Guest blog: Is this pump a sex toy or is it gender-affirming care?

Image from The Pleasure Garden

I’m so delighted to welcome this week’s guest blogger, who has been working behind the scenes to test out a kickass product from one of my site sponsors. The New York Toy Collective’s Trans Masc Pump is something that not many UK shops stock but Francesca, who runs the fabulous shop The Pleasure Garden, wanted to make sure that trans guys in the UK had access to some of the same gender expression products as our cousins over the pond. And to spread the word about it, we asked Erik – who wrote a fabulous guest blog here a while ago about sex in the time of fascism – to try out the pump and share his thoughts. I’m so grateful to him for giving such thoughtful insight – not just into how these pumps work, which will be really useful to those of you considering buying one, but also some more personal thoughts on the difference between sex toys and gender-affirming care.

Is this pump a sex toy or is it gender-affirming care?

Years ago now, but within the first year or so of realising that I’m not cis, when names and pronouns and everything still felt very up-in-the-air, I saw a striking drawing of a nude transmasc figure. As I remember it, the colours were warm, the pose was strong but not sexual, the chest had top-surgery scars and a little cock hung between his cunt lips.

(Important aside: trans people, like cis people, use or reject various words for their genitals. It’s a highly individual thing. And, like cis people, the same person might have different preferred or forbidden terms in different circumstances. This was a drawing of the artist’s original character that I never saw before or again, and I have no way to know what words to use/avoid here, so I’ve defaulted to the words I use for myself.)

I looked at that cock and thought ‘I want that.’ No, more like ‘I should have that.’ And that’s when and how I realised that I wanted to start taking testosterone.

I hasten to add that I like (or am at least neutral towards) everything else that testosterone has changed for me. But I’d be lying if I pretended that the incident that suddenly clarified this for me was something more wholesome like the prospect of more muscles or a fuzzy belly (as much as I delight in those things).

It was the sudden yet unwavering conviction that I should have a t-dick.

Gender-affirming healthcare

The New York Toy Collective’s Trans Masc Pump has given me my first opportunity to wonder if a sex toy can be gender-affirming healthcare.

I mean, many people would still class it as a sex toy. You get it from sex toy stores (like the amazing Pleasure Garden where mine came from), and it exists to make your genitals feel good. But it also provides temporary and potentially even permanent growth, so it’s helpful that the Pleasure Garden separates “gender expression” from the other “sex toy” categories – that’s where you’ll find the pump on their website.

Horny weirdo that I am, I have no problem buying sex toys, but I still resent that things I consider more “gender-affirming care” than “sex toys” so often have to come from sex-related websites/stores. It’s going to be a barrier for people who have more qualms about this than me, or less access to sex shops. It must be awful for a sex-repulsed asexual transmasc who wants a bigger or better or different experience with their dick for reasons that have nothing to do with sex! Especially as we have to live in this goofy world where the landscape of your genitals is so difficult to remove from sexual contexts already.

What exactly is a penis pump?

When I was younger, penis pumps were embarrassing, a punchline to show you how pathetic some unattractive, desperate guy could get. The received wisdom was that the most woefully insecure men would spend a lot of money on some complicated gadget that was not only unlikely to work but might cause hilarious injury in the process. A penis pump was one of many things I heard the occasional joke about in sitcoms that I never thought would have anything to do with me, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this.

But this pump is very simple and a lot like nipple/clit suckers I’ve tried (and liked!) in the past: there’s a clear plastic cylinder with an open end you press onto your crotch, the other end connects to a flexible tube that ends in the trigger. Previously I’d only had the kind of suckers that came with a buld you squeeze to let out air and create suction, or with a screw mechanism so you twist the top to get the suction at the bottom against your skin. I’ve been excited to try the NYTC pump for a couple of reasons: I still want a little more intensity than they offer, and I pretty quickly reach the limit of the suction that can be offered in something designed for a cis person’s clitoris. Plus, the big trigger mechanism looked more impressive and was very easy to use.

How do you use the New York Toy Collective pump?

The very first thing you have to do is attach the tube to the handle. The handle has a T-shaped trigger that you can pull with two fingers, one on either of the “arms” of the T-shape (it reminds me of how you might pull back a bow in archery, as if the stem of the T is the arrow held between your fingers, but my main experience of archery is Robin Hood movies so that may not be accurate!). This section stays attached so you only have to do this once. There’s a release valve on the handle, so it’s easy to reach with the hand you pull the trigger to pump with.

I got the Trans Masc Pump Deluxe, which comes with a choice of three sizes of cylinder so you can choose which of those to attach to the open end of the tube, opposite the handle. The smallest was about the size of my thumb, and the biggest is I think within the range of cocks I’ve seen on cis men.

(Unfortunately, as I’m assembling these parts, the quick-release button falls off. It’s a nice ergonomic button that’s only attached to its little lever by a teeny bit of plastic, and it just snapped off. I have a bit of blue tack over it now so that the point doesn’t scratch my fingers, so it doesn’t look great, but it’s fine, and most importantly it still works to release the suction when I press it.)

The box contained stickers that you could add to each of the three cylinders, to measure the length of each in both inches and centimetres, if you’d like to know in precise, loving detail exactly how long your cock gets. I’m not personally this much of a numbers guy, and I’ve generally been trying, and so far been able, to step into my transition without really strong ideas about specific outcomes: I don’t know how hairy I get or how bald I’ll go – I like to think that I’m pretty OK with whatever presents itself, and the same applies here. I’ve never been that bothered about length anyway: I’m delighted that the cylinders get wider as well as longer, so my preference for girth is so well represented in this pump!

So you choose your cylinder, and it just snaps on and off the end of the tube. Very easy to detach again for cleaning!

The cylinders are nice and wide, which does mean you should be careful when you’re putting it on your bits – while other clit-sucker type toys I’ve encountered are just a straight cylinder, these plastic cylinders have a flange at the bottom which I presume is there to allow for a better seal. That is important, but it does mean the rim of the cylinder protrudes into my labia and it’s easy to get skin pinched, which hurts in a not-fun way! Every body is different, but I am careful about how I adjust my labia and pubic mound and I have to keep my legs apart at least a little.

I think it’s a good idea to practice on a body part like your forearm or thigh before you use it on your genitals, it really helps to get used to what it feels like when you pull the trigger, and to practice releasing it by pushing the button for that valve.

I also find it helps to gently press down so that the cylinder is flat against my skin and there are no gaps for air to escape. Using lube on the rim of the cylinder as well as the inside keeps it from pinching and makes the seal better too.

The trigger is sensitive; especially at first I found that pulling it as little as I could still had a noticeable effect! I was careful before I tried pulling the trigger harder or faster. The pump is very responsive: pulling harder, faster, slower, and gentler all have exactly the effects that you think they will.

The pump loses pressure over time if I don’t go back and top it up with another little pull or two on the trigger. Which, again, can be fun in its own right – I enjoyed being really mindful about how the sensation changed for me – but there are times when it would be nice to not have to worry about that.

The cylinder has to stay attached to the hose and the handle the whole time that your genitals are under suction, which was kind of a disappointment for me. One thing I did like about the clit suckers was either being able to detach the pump bit or not having one in the first place, which made them less ungainly and more fun to just wear for a short while. Here, the pump was an ever-present weight dangling off me as I moved around. Not inherently a bad feeling in itself, but certainly a feeling that was difficult to ignore.

What does the New York Toy Collective Trans Masc pump feel like?

The smallest tube feels amazing at the slightest pump at first. The pressure the trigger gives was really exciting.

After my first session, my cock feels about as big as it did with the ordinary clit sucker (which makes sense because this smallest tube is about the same size), but there is one key difference. To me it feels more… there’s no other word for this… hard? stiff? It feels like it has a shaft. Perhaps with this pump, more blood has been drawn to the erectile tissue in the area?

My first thought was that it feels like good oral sex – getting my dick sucked I guess. It feels nice in itself as a sex toy. The suction slowly dissipates over time which leads to the fun opportunity to re-do it.

So is this a sex toy or is it gender-affirming care? To me, it does sometimes feel more like a gender-affirming thing and sometimes more like a sex toy thing. Obviously it’s not as if these two don’t overlap! Especially for someone like me who finds has always found that clinical/detached vibe to be kinda hot. While I’ve been content not using it with a partner so far, I would like to: I wonder what someone would think of it, how they would describe the change it makes, or what kind of reaction they’d have…

Using it alone doesn’t diminish its usefulness to me or how glad I am to have it. Because I want my changing relationship with my body to be one that I’m as comfortable with as possible, I kind of like that we’ve had this time to spend getting to know each other, me and my dick.

After I take the pump off, feeling my dick more prominently between my cunt lips feels good. In a sexy way of course – all that delightful friction – but also in the way that my facial hair feels good or my deeper voice resonating in my body feels good.

It’s like when you hear an alarm that has been going off in the background for so long you don’t even really notice it any more, but then it stops and you suddenly feel so much better: happier, more functional, more capable.

 

 

Buy the New York Toy Collective Trans Masc Deluxe Pump for £52.99 from The Pleasure Garden. Use the code GOTN10 for 10% off anything on the site.

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