Earlier this year, we wrote about the Glov, a bionic hand device to assist in female masturbation. While we were somewhat skeptical about the Glov’s design (I believe we compared using it to masturbating with RoboCop’s severed hand), it’s basically an Apple product compared to the Handie, a male sex toy crowdfunding on Indiegogo marketing itself as “the world’s first all-in-one finishing tool for men.” Like the Glov, the Handie also somewhat resembles RoboCop’s severed hand, had his mother taken non-FDA-approved fertility drugs in the 1950s:
Created by adult film producer Maxx Padilla, the Handie is basically a silicon glove that conforms to your grip while you’re masturbating, becoming firmer or softer according to how much pressure you exert. The device is intended as a corrective to “one-size fits all” male masturbation sleeves and tubes like the Fleshlight, which Padilla says men regularly complain about on product review websites.
“The biggest problem men have with [masturbation sleeves] was cleaning them. Cleaning these products is disgusting and messy and it’s a hassle,” Padilla told the Daily Dot. “The other problems were the one-size-fits-all hold, and the third problem was chafing. Guys were saying they had to lube the heck out of this thing to get in there.”
To solve these problems, Padilla supplied the Handie with a built-in self-lubrication chamber that dispenses lube into the glove, so if you’re starting to feel a little too much friction, you don’t have to run to your desk and rummage around for your bottle of KY. He also added an “easy-to-clean catcher unit,” which is basically exactly what it sounds like: A small receptacle between the Handie’s thumb and forefinger, that allows you to “quickly dispose of those little swimmers” by turning it inside out and pouring the contents into the toilet.
“It’s basically an all-in-one,” Padilla says. “It not only solves the problems these people have with the tubes, but it also solves the embarrassment factor of sex dolls and tubes, which are big and awkward to use.” The Handie also includes a third feature for good measure: a small, detachable vibrating bullet on the pinky finger, which you can use for additional stimulation.
Because of the Handie’s complex, three-chambered design—it has one for the lube, one for the vibrator, and one for the catcher cup—it took three years for Padilla to find a manufacturer who would make the device, eventually collaborating a Hollywood FX designer who specializes in prosthetics for sci-fi and action movies. And frankly, it shows: With its bulky form and multiple chambers resembling tumor-like growths, the Handie looks less like a sleek and sexy adult toy than a Frankenhand prosthetic.
But the Handie’s design is less important than its function as a sex toy targeted at an underserved audience: men. While it’s far from the first sex toy for male users—it isn’t even the first male-oriented jerkoff glove out there—there are far fewer upmarket sex toys for men than there are for women, in part because we traditionally think of the male anatomy as less complex and easier to get off than that of women. After all, men have been using their actual hands to masturbate for millennia, so why would they require a Handie to help them have an orgasm?
When I ask Padilla why men would purchase the Handie when they could accomplish the same task with their own gooey paws, he compares it to washing dishes by hand versus using a dishwasher: “Everyone can wash dishes by hand, but that doesn’t mean no one goes out and buys a dishwasher,” he says. “Your bare hand gets the job done, but with a product like this, it’s going to feel better, and it’s going to be cleaner. It’s a little bit more of a luxurious way to finish the job.”
The question is, do men actually want to add luxury to the masturbation experience? Given the enormous viral success of the AutoBlow 2 blowjob machine on Indiegogo earlier this year, it seems like the answer is an unequivocal yes. In the case of the AutoBlow 2, it doesn’t really seem to matter how well-designed that product might be: Even though the device itself looked like a slutty R2D2 in miniature, it nonetheless managed to raise $280,000 on Indiegogo, or more than six times its stated goal. Even though a product like the AutoBlow 2 or the Handie might not be necessary to achieving climax, it seems that men are willing to overlook any number of product or design flaws in their quest for the ultimate orgasm, even if said product looks like a Muppet’s hand after a nuclear waste spill.
Photo by hoshi7/Flickr (CC BY ND 2.0)
