This week Nice 'n' Naughty have sent me the all new VërSpanken™ from Big Teaze Toys, and they were even kind enough to throw in some WaterWieners™ as well.
The VërSpanken™ is a totally new type of masturbator for men and I've been intrigued by the design of it for a little while now, so I'm excited to be trying it out, along with its interchangeable inserts, the WaterWieners™.
In the world of male masturbators there isn't a great deal of variation amongst the designs; generally it boils down to a standard tubular sleeve with a textured interior. Some have a hard case, some don't; some open up for cleaning, some are sealed; some are multi-use, some are disposable, but on the whole there's a pretty tried-and-tested configuration which manufacturers stick to. What's interesting about the VërSpanken™ is that it completely ignores all of that in favour of totally new approach, and this is something which I'm always pleased to see.
The design of the VërSpanken™ is something of a curiosity; it's made from a hard plastic outer shell which houses two spongy rollers (known as FoamWieners™) within it, rather like a cross between a Victorian clothes mangle and a section of the obstacle course in Pat Sharp's Funhouse. It comes in three different variations: the Smooth, the Wavy, and the Bumpy, and today I'm going to be primarily focussing on the Wavy. What's clever about the design is that the rollers can be removed and are completely interchangeable, allowing you to swap them around and even mix and match. There's also the option to replace them with the WaterWieners™ which are sold separately, and I'll cover these in more detail later.
The plastic shell of the VërSpanken™ is hinged at one end and fastened by a clip at the other, which easily pops open allowing you full access to the interior, both for the purposes of swapping the rollers and cleaning the device. The rollers are fastened into position by two nubs in the material which pokes through a couple of holes on either side of the case, and this holds them firmly while still allowing them to be taken out with ease. The rollers themselves are made from some sort of a foam rubber which has been filled with air, like a miniature dirigible. The material has a slight odour to it; it reminds me of a mechanic's workshop, or some sort of epoxy. It's not really noticeable unless you press your nose right up to it, and I wouldn't describe it as unpleasant, but perhaps my nose just has a taste for glue. The air-filled sausages turn out to be quite squishy, and though the foam-rubber walls do seem fairly thick, if you squeeze too hard then you're liable to blow a bubble out of one of the sides of the material. On the wavy model there is a pattern of ridges built into the material, arranged in concentric ellipses like the race track in the Olympic stadium, and both patterned faces sandwich together when the VërSpanken™ is closed shut.
Using the VërSpanken™ is pretty straightforward and hassle-free, though it does come with an instruction booklet that contains several directions/suggestions, all illustrated rather coyly with the use of a banana, just in case any sex toy consumers out there might have their sensibilities offended by the alarming sight of a line drawing of a penis. You simply want to lube up the device and your penis, then slide it into place. The material is purported to be compatible with any type of lube, so feel free to go wild with those silicone and oil-based lubes which are usually the death-knell for any other masturbator. Because the rollers are so squishy you'll find that your penis will slide into place with ease, without an excessive sense of tightness, so though it may look like a mangle it's not going to have quite the same result. The best way I found to use the VërSpanken™ when thrusting was with the two handed approach, one placed on either side of the toy, and then thrusting up and down on the shaft. I was sat on my bed doing this rather rhythmically, starting to gently bounce up and down on the springs of my mattress in the process, when suddenly I realised that the way I was operating the toy made it look like I was using my penis as a pogo stick, which caused me a moment of amusement. Because the design of the toy causes it to make fairly minimal contact with the penis compared to other masturbators, you have the choice of how long of a thrust you want to make. A short thrusting action will focus the stimulation entirely on the head, while longer strokes will place more emphasis on the shaft. I found that using it on the shaft wasn't very productive and I opted instead just to pop the head in and out of the rollers and concentrate on that. A medium length stroke is more likely to get the foreskin caught up in what's going on, awkwardly dragging it back over the head in the up stroke and I didn't find this entirely preferable just because of the way in which the rollers tended to grab onto it.
In terms of how the VërSpanken™ actually feels physically during use, I have to say that it's a bit of a strange product; it's not really stimulating enough in the ways that you want it to be, but at the same time it's too stimulating in the ways that you don't. Looking at the amount of sexual sensation and pleasure that it delivers it's actually quite lacklustre and not all that exciting; I was playing around with it for a while and my reaction never really got above "it's O.K." or "it's kind of nice." There's always going to be some degree of a nice feeling when you're rubbing your penis with something, but I just wasn't overly impressed, and at times I was even on the verge of being bored. When you then consider how it feels on the other side of things, just in terms of ordinary touch sensation, it can be a little uncomfortable during use. The FoamWieners™ themselves are soft on the whole, largely due to being filled with air, but the foam-rubber material that the exterior is made from is somewhat firm. Sliding your penis across the ridges of the Wavy design just isn't like using the texture of any other masturbator; the material doesn't give enough in the surface, so those bumps are mildly painful and they really offer nothing in terms of sexual satisfaction. I daresay that the smooth one would be better in this regard, but that still wouldn't fix the issue with the sexual experience generally being a bland one. I suppose the crux of the matter is that at some point whilst playing with the toy I thought to myself "I'd rather be using by hand" and frankly that says it all. If you're going to by a sex toy then it's supposed to enhance things, not make you want to go back to what you were doing prior.
My experience with the WaterWieners™ was much the same as with the FoamWieners™, but with a couple of notable differences. I should mention first that the WaterWieners™ also come in the same three textures as the FoamWieners™: Smooth, Wavy, and Bumpy, and this time I had the Bumpy to try out. Much like with the Wavy prior I found the bumps on the Bumpy WaterWieners™ to feel uncomfortable against my penis, and also not especially conducive to delivering sexual satisfaction. The first real difference between the WaterWieners™ and the FoamWieners™ is that the WaterWieners™ are tighter. Because they're filled with water rather than air they don't really compress when you squeeze them, so it's more difficult to force anything between the rollers. The instruction pamphlet does suggest that the VërSpanken™ can be used with the catch undone, so this is a good option to consider, especially for men with larger girth. If, however, you really do crave tightness from your masturbator, then you'll probably prefer the WaterWieners™ over the FoamWieners™, and happily use it with the catch fastened. The other difference with the WaterWieners™ comes down to what you can do with them; the liquid centre allows you to alter the temperature of them, either heating them up in the microwave, or cooling them down in the fridge. You just need to be sensible about how you do this, because if you make them too hot then you'll burn yourself, and if you put them in the freezer instead of the fridge then you'll have two unusable blocks of ice until they thaw. The ability to change the temperature is a nice added feature over the regular FoamWieners™, especially if you enjoy sensory play.
On the whole I have to say that I wouldn't be inclined to recommend the VërSpanken™ line of products; the simple fact that I realised that my hand would have been preferable speaks volumes. It's quite a reasonably priced piece, around half the cost of a Fleshjack, so it's easy to be tempted, but I have to say that it would be a false economy. You can get some brilliant budget Tengas for even less so it's worth weighing up your options. Strangely enough I do quite like the concept of the VërSpanken™ still, just not the execution, so it's not something I'd write off completely. It's different, and it's got that going for it, especially with the mix and match concept, and with improvements I could see potential in the design, but in its current state I'd have to say no. It's really a matter of the materials; uncomfortably rubbing myself between a couple of rubbery balloons, or water-balloons, with firm ridges/bumps just isn't the road towards good orgasms, at least not in my case. If they used a material where the texture stimulated me in the right way, then we'd be talking.
The VërSpanken™ and WaterWieners™ are available from Nice 'n' Naughty.