sex toys

Trying the Solace by Lovense

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Testing the Solace Does it live up to the fantasy an image of the Solace remote control masturbation sleeve by Lovense

Is the Solace good, though?

Short answer: 

The Solace is ambitious, creating a toy in an underserved niche and miniaturizing a fucking machine to a bit bigger than a chunky loaf of bread.  Unfortunately, the tech is not there yet, but it’s a good try and incredibly impressive for what it is. If you are an early adopter, or get off on the aesthetics of machines themselves this could be a great fit. However, there’s a few design flaws here that make it not quite the winner of their other products.

The toy might be priced at $369, but never in my history of buying from them have they not had pretty steep discounts running at all times, including of all things a %60 off for students. In reality it will probably set you back something in the range of $184.

Long Answer:

Lovense is one of those popular brands that has a pretty established presence as the defining version of a niche category: remote controlled sex toys. I have a long history of ending up in LDRs where anything horny is happening at a distance. Silver and I filled that gap by buying various and sundry Lovense products, and he was a fan even predating our relationship. I am usually the worst reviewer in the world for stuff (I don’t like most things and I can’t do the reviewer vague positive that would ever make it a reliable business model for me), but I have had enough success with Lovense in the past to take a gamble here. When Lovense reached out to maybe, possibly consider an affiliate code sign up, I decided why the heck not. They were even willing to send me a toy to review, and me, being shameless, asked for one of their fancier options, the Solace.

That being said… the Hush is their old reliable that I would recommend to anyone with a butthole, but Silver, on his own, tried their prostate version, and I got him the Max one year (the OG edition). Neither of those worked out quite as well. They make good anniversary/birthday/christmas gifts, and I have remarked before that I was pleasantly surprised by the Gravity (my review here). Alas, lightning didn’t strike twice.

I really wanted the toy, a penis engulfing, handheld milker, to work for us. It’s a concept that fits really well into my fantasies, a relentless, hands free apparatus you strap someone into and they are mercilessly teased and drained. If it had worked as well as I imagined, this would probably be a Lovense stan account now and Silver would be lying comically shrivelled in a puddle of lube and semen.

But, in the history of sex toys, onnaholes simply have never gotten the love of dildos, plugs and vibes. When it comes to things you stick your dick into, their relative lack of penetration (snrk) to the western market belays a bunch of psycho-social biases that give the technical side of the problem less of a foundation. A buttplug is a solved problem Lovense is simply improving by adding their app, a powered masturbation sleeve is an experimental satellite launched to sample Mars for evidence of life. 

So, I certainly applaud the company’s ambition here. Lovense takes some pretty big swings, trying to adapt their system to everything from a vagina operated control stick for their other toys to nipple clamps, and that’s generally a thing I care about. Teledildonics is a tech that I will never say no to innovation in.  However, the problem with the Solace is threefold:

There’s not enough sensation, it’s hard to operate and it’s loud.

Loud is forgivable. It’s the Mach I of a motor driven toy. When we tested it, the noise part was dealt with by putting a hood on Silver so that it sounded a bit less like you were getting a panicked hand job from Beaker. Loud might even be a value add if you are one of the many folks turned on by knowing this is a machine, so if that was the only issue I would have been able to ignore it. If we are being fair, the Gravity is loud too.

The operation challenge, unfortunately, is the make or break part. Some things were seamless. It connects and controls with the app beautifully, and has buttons on the unit so you can do manual if you really want to. Points there for making a toy that doesn’t brick if they stop supporting it. For the person controlling it from a distance it’s easy as pie to figure out. One slider controls depth of thrust, the other speed. As well as full control, you can create a loop or leave it on one setting while you do other things to the victim. All very good.


The problem comes from the deployment part. It’s hard to keep your dick in it, and it doesn’t offer enough stimulation to get you anywhere on its own. Worse, if you wiggle too much the safety feature to prevent the motor from burning itself out doesn’t let you hilt. It will immediately stop moving with a worried whine. At no point on Silver was it going to the base of his cock. If he wiggled at all, which most aroused people will do, his cock easily popped out and sort of wobbled uselessly next to the unit while it still shrieked away, hell for leather.


The manual suggests two options, attaching it with the included brackets to the front of a desk, pointing down (as if you were doing a cam2cam session with someone else) or simply holding the whole unit in place on yourself, on all fours. I don’t know how Lovense thinks this is going to work, but the external housing is rounded hard plastic. Not only is it bigger than the average person’s hand span (and awkwardly heavy), but there is no texture on the exterior. Add some lube and you are immediately going to drop this puppy. If this ever gets a Mach II this needs a handle and some external grippy silicone. I can’t stress how much the base to brace off is essential in a thrusting toy, and if you want to hold it on yourself you will need both hands. 

Furthermore the dependence on the desk bracket is doing a lot of work in assuming the height of your desk and the clearance between your lap and chair. We were lucky, as I own a sit stand desk that can be adjusted exactly so. But if you don’t, you may struggle even more than we did. You will not be using this, despite the advertisement, “slumped on the sofa” or “lying in bed” without some extra work and I don’t know if this unit would handle being stuffed between mattress and box spring the way you can a Fleshlight.

The sensation problem is perhaps the last point of concern. I get that Lovense’s safety feature on the motor would be at odds with the toy having any availability to grip, but they are offering what is in effect a stroking toy, but one size fits most and without suction, that will be largely stroking the middle third of a penis. If it can’t suck, it needs to vibe or it needs a heck of a lot more texture. Otherwise on most people it’s a whole lot of effort for nothing in particular as far as outcome. And that, given what the toy is trying to do is a unfortunate. They do offer a tighter “vagina sleeve” as an aftermarket add on, but unless the depth issue also is fixed I worry that isn’t enough and the innards of that sleeve might still not bridge the gap. It’s also pretty baffling that if you hop up in price point to the Solace Pro their default sleeve has a lot more texture. Was there really that much to be saved when they both have a base price of $369 USD?


At this point you are probably wondering why you would even bother with this and I am probably going on some reviewer blacklist somewhere, but I will reiterate the positives…

The good stuff about the Solace (and the brand)


At least based on porn and fantasy, people really, really want this toy to be a thing and bless them, Lovense is taking the problem seriously. Particularly in the niche of femdom, stuff that flips the gaze to focus on the bottom is a breath of fresh air. This toy is clearly designed with the vagnina based control stick I mentioned as the intended pairing (the Mission 2) and that’s spaceage level miracles.

And if you do want a hands free remote control option that you won’t struggle to hold, there’s always the Max 2, which is outside grip texture all the way, or the Calor, which leaves the squeeze in the hand of the one operating it. The tech here still has a lot of room to grow, but it’s clear that Lovense considers it a priority when they offer both their regular and pro edition.

I’m also happy to note you can get replacement sleeves for incredibly cheap ($15 USD if there’s no sales), and since this part will be the bit that needs changing most often (soft materials mean porous) this significantly increases the possible life of the toy. Furthermore, I haven’t experimented with cramming other maker’s sleeves into the channel, but the design is so simple it does suggest some aftermarket modding is possible. If you are into cutting edge sex tech, wanting to mod your stuff is probably your default state.

Lovense, as a company, is also surprisingly affordable for what you get. I already mentioned they are always running sales, but for bang for your buck, you will generally get what you paid for. And, while this one might have undershot the target a bit, but given a year or two I suspect their 2 version will have made up considerable distance.

Femdom & The Whole Rest of the Boy

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Femdom and the whole rest of the boy, in text displayed over a male nude

Heterosexual femdom is weird. It’s not colouring between the cis straight lines, but it’s going to get you even more side eye if you call yourself queer than a bisexual woman with a boyfriend does. I tend to settle on the lukewarm “queer adjacent” to avoid some traumatized wee LGBTQ+ getting verbally abusive at me because they aren’t comfortable with spectrums, only binaries. Nevertheless, because our understanding of “normal” heterosexuality has certain gendered power expectations built into it, if you lean F/m, you are going to travel to where your behaviour relative to your gender expectations are not in alignment. That’s even if both of you are the most cisgender folks on the planet. This disconnect is a frustrating, orphaned space. These days, how we perceive the progressive and “safe”  is a kind of hierarchical tightness that doesn’t know what to do with things that don’t fit into what is mainstream, but also don’t have a perfectly overlapping experience. No wonder we had to carve out our own “femdom” niche! For its many cultural faults, there is a reason why we are our own distinct identity, and I often feel like the aesthetics of gay men are the only other place you are allowed to consider male bodies as more than a vaguely threatening symbol of potency.

Past readers know I have definitely talked about the transgressive nature of submissive masculinity and put my face to singing their praises. I even spill rather more pixels to the topic than I sometimes wish I did, but telling submissive men not to be terrible and stopping submissive men from making self destructive mistakes are such default parts of our niche that they almost happen automatically. But hey, let’s talk about some good stuff, shall we? If the fashion is currently to help trans people figure things out by leaning to gender euphoria instead of defining themselves by dysphoria, I will spotlight our happiness.

Submissive men offer the opportunity to flip the subject/object nature of typical straight relationships

Sexual perfomance expectations for women are like that old metaphor of the swan, gliding serenely on the surface and paddling like mad underneath. An infinite amount of work, primping and positioning goes into performing femme for fucking, but then there’s a demand for aloofness that borders on disassociative. You become the prize he is then expected to pursue, the elegantly prepared feast to be devoured. Though I don’t doubt submissive women have their own canny inversions, if you are anywhere femme of centre, femdom has the best possible route to flipping that on its head without switching to a same gender partner. Not by default, mind you, as transgressively centring him, his looks and his beauty are hardly the default of mainstream BDSM porn. Nonetheless, big titty anime mommies and needy idiot fanboys or not, there’s a reason gentle femdom tends to be a land of painful yearning. And when you talk to dommes, outside of marketing copy; the people who don’t like submissive men; and the naive morons who think an actual personality like cat piss is a symbol of power, there is a visceral, all quenching immersion in him. He is there for us. 

So, even if you have a complex asexual thing going on where it’s the sadomasochism not the aesthetics that matters to you, it also flips how we can interact with the bodies of eachother. One of the most depressing parts of the male default identity is how they are taught to relate to their bodies: penis, penis and yet more penis. Dudes learn this pretty early: Don’t touch anything else, not your nipples, not your lips and for gods sake, not your ass or the puckered hole between your cheeks. It’s no wonder so much straight porn treats its male actors like a life support system for an erection! For a shocking number of men, they live in an inversion of the previous century. Sex positive feminism taught women to look at their vulvas in mirrors, touch themselves down there, and see their genitals as something other than a dirty shame. But for men, almost a century from when your metaphorical (and my literal) granny squatted over a mirror, guys are worrying if proper hygiene makes them gaaaaay.

So, if straight men are putting their prostates off limits out of shame, forget nibbling the inside of his wrist, fingers, sensitive pulse points, etc! By now, our collective sex lore says these are all things that you have to teach men to explore on women. It’s expected it’s not intuitive to him, but agreed on as required, much how millennial dudes and younger now all osmotically learn cunnilingus is the new chivalry. Him though? No dude needs that! Just be hot and grudgingly consenting, ladies!  

Of course that’s nonsense. Human bodies are so much more like each other than not. While the individual always varies, the layouts of most things anatomical are lazy, even putting nipples on every dude, and folding a structure that is shockingly analogous to a penis into the groins of cis women. Nerves are nerves, and we are not so sexually varied that a man lacks the physical capacity to enjoy all those erotic sensory things, from finger sucking to a hand pressed to the throat.

Whether you are hurting him or just exploring him, femdom unshackles you from his dick.

So don’t get me wrong, the end argument is not just to lock up all the penises. I agree that men vastly over state how much cock cages and chastity are a universal benefit to women. Men are not actually ruled by their libidos like it was a life sustaining drive akin to hunger or breathing. But what we don’t talk about in so-called chastity is how much it breaks everyone of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, including giving him permission not to receive it. The whole rest of the boy is on the table.

And whether your kink is inadequacy or display, you also get to really look at him. Just as my body is socially considered to be open to public commentary too much, men blunder around uncomplemented even by their loved ones. Stick that guy in the s type role and you center a female gaze that may or may not be pleased, but at least it’s pretty much universally there. Ditto the tentative exploration of lingerie for men, both to humiliate as emasculation via consensually weaponized dysphoria, and my personal preference, to decorate and emphasize. Though dommes grumble that our more shallow needs stay uncatered to, if you are here to oggle a pretty man, whatever your tastes, the options have only been getting better, gradually and grudgingly, over time.

I mentioned GentleFemdom, and while it’s drifted past interest for me into a fandom sausage fest, you have guys pressing in the other direction for a different idea they might be pursued and desired. And while the stock characters might not be my cup of tea, again, the manga influence heavy illustrated boys are most likely to be treated with dialogue that assumes he’s cute.

And likewise, just as his appearance becomes worthy of opinion, physical sadomasochism also needs a bigger canvas. Sure, you can hurt a cock and balls. I do, and enjoy it, but it’s a touch monomaniacal if that’s all you ever do. While you could glide through vanilla on kissing, hugs and touching his dick with bits of you, sadism means you need to get intimate with the sensory possabilities of everything. To stay in the sweet spot of permanent harm free, extended ouchies means more square inches than whatever is between his legs. 

Male masturbation toys enjoy more use in femdom

BDSM in general favours a more hands off approach. Be it a flogger, a dildo on a pole, or a bog standard magic wand to give someone a forced orgams, we like our gear. It’s a sexually permissive society that’s has less emphasis, even in femsub land, that you should insist that a vibrator is competition to a man hoping a woman will have an orgasm.

There’s no weird hang ups about it being a cop out to use your belt, not your hand, on the pert behind of whom you are topping. Toys *on* tops are still a bridge too far in most content, and people can normalize for play, regardless of whatever gender combo is featured. However, male subs are the vanguard gradually dragging everyone to admit you can put a vibe on him as much as her. Through our purchasing needs, the plethora of strokers, milkers, butt plugs in various bulbous shapes from the Aneros to the usual blunt christmas tree style stopper are ever so gradually being dragged out of the “gay men only” silo they are stuck in. 

Toxic masculinity ruins everything. While I can buy vibrators at Sephora, and female intended sex toys are now aggressively marketed assuming I am the primary consumer, male recreational appliances have a ways to go. And it’s generally part and parcel of femdom subculture for me to be able to talk about using something on Silver without people acting like it’s weird. 

I’m enjoying it. One of the most common things I get asked to review, these days, has been the burgeoning male market, and it’s clear it’s a whole new ball game (snrk), with established manufacturers and new brands popping up every day. Between the new toys, and old toys getting more availability, the increasing presence of lingerie and more space to put his body in one’s metaphorical cross hairs, everyone’s sex lives will be better for it. Now to convince more dominants that they can use butt plugs or be masochists. 😛