Sex File: Toy recommendations for a special someone's Christmas stocking

Suzi Godson advises a reader on the best vibrators on the market this Christmas

I bought quite an expensive pebble-shaped vibrator, but I’ve found it a bit boring. I’d like to try something new — are there any you would recommend?

Pebble-shaped vibrators can seem a bit boring now to some, but when they first appeared on the market in the Noughties they were revolutionary. Modern pebble vibrators are also much more sophisticated than their predecessors. They are made with soft, safe, medical-grade silicone skins and have rechargeable batteries that deliver hours of usage. Clever programming enables them to provide different vibratory patterns, from rapid pulsations to slower rumbling waves, and some connect to apps, which means that your partner can also control the settings.

Although they are a good entry-level toy, the pebble shape is a bit limited, and technology changes so quickly that there are a number of much more innovative toys on the market that do a lot more than just vibrate.

Because vibrators are “intimate” products, you obviously can’t try before you buy, nor can you generally exchange them once they are used. However, if you are an account holder with Lovehoney — an online sex toy retailer — you can return any vibrator with which you are not completely happy within 30 days and it will be exchanged for a device that they think will work better for you. If the product is unopened or unused, a full refund will be given.

Vibrators are a personal choice, so what works for one person won’t necessarily work for you, but for what it is worth, if my sex toy box was on fire and I could save only two of them, these are the ones that I would choose.

My Lelo Sona is a couple of years old, but it is still my favourite. Inside the tip of the toy is a small pad that moves backwards and forwards at high speed. This creates sonic waves that deliver a kind of tapping or pulsing sensation and stimulates much more than your clitoris — the ensuing orgasm is so powerful that it feels as though it lifts the entire pelvic floor into your chest.

The second toy I would save is the Womanizer Premium, which uses something called “Pleasure Air Technology”. The stimulation head encloses the clitoris and creates a vacuum, allowing the toy to gently suck and massage it using, well, air. One of the other things that distinguishes this model is that it doesn’t turn on until it is almost touching the surface of your skin, and once removed goes silent immediately.

Finally, no sex toy review would be complete without a reference to the Hitachi Magic Wand. Launched as a ‘muscle massager’ in 1968, it rapidly became the most famous sex toy in history. Hitachi was so embarrassed by the product’s repurposing that it effectively took it off the market, but in 2013 it was rebranded and the word Hitachi removed. It is still an incredibly powerful vibrator and, whereas the original was corded, there’s now a cordless, rechargeable model

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