Imagine you work at a sex toy shop. The doorbell dings and you look up from your place behind the counter to see a woman walk in. When you ask her if she needs help finding anything, she says excitedly, “I’m looking for a vibrator, but I don’t want to spend more than $20.”
This is a pretty common situation. In their 10 years of working at Babeland, a popular sex toy shop in New York and Seattle, Elise Shuster, M.P.H., frequently saw customers walk in determined to get a vibrator, but reluctant to spend what it often costs to get a really good-quality sex toy. There are lots of reasons folks might not want to spend major money on a sex toy (or any other kind of toy for that matter), but one culprit might be the pretty pervasive view that sexual pleasure is a frivolous indulgence. “We often don’t value our pleasure monetarily the same way we value other things,” Shuster, who is now the founder of the sexual wellness app OkaySo, tells SELF. “There’s so much work we need to do around helping people feel like their pleasure and desire is wonderful and worthy of attention.”
A lot of this is rooted in shame, Nickey Robo, a sex educator and employee at Smitten Kitten in Minnesota, tells SELF. If you’re taught to approach your pleasure as an embarrassing personality attribute, spending money on it might seem downright unreasonable. This is why, at Smitten Kitten, employees try to help customers “feel like their bodies and their pleasure are worth being spoiled,” Robo says.
Below, we’ve laid out the argument for investing in your pleasure by way of a more expensive toy. While spending a little more doesn’t always get you better quality, a little more money generally does equal more value (and more pleasure) when it comes to sex toys.
First, though, a disclaimer: The coronavirus pandemic is forcing us to navigate an economic crisis, and, let’s face it, a sex toy isn’t exactly at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. While self-care and joy are especially worthwhile pursuits at this moment, they don’t have to involve spending money or “treating yourself.” There are a lot of inexpensive ways to find a release right now.
If you don’t have extra cash to drop on an expensive vibrator right now, that doesn’t mean you’re automatically exempt from finding a great sex toy if that’s what you’re after. There are some much-loved options on the less expensive side, like the Satisfyer Number One ($20, Satisfyer). And, even if you have the funds to spend more money, you might still be figuring out which sex toys work best for you. For instance, if you’re just beginning to explore your sexual pleasure, you don’t want to dive right in with a Le Wand Massager ($170, Le Wand) if it turns out that your body is too sensitive to handle the extreme power wand toys are known for.
“The great thing is that you’re almost always going to be able to find something a little bit lower priced that’s similar in shape to the more expensive toys,” Lisa Finn, sex educator and brand manager for Babeland, tells SELF. So if you’re new to toys or are looking to try something different, starting in the lower range can make a ton of sense. Then, when you figure out if that type of toy works for you, you can upgrade to something more expensive with a similar size and shape.
If you know what you want and investing in a sex toy makes sense for you right now, keep reading to see why it can be such an excellent decision.
1. Expensive sex toys might open you up to a wider range of sensations.
In the world of sex toys, there are two types of vibrations: rumbly and buzzy. “Generally, most people prefer rumbly because rumbly gives you a deeper vibration,” Robo says. Buzzy toys give a surface-level sensation, with the vibration sitting on top of whichever tissue you place it on. Rumbly vibrations, however, travel deeper into the tissue, so if you have a vulva, you’ll feel it not only on the external clitoris but also throughout the whole wishbone-shaped nerve bundle underneath. While you can find some cheaper toys with a rumbly vibration, rumbly toys—like b-Vibe’s vibrating snug plug ($100, b-Vibe)—most often come at a higher price tag.
More expensive toys also tend to have more oomph when it comes to the power of the vibrations, even at their lowest settings. Finn actually steers sex toy newbies clear of expensive toys at first, in part because cheaper toys start at much lower power. The high-powered (or faster) vibrations of better quality toys can actually be shocking for someone new to toys, but once they get used to vibration, more power tends to be better.
2. They also usually have better designs.
Design encompasses the shape of toys, the textures, the placement and creation of the motor, and much more. Really good design thinks carefully about how people will be using the toy and creates features that make those uses easier. For example, Robo says people celebrate Fun Factory toys for their easy-to-hold handles.
While it’s true that you can find cheaper versions of most expensive sex toys, the amount of effort put into the design often makes a huge difference in how well the toy works. Take rabbit vibrators as an example. Rabbits are a popular type of sex toy (thanks, in large part, to a very famous episode of Sex and the City), so there are lots of versions at different price points. But the design of these toys varies wildly—so much so that the experience you have with one rabbit could be totally different from the experience you have with another.
Some rabbits are made of hard plastic with an inflexible external arm (the rabbit portion), which means you might only get off if your vagina and your clitoris line up with the toy exactly. If not, your clit could lose contact with the vibrations as you use the rabbit internally. Rabbits with this design tend to be the cheaper versions. Yet sex toy designers who create more expensive rabbits have learned that flexibility is key to making these toys as incredible as Sex and the City made them out to be. Rabbits like We-Vibe’s Nova ($149, We-Vibe), Lelo’s Ina Wave ($240, Babeland), and Happy Rabbit ($74, LoveHoney) have flexible internal arms, flexible external arms, or both, so that your clit runs less risk of losing contact.
3. It will likely contain better and safer materials.
Any sex toy you buy at a reputable sex shop like Babeland or Smitten Kitten should be body safe (a term used to describe toys made from materials that are known not to cause harm, provided you clean and care for them correctly), but not all sex toys contain body-safe materials or materials that will stay body safe.
For example, you’ll often find cheaper toys contain something called jelly rubber. Certain jelly rubbers are “body safe,” Finn says, pointedly using air quotes to indicate that not all jelly rubbers fall under this category. But jelly rubber is porous, which means it can, and most likely will, start to harbor bacteria over time. “If it begins to change color or hold a smell, you have to get rid of it because it’s no longer body safe,” Finn says. This doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to get something like a vaginal infection if you use a porous sex toy that’s harboring bacteria, but it can theoretically increase your risk if all the stars align perfectly (especially if you’re not cleaning the toy), SELF previously reported.
With more expensive sex toys, you’ll find materials like pure silicone (sometimes medical grade), hard metals like platinum, and glass—none of which are porous and, therefore, less likely to harbor bacteria (though you should still clean them regularly).
Some less expensive toys are actually also made out of nonporous materials, like ABS plastic. This material is generally considered body safe, “but there’s nothing dampening the vibrations,” Robo says, and dampening is important for creating a better-quality vibration. “A lot of the more expensive toys are encased in some layer of silicone, and the quality of silicone varies the more expensive the toy is,” Robo says. This layering, which leads to dampening, helps in making a toy’s vibrations more rumbly and therefore more intense.
4. Expensive toys can save you money in the long run.
A warranty might not be the sexiest thing to think about when it comes to your sex toys, but having a long warranty protects you and your money. While a $20 toy is cheaper upfront, it can easily become more expensive in the long run. “If you buy a $15 toy, and it has a 30-day warranty and breaks after two months, you have to go back and buy a new one,” Finn says. “If you get a vibrator that has a two-year warranty and it breaks after two months, you can trade it in for another one. If that happens five times over two years, it doesn’t matter.”
And if you use your vibrators often it’s almost a certainty that your $20 toy will break, sending you back to the store (and potentially adding more plastic to landfills, Finn points out).
5. You probably won’t need to replace batteries.
Another thing that will save you money in the long run: not having to replace batteries all the time. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an expensive sex toy that uses batteries—they’re nearly all rechargeable now. Less expensive toys can also be rechargeable, but many still run on batteries, which add up over time as you have to replace them again and again (plus, it’s a real bummer when the batteries in your toy die suddenly while you’re using it).
6. It will probably have other cool features.
For those who like the idea of using their vibrator during a long, luxurious bath, more expensive toys offer vastly better waterproofing. There’s usually just one small silicone piece protecting the motors on cheaper waterproof toys, Finn says. But more expensive toys have mechanisms protecting both their motors and wiring from water. Toys like the Crave Vesper ($69, Crave) are standouts for splash-proof and waterproof play, Finn says.
App connection is another great feature you’ll get with many of the more expensive toys these days. “You can have a partner control them from far away,” Robo says, adding that some sex toy apps allow you to create your own vibration patterns.
7. Your pleasure is worth it.
More power, deeper vibrations, safer materials, and a vibrator that probably won’t break within a year. Those all sound like great reasons to consider an investment vibe to us. But more importantly, choosing a pricier vibrator if you can is also an investment in your sexual pleasure. “Which one is going to last you five years?” Finn says. “Which one is going to be as good the 1,500th time as it was the first?”
Society generally teaches us that sex is shameful—something to be hidden. But your pleasure is worthwhile, and it’s worth the splurge.
Related:
You Need to Clean Your Sex Toys—Here’s How
11 Sex Tips for Anyone Who Wants to Explore Strap-On Play
Hear Me Out—Buy a Backup of Your Favorite Vibrator