The A to Z of Sex Toys

The A to Z of sex toys
Sex toys are a fun and safe way to bring excitement and pleasure into your life. Funtimz stocks a huge range of sensational toys which are each designed to heighten your pleasure such as the Rabbit range of vibrators and dildos, clitoral stimulators and toys for him.

Also popular are our range of realistic cocks, for safe sex and pleasure every time! We also carry an exciting range of other toys for him and her such as cock rings, some of which also vibrate for heightened pleasure; anal butt plugs; anal beads including our sensational Thai Jelly Beads; whips and much, much more!

And for those of you discovering the joy of sex toys for the first time,this article is designed to tell you which sex toys do what and what effect they should achieve so that you can make an informed choice when buying your next exciting sex toy with Funtimz.

It is worth bearing in mind, though, that pleasure is a very personal thing and there are not really any set rules on how to use a sex toy. Whatever feels good to you is just fine. The information here is just a guide.

Anal Beads:
Also known as love beads or thai beads - anal beads are an anal toy that look like a string of beads. They are inserted into the anus and slowly pulled out during climax to increase the pleasure of orgasm. Tip: Check out our Pure Butt Plug Vibe!

Butt Plugs:
Butt plugs are anal toys. These phallic-shaped objects are used to penetrate the anus. Some vibrate and others do not. Tip: Check out our expanding and vibrating butt plug!

Chocolate Body Paint:
A fun form of sexual food play. The edible chocolate body paint is smeared or brushed onto your lover’s body and slowly licked off. A very sensual toy! Tip: Check out our chocolate body paint which comes with a brush.

Clit Stimulators:
Clit stimulators are devices for stimulating the clitoris - if you can find it! Some clit stimulators are worn, such as the butterfly that is strapped into place and allowed to vibrate. Lust fingers are also worn. Lust fingers are a knobbly sheath for the finger that you use to massage the clit. Tip: Check out our clit stick, it looks like a lipstick and can be taken anywhere for pleasure on the move!

Other Vibrators can be used as clit stimulators, for example the Bathtime Bunny.

Cock Rings:
Cock rings are designed to go around the cock and/or testicles to restrict the blood flow to the penis to maintain a hard erection that lasts longer than it would normally. Cock rings come in an assortment of styles. There is the traditional type, that is, a ring made of rubber; adjustable rings, that have a drawstring-like mechanism and adjust to fit any size of cock and can be tightened as the need arises; or cock rings that are more elaborate and kinky. Funtimz also stock vibrating cock rings. These are small vibrators that are worn on the cock and vibrate causing a nice sensation for the wearer and have the benefit of stimulating the woman's clitoris during some intercourse positions. TIP: Check out our ‘Aqua Silk Cock Ring’ silicone cock ring with its removable bullet - it will give you a hard-on like never before. (Requires 2 AA batteries which Funtimz will supply for you free of charge).

Dildos:
Dildos are phallic-shaped objects used to penetrate the vagina and/or the anus and can be used by both men and women. Some dildos are cock-like, with veins and testicles, whilst others are not. Unlike vibrators, dildos do not vibrate.

Double-ended dildos:
Double-ended dildos are a bit like two dildos joined in the middle. This is so that they can be used by two people at the same time. However, you don't have to share if you’re feeling greedy. TIP: Check out our Maxine Double Dildo!

Dressing Up:
Dressing up for your lover can be very exciting whether it be a school girl, nurse or dominatrix - or something more discreet such as non-piercing nipple rings. Funtimz stock a range of exciting costumes and uniforms from maids, nurses and serving wenches, to policewomen, pussycats and even Mother Christmas!

Eggs:
Eggs are small balls that can be inserted into the vagina. Non-vibrating eggs usually come in pairs and are worn inside the vagina. The wearer will feel them moving whilst going about their daily business. Feeling the eggs inside arouses the wearer in preparation for other sexual activities. Vibrating eggs or bullets can be used in a similar way. If they are remotely controlled, they are great fun to wear on a night out - get your partner to control the vibrations of the egg. They can also be used during sex and they can be used to vibrate and stimulate other parts of the body too. TIP: Check out our vibrating eggs.

Handcuffs:
A traditional form of restraint. Used carefully, handcuffs can be great fun and very sexy. During sexual play, bodies swell and this needs to be taken into account when tying someone up so as not to cut off their blood circulation. Funtimz stock a range of handcuffs all designed for sex play from the plain cuffs to our range of plush cuffs in various colours, including Tiger Synthetic Fur.

Love Swing:
Now everyone can be a swinger! The love swing is a luxury for kinky love-making! Sex swings are a harness-like device that is suspended from the ceiling. Once comfortably sat in the harness, you can swing and bounce around. As well as being a fun way to perform sexual acts, Love Swings make all of the Karma Sutra positions easy and possible for everyone to achieve! TIP: Click on to this link to check out our love swings!

Lubrication Gel:
Lubrication Gel or Lube is, as the name suggests, used for lubrication and can also be used as a gel for massage. TIP: Check out our range of flavoured lubes!

Sex Enhancement Creams:
These creams can be used by both men and women. Creams for men can help with gaining and maintaining an erection or preventing premature ejaculation, whilst creams for women can help achieve orgasm. TIP: Check out our range of sex enhancement creams.

Strap-ons:
Strap-ons such as peni-panties can be used by women especially to penetrate someone else with or penetrate themselves with or both! Some strap-ons vibrate and others don't. They can be used vaginally or anally and can be worn by both men and women. If worn by a man, he can perform double penetration on a woman. TIP: Check out our Alexa Universal Harness or our double pleasure latex briefs!

Vibrators:
Vibrators are phallic-shaped toys that have the ability to vibrate in order to heighten pleasure and achieve orgasm. They can be used by both women and men and can be inserted into the anus or vagina to give a satisfying sensation. Vibrators can also be used to stimulate other parts of the body - the nipples, clitoris or scrotum. Vibrators are traditionally made of hard plastic, although there are variations on these such as those with ridges or ripples to make them feel more like the real thing. These tend to be made out of softer materials.

Toys made from a jelly material seem to be a favourite with the ladies because of its softness that has a nice feel to it. The clitoral stimulating vibrators have an attachment at the base of the shaft which brushes against the clitoris and vibrates. This is desirable as only a small percentage of women can climax from penetration alone. The clitoral attachment can also be turned so that it becomes an anus tickler for a change of sensation. A well-known example of these types of vibrator are the 'rabbit' type. TIP: Check out our Silent Spur Pink Rabbit.

People have almost certainly been using erotic devices from the beginning of time. Dildos (shaped like a penis) have been discovered in Upper Paleolithic art which was created more than 30,000 years ago. These depictions leave no doubt whatsoever as to what their subject matter was intended to do. Pleasuring oneself or another with such an object was obviously a no-brainer as it predates even the invention of the wheel!

While historians cannot know who invented the dildo more than 30,000 years ago, the world probably owes its popularity to the ancient Greek port city, Miletus, on the west coast of present-day Turkey. Miletan traders sold what the Greeks called olisbos around the Mediterranean.

Today's dildos are often enjoyed by couples, but in ancient Greece, they were sexual refuges for lonely ladies. A Greek literary fragment from the third century BC tells the story of a young woman named Metro, whose husband is away. She visits a friend, Coritto, to borrow her olisbo, only to learn that Coritto has lent it to another lonely maiden. Metro departs crestfallen.

In Renaissance Italy, olisbo became "dildo" probably from the Italian diletto, to delight. But compared with today's life-like dildo models, early dildos were hardly delightful. Made of wood or leather, they required liberal lubrication with olive oil for comfortable use. Modem rubber dildos did not appear until the mid-19th century.

Dildos have always had a purely sexual purpose, but vibrators are another story. For most of their history, they have been ‘camouflaged’, their sexual purpose hidden behind a medical use in ‘massage therapy,’ which, to some extent, is still the case. The first vibrators were developed 130 years ago to treat an illness called ‘female hysteria’! Hysteria, from the Greek for suffering uterus, involved anxiety, irritability, sexual fantasies, pelvic heaviness and excessive vaginal lubrication, in other words, sexual arousal during the Victorian era, when women were not considered sexual beings.

Doctors treated hysteria by massaging sufferers' vaginal lips until they experienced relief through ‘paroxysm’ (orgasm). Today, of course, doctors doing that would be hauled up before the General Medical Council and struck off! During the 1860s, health spas offered higher-tech alternatives to manual therapy, massage with water jets, and steam-powered vibrating devices.

When electricity became widely available in the late 19th century, the first electric vibrators appeared, still disguised as ‘therapy for hysteria’ and sold only to doctors. But as the years passed, magazine advertisements began offering vibrators to women for self- treatment of hysteria at home. The 1918 Sears Roebuck catalogue touted one vibrator as a ‘very satisfactory...aid every woman appreciates.’ And an advertisement in a 1921 issue of another magazine urged men to buy the devices for their wives as Christmas gifts to keep them ‘young and pretty’ and free from the scourge of hysteria.

Today, Funtimz offers beautiful lingerie, fetish and clubwear to keep women feeling sexy, not just for their men, but because women of all shapes and sizes deserve to feel sexy and confident about themselves and their own sexuality.

During the 1920s, early ‘blue’ movies showed women using the devices not for their disguised purpose but for blatant sexual stimulation! Early pornography stripped vibrators of their social camouflage (even though nobody ever owned up to watching porn) and, by 1930, they were no longer openly advertised. These days, of course, vibrators are popular sexual aids sold openly for sexual purposes.

Everything you wanted to know about lubes, but were afraid to ask...

So, How much do you know about lubes?
Do you know about their uses, the health implications surrounding them, which lubes are best and where to buy them? Well, let's answer the last question first. You can buy fabulous JO branded lubes in several delicious flavours from Funtimz.

Usage
The primary use of lube is to lubricate an orifice before penetration, usually because said orifice doesn't lubricate itself, as in the case of anal sex where the anal passage lacks lubricating glands. The vagina may also need assistance from a lubricating product and, for lovers of oral sex, using flavoured lubes makes the whole experience even more enjoyable. The vagina does normally self-lubricate, the vaginal walls excreting a lubricating fluid when the woman becomes aroused. However, as you may expect from the more complicated sex, the natural juicing-up process doesn't always work!

Some causes for this include:-
- Aging - particularly during and after the menopause
- An infection or cyst in the vagina
- Hormonal deficiency
- Birth control pills
- Anxiety
- Moodiness
- Tiredness
- Guilt
- Not wanting sex
- Not finding the other partner sexually attractive. Whilst a lube can help with most of these problems, for the last one - a paper bag is the only answer!

Application of the lube may be incorporated into foreplay and it doesn't really matter if it goes everywhere because its actually pleasurable to have the genitals massaged with lubricant. So, girls, if you like performing oral sex on him, ID brand flavoured lubes will enhance the experience. In fact, all-over body massages are more enjoyable with lube - just rub the lube into your hands for a while to warm it before rubbing it into your partner’s skin.

So, which lube should you buy?
Obstetricians and gynaecologists recommend a water-based personal lubricant such as ID or JO System brand lubes, which come in several delicious flavours and are available from Funtimz.

Things to be aware of when using lubricants:
Only buy reputable water-based brands such as ID Brand or JO Systems brand.
Lubricants are not a form of contraceptive, even if the box says it contains spermicide.

Petroleum jelly can be used as a lube. However, it may coat the vaginal walls and mask the early symptoms of an infection.

Oil perishes rubber. Therefore, an oil-based lube may cause your condom to split.

When practising anal sex wearing a condom, please note that lashings of lube are more important than extra thick condoms. The lube will ease movement so that the condom doesn't split.

Another point on anal sex - it's always best to wear a condom, but if you don’t and you intend to practise vaginal and anal sex, always have vaginal sex first so that the vagina is not contaminated with bacteria from the anal passage.