By Gwen Graham
The moment I laid my eyes on The Snapper 2.0 by Terrible Toyshop, I knew I had to have it. I’m typically only interested in toys when they really stand out to me, and I had never seen anything like this. When I first saw it, I wasn’t even sure how this 3-D printed ray gun that looks straight out of Barbarella was a kink toy. When I discovered that it was a rubber band gun, it really appealed to me, as I’m someone who is constantly snapping a hair elastic against my wrist as a form of stimulation and anxiety relief. I saw a huge potential for self-impact, and I mean, just look at it—who wouldn’t want to have something that looks this fun in their collection?
The Snapper conveniently came with a baggy of rainbow rubber bands, a baggy of latex-free rubber bands, 18 replacement trigger return bands, and 24 pony beads. It took me a little bit to learn how to load it, but thankfully Terrible Toyshop provides a well-written, detailed user manual that labels all of its different parts and includes step-by-step instructions for all of the different ways you can use it. In a nutshell, to load it, you have to remove the slide, load up to eight rounds of rubber bands (with or without pony beads, depending on how sadistic you’re feeling), slide the magazine into the grip, and push the slide back onto the barrel. Then, you can shoot eight rubber bands before it needs to be reloaded again.
The Snapper 2.0 with the slide removed.
I was lucky enough to get to try out The Snapper with my partner, and I think the most fun element of playing with it for me was the anticipation that comes before you get hit with the rubber band. My partner would hold it over my skin for a long time before pulling the trigger, and not knowing when it would hit drove me absolutely crazy.
He started off by loading the magazine with the rainbow rubber bands, and on their own, they didn’t hurt much at all. I would compare the sensation to absentmindedly snapping your wrist with an elastic hair band—you get a little stimulation, but virtually no pain. The orange latex-free rubber bands were a bit less elastic and started to move into stingy pain territory.
The fun with this toy really kicks in when you use the rubber bands in tandem with pony beads. The combination of getting hit eight times with the latex-free rubber bands and pony beads left sweet little bruises on my flesh almost instantly, and I can still see them over a week later. Once you add pony beads into the mix, The Stinger is nothing to mess around with.
Each red welt shows where I got hit with a pony bead. Terrible Toyshop knows what they’re doing!
Knowing that this toy was 3-D printed made me slightly skeptical of how the quality would be, but ultimately I’m quite impressed with it. I’ve been using it here and there for over a month, and so far nothing has gotten jammed, and none of the rubber bands in the trigger return have snapped. Even if the trigger eventually ends up not returning smoothly, there is a section in the user manual the takes you through troubleshooting how to fix it.
What I love the most about this toy is how many creative ideas it inspires. It immediately makes me come up with a list of roleplay ideas: it brings to mind alien abductions, superheroes/villains, and shrink ray/miniaturization fantasies. It makes me want to dress up as an alien and take a sexy photoset while holding it. You could even keep it loaded for spontaneous and silly punishments.
Holding The Snapper 2.0 makes me feel like a sci-fi heroine, and I’m definitely here for it.
One of my only complaints with The Snapper 2.0 is that it takes a long time to set it up, and you can’t use it for long without reloading. Getting hit with it is so fun that eight rounds isn’t nearly enough, and it’s semi-automatic, so you can fire it fairly quickly. You also have to read the full user manual and make sure that the rubber bands are loaded correctly, but once you get the hang of it, you can cut down on your set up and reloading times. No matter what though, you’ll have to take frequent breaks while using this toy. I do think that one fully loaded magazine would be a fun warmup before using other toys, however.
As a whole, The Snapper 2.0 is a fun and novel piece that I’m happy to have in my toybox. I appreciate that you can change the level of pain depending on what combination of rubber bands you use, varying from no pain at all to the type of pain that quickly brings blood to the surface. I can also see this being a useful toy if you struggle with self-harm, because if you omit the pony beads, it likely won’t do any damage to your skin at all. It’s also great for mind fucking, as you can tease your partner about whether or not you’re actually going to pull the trigger. As long as you’re willing to spend a little time with the manual, this toy is simple to use, probably unlike anything else in your arsenal, and offers a world of sadistic possibilities.
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Huge thanks to the folks at Terrible Toyshop for sending The Snapper 2.0 for me to review! As always, all opinions are completely my own.
