of manual “self loving”.
