Document 6464311

American Association
of Sexuality Educators,
Counselors and
Therapists
sexuality
contemporary
March 2012
Vol. 46, No. 3
The international resource for educators, researchers and therapists
In this
issue...
News of
Members . . . . . . . .2
Horowitz publishes
chapter on nontraditional families
Member Spotlight . .3
Meet Heidi Woodruff
of Clarksville, Tenn.
Quick Hits:
Sex in the News . . .6
Sex ed standards
urged
Book and Media
Reviews . . . . . . . . . .8
Reviews of books by
Rosenquist, Price
and others
Educational
Opportunities . . .12
AASECT conference
just three months
away!
Zzzzzzzrrrrrr
D
espite the name of her
Madison, Wisconsin sex
toy store — A Woman’s
Touch — co-owner Ellen
Barnard, MSSW, says about onehalf of her customers are men.
And like most customers, they’re
fairly straightforward about what they want.
“I’m looking for something for my partner,”
they say. “And I’m curious too.”
For many men, that something often turns
out to be a vibrator, which may surprise some
readers, but not Barnard. “They’ve always
accepted them,” she says. “Maybe because
they’re tools and guys like tools.”
Whatever the reason, scientific data support
Barnard’s anecdotal
evidence. Many guys
are as comfortable
around vibrators as
they are around power
sanders and lawn
mowers.
Several studies written by Michael Reece,
PhD, director of the
Center for Sexual
Health Promotion at
Indiana University, and
several others in the
same
department,
including
Debby
Herbenick, PhD, and
Brian Dodge, PhD,
show that vibrator use
among men is common.
An October 2010
study by Reece et al.
published in the Journal
of Sex & Marital
Therapy (“Vibrator Use
Among Heterosexual Michael Reece, Indiana University
Men Varies by Partnership Status:
Results From a Nationally
Representative Study in the
United States”) found that nearly
44 percent of heterosexual men
incorporated a vibrator into sexual play at some point in their lives.
In a nationally representative sample of
1,047 men between the ages of 18 and 60, the
researchers asked heterosexual men whether
they used a vibrator with a partner, alone or not
at all; why they used vibrators; their relationship
status and other demographic information. (A
separate study focused on gay and bisexual men;
more on that later in the article.)
It turns out that the most popular form of
vibrator use among
heterosexual men is
with a partner during
foreplay (93 percent).
The second most popular form of male
vibrator use is with a
partner during sexual
intercourse (82 percent). Exactly onethird of participants
reported using a vibrator during solo masturbation (33 percent).
And one-fourth of
men (25 percent) used
a vibrator in all three
sexual situations.
“Vibrators play an
important part in
many American sexual
repertoires,”
Reece
told Contemporary
Sexuality.
Nearly one-half
of men embrace
vibrators
continued on page 4
Male Vibrator Use
continued from page 1
According to Reece, earlier studies on the
subject focused on erectile function and ejaculatory control, but this is the first to examine
everyday use, including why heterosexual men
incorporated vibrators into their sexual play.
Given a choice of several options, most heterosexual men said they did it “for fun” (66 percent) and “to spice up my sex life” (52 percent).
Other reasons cited for male vibrator use:
“Curiosity” (47 percent), “to make orgasm easier for my partner” (40 percent), “my partner
wanted to” (31 percent) and “to make orgasm
easier for myself” (5 percent).
Relationship status also played a role in
whether these men toyed around with vibes. Data
from the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy
showed married men and those living with a
female partner were more likely to use vibrators
(46 and 40 percent, respectively) than men who
were single and not dating (29 percent).
“Most of the male use occurs within the context of a female partner,” Reece says. “What this
probably tells us is that women might be the ones
introducing a toy, like a vibrator, into a sexual
relationship because women find that it stimulates
them in ways that intercourse alone does not.”
It’s also good for the guy.
“Patterns indicated that men with a history of
vibrator use reported higher scores on the
International Index of Erectile Function domains
for erectile function, intercourse satisfaction,
orgasmic function and sexual desire,” the study
noted.
Buying vibrators
When men wander into sex toy stores or add a
vibrator to their online shopping cart, are they
doing it with their sweetie in mind or are they looking out for Number One? The study found that a
majority of heterosexual men (59 percent) reported
purchasing a vibrator for use with a female partner.
Only a tiny fraction of men (13 percent) said they
bought a vibrator for themselves.
In either case, men don’t have to go out of
their way to buy a vibe. They’re increasingly
available at discount stores such as Wal-Mart
and Target and at drug stores.
“If you go into Duane Reade or CVS, there
are vibrating products on the shelves right beside
the condoms in ways there never used to be,”
Reece says. “They range from small massagers to
insertable vibrators.”
It hasn’t always been that way. In an introduction to his study, Reece notes that a 1953
March 2012 Vol. 46, No. 3
“Most of the male
use occurs within
the context of a
female partner. …
Women might be
the ones introducing
a toy, like a vibrator,
into a sexual
relationship because
women find that it
stimulates them in
Debbie Herbenick, Indiana University
ways that
Kinsey study reported that vibrator use was
“rare” among Americans, both male and female.
A 1976 Hite study reported only “small numbers
of men [describing] their use of vibrators.”
That’s changed in recent decades. In 1992,
the National Health and Social Science Survey
reported 1 in 5 men saying a vibrator or dildo
was “somewhat” or “very” appealing. And then
came the baby boomers, sex toy parties, HBO’s
Sex and the City (the much talked about episode
documenting Charlotte’s infatuation with the
“rabbit” vibrator aired in 1998) and the
Internet. Growing acceptance of vibrators seems
to have prompted companies to take action.
In the past few years, major companies like
Durex and Trojan introduced several new vibrating products, including the Trojan Twister,
Trojan Pulse Intimate Massager, Durex Play
Vibrations (“Perfect for up to 20 minutes of
vibrating pleasure!”), Durex Play Touch and
Durex Play Ultra.
Most of those products landed on store
shelves after Reece and company began quizzing
men on their vibrator habits.
“We collected those data in 2008 and 2009,”
intercourse alone
does not.”
— Michael Reece
continued on page 5
www.aasect.org
Contemporary Sexuality
4
Male Vibrator Use
continued from page 4
he says. “Vibrating products have become mainstreamed. Now they are available in so many
more places than they used to be. So our guess is
that … in the last three to four years it’s
increased even more.”
Gay and bisexual men
Indiana University researchers didn’t limit
their inquiries into male vibrator use to heterosexuals. In a 2010 study published in the
International Society for Sexual Medicine, Reece
and several colleagues asked 25,294 gay and
bisexual men about their vibrator use.
Titled “Characteristics of Vibrator Use by
Gay and Bisexually Identified Men in the United
States,” the study asked users of Online Buddies
— the owners of ManHunt, Big Bear Den and
ManHunt Daily websites — to complete a 20minute survey on the subject. Participants
received $10 e-coupons.
The survey included questions on sociodemographics, health status, sexual behaviors and
vibrator use. The major finding: Nearly 1 in 2
gay or bisexual men (49.8 percent) reported
using vibrators.
That rate is about five percent higher than
among straight men. “It’s slightly higher,” Reece
says, “But probably not what people would
expect it to be.”
Other study highlights documenting vibrator
use among gay and bisexual men include:
• Older men are more likely vibrator users than
younger men;
• Vibrator use among white men (52 percent)
was higher than other racial and ethnic groups:
Black (35 percent), Hispanic/Latino (38 percent)
and Asian/Pacific Islander (35 percent);
• Men in a relationship with another man were
less likely to use a vibrator than bisexual men in
a relationship with a woman;
• The most popular forms of vibrator use:
Masturbation (42 percent), foreplay with a male
partner (32 percent) and intercourse with a male
partner (29 percent);
about vibrator use by gay and bisexual men.
Those data are missing from the study on heterosexual vibrator use.
“I would love to see these kinds of questions
asked of heterosexual men,” he says.
Such knowledge might help educators talk to
heterosexual men about personal vibrator use.
“Women are more likely to share their sexual
experiences,” Glickman says. “Men don’t generally talk about these things.”
Study notes
In the discussion section of the International
Society for Sexual Medicine study, Reece et al.
admitted a limitation: It is a convenience sample.
He writes, “Challenges remain with establishing
a true nationally representative sample of gay
and bisexual men for research.”
Also worth noting: The Journal of Sex &
Marital Therapy study on heterosexual vibrator
use was funded by Church & Dwight, the
Princeton, N.J. company that manufactures
Trojan condoms and vibrators.
Contemporary Sexuality asked Reece about
Indiana University’s partnership with Church &
Dwight, which was outlined in a January 28,
2008 press release on the university’s website:
http://bit.ly/yjhNeL
“It is clear that corporate entities in the
United States help influence human behavior
probably way more than any of our clinical or
educational interventions will,” Reece says. “We
should be partnering with companies to help
ensure they are designing products that are going
to meet people’s needs.”
Adds Reece, “If we can help Trojan to design
a condom that men actually want to wear and
that their partners want them to wear, that will
probably have a much greater influence on condom use in the United States than any of our traditional public health interventions would.”
That said, Reece is happy to be pulling back
the curtain on American sexual behavior, discovering what’s really happening in bedrooms across
the nation.
“I don’t think we’re as prudish as we like to
pretend we are,” he says. “That’s especially true
with vibrators.”
“I don’t think we’re
as prudish as we like
to pretend we are.
That’s especially true
with vibrators.”
— Michael Reece
— Todd Melby
• The most popular contact points for vibrator
use: Inserted into anus (87 percent), held or
rubbed against anus (73 percent), held or rubbed
against testicles (61 percent) and held or rubbed
against penis (58 percent).
Charlie Glickman, PhD, education program
manager at Good Vibrations and an AASECTcertified sexuality educator, likes the specificity
March 2012 Vol. 46, No. 3
www.aasect.org
Contemporary Sexuality
5
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