KamaSutronics

I did something rude recently.

A woman posted on her blog about a particular sex toy. She loved it. She shared her experiences, and her excitement, and she shared it in a way that was both personal and universal, inviting her readers to participate vicariously in her experience.

So here’s me. I know this particular sex toy. I know it inside and out. I bought my first one in 2004. I have used older models and newer models, normal models and more powerful models. I have experimented with this sex toy on perhaps thirty different women, and I’ve used it with my girlfriend over and over for about five years. I have opened it up and tinkered with its mechanisms. I have modulated its power supply to create computer-programmed sequences. I have used many different attachments over the years, of varying shapes and materials. I have used this toy in conjunction with fucking machines, suction devices, electricity, heat and cold and more, and I understand how its sensations interact, muted by some, heightened by others.

So here are these two different people, both writing from a place that is genuine. One writes to discover and share, the other writes to educate. Both want to make the world a little better by helping people understand sex toys.

I commented on her blog. I had some knowledge I thought she (and others) might find useful. In retrospect, I see that my approach clashes with hers. To some degree, I can’t even see how a useful dialogue could strike up between us. I could tell her 250 different tricks and techniques to upgrade this toy, but the transmission of knowledge is unidirectional, and for me to walk up to a woman on her voyage of discovery and offer, unbidden, to share my secrets, is condescending. There’s more than a whiff of patriarchy about it.

And yet I _do_ have this knowledge, and I _do_ have this experience. I wasted thousands of dollars on bad toys, when I was getting started, and I began this blog in part to steer people away from mistakes that are easy to make. I wanted to steer people away from the $500 piece of beautiful junk and towards the $50 innovative masterpiece.

When I was updating this blog frequently, I sought out the community of sex-toy bloggers, but I never managed to form connections within that community. I thought, at the time, that had a lot to do with my focus on the kind of sex toys that are prohibitively expensive and aesthetically edgy — fucking machines, e-stim, pulsating suction, and so on. Now I’m wondering if the excitement within that community comes from the joy of making discoveries, discoveries about oneself and about technology. I’m wondering if my share-the-knowledge approach shuts down that excitement.

Is it possible for my approach to interact with the approaches of other sex toy bloggers in a positive, productive manner? Can expertise interact with discovery without diminishing the discovery?

I would like to hear any advice, suggestions, or insights. Bring ‘em on.