It’s funny. I’ve noticed that Wired News editors often use “dildo” when they want to refer to a generic sex toy, like in this recent headline Chaste Home, Alabama, Where You Can’t Buy a Dildo, and like the Editor-in-Chief’s request last year that I not do any “dildo reviews” in the column.
But I don’t think of dildos very often. Not because I don’t like them, but because I don’t think of them as particularly techie — you can use a cucumber or a smooth piece of driftwood for the same purpose. When I want a generic example of a sex toy, I tend to think of devices that move, whether it’s a vibrator or a machine or a pogo stick. If a dildo is involved at all, it’s just the attachment, the accessory, even the afterthought.
And then I started to wonder. Is this a male/female thing? Do men think “dildo” right away because it’s the thing that most resembles them? And do women think “something that moves” because that’s what gets us going?
10 responses so far ↓
1 hitch // Oct 16, 2007 at 7:15 pm
as a man I have this to say: I think of the *word* “dildo” when I think “generic sex toy”, but when it actually comes to thinking about *actual* toys my first thought is probably going to be a vibrator or moving toy. That said, for people who are fairly new to the world of sex toys, there’s a very fine distinction between the two.
2 oliver // Oct 16, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I don’t think of sex toys as dildo’s — i never really like the word, although i’m not sure why — i tend to use vibrator to mean generic toy, even for non-vibrating toys
Curiously i realise the there are plenty of *names* for toys i’m not comfortable with, even though i am comfortable with, or even enjoy said toys — for example i dislike “butt plug” as a name, as it seems too crass, or to a lesser extent “strap on”, for a similar reason…
3 Peregrine // Oct 17, 2007 at 5:39 am
Dildo is a town in Newfoundland. Not to be confused with Shag Harbour, which is actually in Nova Scotia.
Seriously, though, as a generic term, we might be ’stuck’ with it, being one of the simplest and probably earliest sex toys.
Also, while I’m sure there are plenty of men who use sex toys, the majority of men are more likely to get buy with manual stimulation the majority of the time. That’s how we learned to do it, and probably many men just sort of stick with what works, and either don’t want, or never bothered to explore beyond that.
Maybe that’s a societal thing, or a social stigma, or just whatever happens to be available at the time, or some combination of all of these factors. But the idea of a “sex toy” has become something of a “woman’s thing” in the collective unconscious of the general public. Therefore, the generic catch-all becomes whatever’s available for her, while the accessories available for him are just fringe luxuries.
I could go on. I’ve got enough opinions to go around. But I should leave some for everyone else.
4 Xylitol // Oct 17, 2007 at 6:20 am
I am a guy and usually use “Vibrator”. I have no idea why and it’s pretty much just as inaccurate. In “less polite” company (i.e. among people who don’t blush and shut up if you use normal adult language) I usually say “sex toy” or “toy” if the context is obvious.
Guys using the term “Dildo” might be a leftover from days gone by when it was really the primary toy used by guys on themselves. It still might be for all I know I suppose, but when that was roughly the size of the toy market for guys not intending to use them on or with a woman. Obviously a vibrator can be used in the same sense, but with much less “added value” then for a woman. Could also be a leftover of the old thinking that penetration is the primary way women get off rather then more of an optional extra as the case seems to be in an awful lot of cases. If that would have been the case, a dildo would be the base sex toy and though I think most guys (at least those I see around) have understood that’s not how it is, perhaps word use lingers.
5 Calichef // Oct 17, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I’m famale. I tend to use the word “vibrator” when I want a generic term. I use it because I’m very interested in words– that is, how they sound, how they feel in the mouth when spoken and even how they look as a form or shape. The word “vibrator” flows, it rolls off the tongue in a much more fluid, elegant way than the comparitively awkward, if not outright ugly, word “dildo.”
Not only that, but dildoes have a bit of a negative connotation (to me) and vibrators do not. Dildoes reek of desperation, vibrators signify pleasure.
Of course, it could be the era in which I grew up. It was common when I was in high school for boorish kids to call geeky kids “dildo.” Thankfully, this was reserved for geeky boys. I would have been mortified to have been called a dildo.
6 Calichef // Oct 17, 2007 at 1:03 pm
OMG, I’m actually FEmale, not famale. Sheesh! Sorry.
7 pyrite // Oct 17, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I think of the term “Dildo” as totally unimaginative and would apply it to anyone of either gender who stands around with their thumb in one orifice or another without much creativity demonstrated in any form.
Now a sex toy is anything that requires creative application to assist with the application of imagination.
8 MarygraceNYC // Oct 18, 2007 at 7:15 am
Dildo to me is something that looks like a cock whether it vibrates or not, is purple, pink, blue, made of glass or whatever. Toys or sex toys are anything having to do with sex.
9 psyche.etoile // Oct 18, 2007 at 10:51 am
Collectively, i call them “toys” with a suggestively raised eyebrow
otherwise, I refer to pretty much everything by a “given” name. The eroscillator is named Voltron (plugs in the wall). The rocket is named Ruth (after Ruth Buzzie the comedienne) There’s a dildo named Big Ben (purchased after trip to London), and finally, Grimace (he’s purple)
The only reason those are named is because those are the ones that I use with my partner, and so i ask for them by name. The other things i use don’t have names, because I play with them by myself.
We have LOTS of euphemisms for sexual things. “French Toast” means having sex. “I got you a present” means I shaved my bits. “ooh, hey, remind me I have to call Ruth when i get home” means this party’s boring let’s go home and fuk.
Does everyone do this?
10 woodstockdc // Oct 29, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Dildos don’t seem to rate the designator “toy” to me: they’re just dumb in the simplest definition of the term. I confess that when I think of “toys” I tend to think of any toy, moving or not.
And yes, we do that at my house too only it’s “We volunteered to make the coffee cake for brunch tomorrow, didn’t we?”