Need a little motivation to get off the couch and put down the pastries?  A study in Med Page Today found that increased libido was one of the benefits of weight loss.   I’m always looking for reasons to stay in shape and ways to make people’s sex lives better so I was pretty excited when I came across this article.

The eggplant vibrator just seemed appropriate here.

“Sexual function improved significantly and quickly in obese men with type 2 diabetes after weight loss with reduced-calorie diets, results of a small Australian clinical study showed.

Erectile function, sexual desire, and urinary symptoms all improved significantly in 31 men who lost 5% to 10% of their body weight in eight weeks.”

If you’d like to live a healthier life style, but just can’t get going, you may want to keep these positive sexual side effects in your back pocket.  Knowing that you’ll want to do it and have a better time doing it if you lose a few pounds may be just the kick in the ass you need.  I’m not suggesting anyone go to extremes here, but there’s nothing wrong with showing the old ticker a little love.

This study was aimed at men (particularly those with diabetes) and it is indeed true that the whole weight loss thing being linked to better sex mostly pertains to men.  Sorry, Ladies.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t maintain healthy life style.  I know the better I feel, the more inclined I am to get down and dirty!

We are making changes to our Sexual Health Category to serve you better.  It should be online again soon.

B4 Play Body Wipes

We’re introducing a new category to our lineup this week: Sexual Health.  Now, many of our products are specifically designed for sexual health (and many are just for fun when you’re feeling naughty), but we wanted to put a one stop shopping place on the site for you, when you just need to resupply for your next play session or on other products that are essential to your sexual health and well being.

Do you need some high quality condoms for a big weekend coming up? Is your toy cleaner supply running low?  Are you looking for a new pelvic exerciser?  Do you want to maintain prostate health with regular prostate massage? Or has your recent foray into back door play left you with a need for an anal cleansing product?  We stock a wide array of products like this for customers, but this category will give you a quick stop to order what you need and get back to what’s important, namely, enjoying your sex life!

This category contains the following:

- High quality condoms

- Toy cleaners and personal cleansing products

- Pelvic exercisers

- Prostate massagers (studies show that regular ejaculation keeps the prostate healthy)

- Enemas and Anal Douches

If you have ideas for categories, or additions to categories on Sextoys.com, drop us a line at experts@sextoys.com .  If we use your idea, we’ll send you a token of our appreciation (of the naughty variety!).

A good favorite!

It’s Friday and we feel lucky, so we’re going with the number 7, even though there are a few other minor issues we could mention here.  But we wanted to get a few items out on the table that haven’t been there before in this blog.  Sex toys are great additions to the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or wherever else you want to use them in private.  That said, we also want you to enjoy them, and enjoyment can hinge on avoiding these common problems.

1. This one is for the guys out there (that means you, sitting there stewing over your partner’s favorite dildo).  NEVER, ever, compare your pride and joy with your partner’s favorite playmate.  The “Duh Factor” on this one is immense, but it bears discussing.  Unless you were chosen by a picture showing you in the Full Monty, your partner wanted you for reasons other than the length or girth of captain happy.  Let your partner have her or his fun and roll with it.  That dildo or vibrator is a pleasure instrument, not a measuring stick!

2. Fantasy is NOT reality.  Even the most experienced players know that there is a time and place for everything.  Trying to recreate a special moment in a moment that isn’t so special (think 6:30 AM, prior to the first coffee), is a recipe for disaster.  Sex toys are great when your partner is in the mood, but they don’t fit in every time.  Don’t blame the tools, if you’re attempting to use them when the job isn’t called for.

3. Keep what works, discard the rest.  Think about it, you don’t keep eating food that you don’t like in hope that it will taste better next time.  The same rule applies to your sex toys and erogenous zones.  I’ve tossed out at least $1,000 worth of toys, lubes and other items because they didn’t work for me (yes, I actually paid for them – they weren’t perks).  How many bad meals have you sat through?  It’s not that big of a deal to spend some bucks and decide that something doesn’t work.  If you look at it as an investment in finding what does work, you are on your way.

4. Revisiting tools, always make sure that you have everything you need.  You’ve invested time and energy to meet someone who shares your proclivities.  Then, just when everything comes together, you forgot the condoms?  Have you lost your mind?  Nope, you are simply unprepared.  Don’t let that happen.

5. One last thing on tools, always use the right tools for the right jobs.  If a sex toy isn’t designed for anal play, don’t use it there.  If you are going to try out the large dildo, have the right amount of lube on hand (or wherever else you need it). Make sure that your sex toy is safe around water before you take the pleasure bath – and know the difference between splash proof and waterproof.  Your sex toys are only as good as you want if you use them properly.

6. Modification is not good with sex toys!  Some people have had serious injuries because they attempted to change their sex toys.  And, by the way, we hear tons of talk about homemade sex toys.  For some people, that’s possible.  But like anything else, the rest of us would do far better buying a professionally designed sex toy.  The fact is, most of us should avoid the nightmare of a poorly functioning or poorly designed sex toy.

7. Keep realistic expectations.  A sex toy can’t replace a loving relationship (though it can enhance one).  And a sex toy isn’t supposed to.  Enjoy your toys, but don’t expect them to give you everything you need.

As most of you know, we love our sex toys.  Keep these issues in mind and you can avoid most mistakes.  And always be ready to experiment.  You never know when you might discover a whole new avenue of pleasure!

If you’ve read our blog for a while,  you know that we’re big fans of masturbation and orgasms.  Both are healthy and normal activities for human beings.  Our website offers sex toys, like the Monkey Spanker, that help people to enjoy both.  We also get excited when we find research that supports the health benefits (and in this case, reproductive benefits) of masturbation.

The Monkey Spanker

Scientific American’s Jesse Bering has a great post on why humans are so good at masturbating (Hat Tip to the Reverend Monkeyspank), and why, contrary to what you may believe, masturbation is a healthy part of the reproductive cycle.  Wait!  Masturbation helps men to be more effective in reproduction?

You betcha! Here’s Bering’s documentation:

“When it comes to sex, we put this capacity to very good—or at least, very frequent—use. In a now-classic, pre-Internet-porn (I’ll get to that later on) study  by British evolutionary biologists Robin Baker and Mark Bellis, male university students were found to masturbate to ejaculation about every 72 hours, and “on the majority of occasions, their last masturbation is within 48 hours of their next in-pair copulation.” If they’re not having intercourse every day, that is to say, men tend to pleasure themselves to completion no more than two days prior to having actual sex.

Baker and Bellis’s quite logical argument for this seemingly counterintuitive state of affairs (after all, shouldn’t men try to stock up as much sperm as possible in their testes rather than spill their seeds so wastefully in a rather infertile swath of toilet paper or a dirty sock?) is that because there is a “shelf-life” for sperm cells – they remain viable for only 5-7 days after production – and because adult human males manufacture a whopping 3 million sperm per day, masturbation is an evolved strategy for shedding old sperm while making room for new, fitter sperm. It’s quality over quantity.“

I won’t recite the entire article here – you really should read it – but I will say that Bering’s research is thorough and entertaining.  Monkeys don’t spank it very often, you know. It turns out that humans have an edge (no pun intended) when it comes to masturbating.  What is it?  Imagine all the possibilities.

So those women who are looking for a new addition to the family, maybe it’s time to let your partner do his thing.  We can provide him a huge supply of sex toys for men to help him along his way.