I am a bit of a sex toy nerd. I am certainly not as knowledgeable as any of the (many) bloggers I follow on Twitter, nor have I experienced as many toys as they have. What I do have, however, is an obsessive tendency to follow every small maker of dildos I can find, as well as the people who write about them. I also enter every contest for sex toys that I see, and that’s how I ended up as the proud new owner of a beautiful dildo by JoyFlex
The contest was run by Liz Elliot (@Space_Dame on Twitter) as part of a Strap Up Saturday event, for which I submitted a picture of myself with my favorite dildo (the Vixskin Buck) in my cheap but effective harness. By some stroke of luck, I managed to pull it off and got to pick one of the toys by the small company JoyFlex out of Finland. I went with the Ridgeback because it was the most different from any of the toys I already had and also because I have been looking (longingly) at fantasy-style dildos for a while now and haven’t had the money to actually buy one.
This toy is beautiful, and the first thing I noticed (okay, second, after the aforementioned beauty) when I opened the package was how SUPER squishy it is. They have several firmnesses to choose from, and the one I received was “medium” (on a scale of “super soft”, “soft”, “medium”, and “hard”). I honestly love just squeezing this in my hand, to the point where I kinda want a smaller one, just to use it as a stress toy. Also, the color is absolutely lovely! It’s a good deep red with a bit of swirl to it, making it probably the prettiest dildo that I own. When I chose this toy, they had mentioned that the trimming of it isn’t ideal which kind of makes this a seconds piece, but to me it neither matters nor is particularly noticeable; I still love it.
The first time I tried the Ridgeback was in the shower, and while I don’t normally jerk off in the shower, something about it just struck me as something I really wanted to do, possibly eagerness, as I had to shower anyway and didn’t want to wait to try it. I brought with me a jar of The Butter’s lube and my WeVibe Tango. The variation in texture and width of this toy make it really nice for good, long strokes. I usually need lots of g-spot stimulation, and the ridges on this toy bring it in spades. When it comes to the knot, I can just barely get it in, though more due to the length of the toy itself than its girth. I recently have been thinking about what makes a textured toy “good,” and I think this dildo does it right. In order for a highly-textured toy to be really pleasurable, I find that it needs to be a softer silicone, because if not it can start to feel abrasive pretty quickly, even with a lot of lube. My shower experience was very enjoyable, and I have been using this toy relatively often ever since.
The one gripe I have with the toy being so soft is the handling of it. It is very narrow at the base and then flares to a large end, so while the grip is not bad because of that, the soft silicone makes handling difficult, as the thinner parts can bend easily, especially if you’re getting really into it and trying to thrust aggressively. Also, I can’t ride on top of it like I sometimes enjoy doing, as there is no suction cup and it won’t stay up straight enough to do so. Still, despite the more difficult handling on this, I really love using this toy, and the soft texture of the ridges really make up for any corresponding difficulty.
Based on my experience with this toy, I would very much recommend it to anyone looking for a fantasy-style dildo at an affordable price. Last I checked, this was available for only $46 USD. The texture is super nice (in “medium,” at least) and the size is not bad, with 6″ of usable length and varied widths, 2″ being the thickest at the knot. JoyFlex will also make it in any of the colors or firmnesses that they have available; they are super sweet and very easy to work with! They make a bunch of other very cool looking toys, many of which I hope to try out in the future, so check them out.
Thanks so much to Liz and to JoyFlex, as well as to you for reading my very amateur toy review!
Lexi
