Women & Sex

Best Life’s relationship guinea pig test-drives the latest suburban sex toy

By: T. Edward Nickens; Illustrations: QuickHoney
Published: October 2007   [ Updated: Apr 9, 2009 - 5:58:33 PM ]

My wife and I have a lifestyle that would suck the sizzle out of Caligula: two jobs, two kids, no nearby parents to give us a night off, and a dog that licks our feet whenever we do wind up wound around each other. And the sex toy I’m talking about is as nonthreatening a device as you can imagine. There are no batteries required, no need to stress-test the wall studs behind your headboard. It’s a pillow. But it’s a pillow with a purpose, and sleep ain’t it.

When I asked two of my best friends to introduce a sex toy into their marriage—for the purpose of journalistic research, of course—I was met with different versions of the same answer.

Dan took one wary look at the big cardboard box. “I don’t know,” he stammered. “Maybe if I slipped it into the bedroom along with a pair of airline tickets.”

Matt was less equivocal. “Pass,” he said. “Haven’t I told you that I’m scared of my wife?”

“Come on, guys,” I implored. “For crying out loud, you can buy these things at Walgreens.”

Nothing doing. So now I have all three boxes in my bedroom closet. And I’m a very happy man.

Don’t misunderstand my interest in sex toys. I don’t want to rewrite the Kama Sutra. It’s just that I—no, we—wanted to scratch a little 15-year marital itch without leaving the house. My wife and I have a lifestyle that would suck the sizzle out of Caligula: two jobs, two kids, no nearby parents to give us a night off, and a dog that licks our feet whenever we do wind up wound around each other. And the sex toy I’m talking about is as nonthreatening a device as you can imagine. There are no batteries required, no need to stress-test the wall studs behind your headboard. It’s a pillow. But it’s a pillow with a purpose, and sleep ain’t it.