Strap-Ons For Every Body

Get started the fun way with strap-ons. Everyone can play with strap-ons and there are loads of reasons you may want to try it out. This episode will guide you through choices of equipment, accessories, positions. It will help you make the decisions that will bring you and your partner the most fun while avoiding painful bad experiences. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Sex Help for Smart People. I'm your host, Dr. Laura Jurgens, former science professor turned somatic sexologist and intimacy coach. This podcast is all about helping smart women over 40 and their partners of all genders get the evidence based relationship and intimacy support you need for great sex and connections.

[00:00:19] I'm glad you're here, so let's get at it. Hey everyone, welcome to episode 44, strap ons for everybody. Yay! We are talking about getting started with strap ons. Anybody can use one, even if you have a penis, and they can be really fun. So we're going to talk all about that today. I also wanted to let you know that I do have two slots now open for new clients, either online or in person, because some of my amazing clients have graduated and are off enjoying the fruits of our work.

[00:00:58] in their yummy, satisfied, new self awareness and capacity for connection. Yay! If you are interested in talking with me and seeing if working with me might be the right fit for you, just schedule a free consult. So you just go to my website, www.laurajurgens.com, click on book a consult, or you can email me laura at laurajurgens.com

[00:01:20]for my calendar link, and we will talk about it. Okay, so today we're going to talk about everything, well okay, not everything, stuff that will fit in a reasonable sized podcast, that amount, about strap ons. So we're going to talk about how to try it out. And what you need to know in order to try it out.

[00:01:45] What kind of stuff you need, so equipment of various types because it's not just a dildo and the harness. We also want to talk about some accessories and stuff, and when, which ones to choose, and what are your options, why you might choose different stuff. We're going to talk about the various reasons that you may have, maybe, I mean, maybe you've tried a strap on, right?

[00:02:10] And it didn't go great. And that is not uncommon. So we're going to talk about how to have the most success that you can, where everybody feels good and happy. Even if it is silly and awkward, which it probably will be the first time, or many, or pretty much every time, it will still be fun version of silly and awkward, not an uncomfortable or painful version of silly and awkward.

[00:02:33] So we want to keep you on the fun side of that. That's what we're going to do today. So you may want to use a strap on even if you have a penis, and that is possible. And you want to try it out if you and or your partner would like to to fuck with a dildo, either in the vagina or the ass, or actually the mouth too, which a lot of people love doing.

[00:02:58] This is not just for lesbians, but it's very common for lesbians, but not all lesbians have any interest in strap ons. Bisexual women and queer women, of course, trans men or trans non binary folks, hetero couples who want to try pegging, trans women, people of all genders with penises who want an enhancement of some sort.

[00:03:19] for themselves or their lover. And you can get a male specific dildo with a hollow center so you can put it on over your penis if that is your jam. Or you can also try a thigh or a mouth harness for your strap on. So there are all kinds of reasons you might want to do this. And You may not, and that is also 100 percent okay.

[00:03:45] You may still want to listen to this podcast because maybe you'll have a partner who's interested in it at some point and you'll want to be informed at least, even if you are a hard no, you might want to be informed about what you're saying no to. Or you might just want, you know, some, maybe it's just interesting, right?

[00:04:04] But a lot of folks want to give it a try at some point in time. So. We are going to talk about how to have success and fun with that. A lot of that's going to be around choosing the right equipment for you. And so that's when we talk about a strap on, or sometimes called straps or strapping, we're talking about dildos meant for and today we're talking about a dildo meant for insertion play.

[00:04:32] You can also have a softy, which many people love to wear for the sensation of having a physical dick. And you may have a metaphysical or energetic Dick, regardless of your gender and biological sex, and I encourage you all to play with that too. But even if you sometimes enjoy having a metaphysical or energetic cock, you may also want to actually have a, you know, physical 

[00:05:01] Item, whether you want it to be penis identified, sort of penis shaped, and you wanna feel like it's a penis or you want to feel like it's not a penis because that's also common. You want an object that can be inserted that doesn't feel like a penis, and that is also absolutely possible and wonderful.

[00:05:21] You may---most of the harnesses that we're going to talk about today that you can use with partner play can also be used with softies if you just want the experience of like walking around with a dick in your pants. But you just want to make sure you find it comfy to wear under clothes if that's what you're trying to do.

[00:05:37] So a little bit more on that later. We are going to talk, and in fact, later being very soon, we are going to talk about how to choose your equipment, harnesses, the dildos, how they work. We're going to also talk about some extra special toys and accessories I highly recommend. Then we're going to talk a little bit about how to learn to use this well and how to work up to it, especially if you have sexual trauma in your life history.

[00:06:05] But really. Everybody, because there are some pitfalls and some challenges with having a insertable object that has your full body weight behind it, but is not actually connected to you and doesn't have any nerve endings. So there are some, there's some issues there, totally work aroundable issues, but it's good to be aware of.

[00:06:28] All right, so let's start with the harness first. You have lots of options. I literally cannot cover them all in this podcast. We would be here for ages, but I'm going to just say, look, you can go by cost if you need to, but I recommend if you can to go by style and fit. You may need to try a few, and if you have friends with harnesses, you can ask to try them on.

[00:06:55] And you can also usually try them on at a good sex toy store. I would absolutely encourage you to support your locally owned, especially women or queer owned sex toy stores, like here in Asheville, we have the amazing VaVaVoom, which is a women owned store. And you can usually try on harness as long as you try it, you know, over your clothes or underwear.

[00:07:15] So, the purpose of the harness is to hold the dildo to your body as comfortably as possible and also in a way that fits your own personal style and gender identity. They almost all have a ring that lets you put the dildo in. So the dildo comes in through the ring and the flange or the flare at the base of the dildo basically holds it against either your pubic bone or your mons or depending on what sort of body style you have.

[00:07:47] Unless it is an all in one style or you have it attached to another body part, like a thigh, or the rare mouth harness, which is actually out there and you might want to try that if that's your gig. There's not that many of them, they're not as common, you won't find as much variation in them. So mostly today we're going to talk, we're not going to spend a lot of time on thigh harnesses, they're pretty self explanatory.

[00:08:09] The dildo goes into a ring that's, and then there's like a a big wide thigh strap. And it straps to your thigh. I'm going to mostly focus today on ones that you wear in your crotchish region. That's the most common most of the more sort of flexible for most people. And they range from an underwear style to a more substantial leather or vinyl or fabric harness with straps, all the way up to a full torso crotch.

[00:08:39] custom leather rig, which is amazing and very stable and can feel really, really sexy if you're willing to drop that kind of cash. I do not recommend it for where, for like just starting out, right? Get a sense of what you want before you decide to drop that kind of cash on like a full custom leather rig.

[00:09:01] Alright, so the decisions you want to make about your harness are one, how securely does it hold the dildo to your body? Underwear styles are the least secure, typically, followed by the strappy harnesses that don't have any backing behind the ring. And I'll caution you, those can really pull on your pubes or your skin uncomfortably because you have a silicone dildo, which can be kind of sticky, like basically pushing against your mons and without any sort of like fabric barrier that can be uncomfortable.

[00:09:37] Then moving. up in the scale of sort of secure attachment to your body. You get those strappy harnesses with more substantial straps, more backing behind the ring, and that sort of Cadillac version custom fit torso rig I was talking about, which is made by custom fetish wear people. You can look on Etsy or you can go to your local Kink BDSM community events and ask, and usually you will find people who know where to get that kind of stuff.

[00:10:08] So prices generally follow the same pattern as sort of that level of secure attachment that I just gave you. Number two in your decision making scheme is the ring size adjustable. So if you want to use a very small or a very large dildo, the ring size probably needs to be adjustable. Not the ring itself, you basically swap out the ring.

[00:10:36] In an underwear style, you usually don't have that option. They have kind of a standard ring. And so you're going to need to have a dildo that just fits within that, that is the width that is suitable for that ring. Number three in your decision making, your own comfort as a harness wearer, and that includes style, what makes you feel sexy, and definitely avoids too much gender dysphoria discomfort, right?

[00:11:05] So, Consider, does it feel more femme or masculine style? There are so many options, so you really get to choose. And you want to think about whether you want your genitals accessible or covered. And there may be some trade offs there, right? So if your genitals are covered, you might actually wind up having a more comfortable, secure harness, but you can't access your genitals.

[00:11:30] And you want to see if that matters to you if you plan on swapping out between being the doer and the do ee pretty quickly. You want to think about that. sometimes that is less of a priority, right? We want to make sure that, like, it's secure and that it's going to serve our partner really well and that we're not going to be uncomfortable or in pain because it's, you know moving around too much.

[00:11:56] That's more important than being able to access our genitals right away. We also might be able to have some some access to like a bullet vibrator or something if there's a pocket and maybe that's enough access to your genitals. So just think about that. Think about whether it's easy to get on and off.

[00:12:13] Most of them are not except for the underwear style. They take a little bit of effort to get in and out of and you're going to want to probably practice a few times before you're in a sexy situation. So just, you know, check and see how hard is this going to be to get in and out of. Also consider literal physical fit.

[00:12:33] There's all kinds of sizes, but you may need to try a few to really decide if it's comfy enough with a lover. And don't expect it to actually be super comfortable. These are not like pajamas. They don't feel amazing most of the time, but you don't want it to be digging into your hips or anywhere really uncomfortable.

[00:12:54] And you want plenty of adjustments available so that it can fit you. Sometimes they have too many adjustments or there's too wide of an adjustment and the straps can be really dangly. I have, like, I've had that problem before where you've got a really adjustable one but there's, like, these huge straps.

[00:13:13] So just really look into those options and know that once you use it you can't take it back, right? So be really careful about trying to try to see if you can get the right one first but also know, like, any sex toys You may kind of like wind up with it. accumulated little closet full of them that you don't really love.

[00:13:37] So you might not want to buy the most expensive ones first until you get a sense of what you like. I do suggest looking for ones with good padding and potentially even over your style preferences. unless you just want it for show. And some people do just want it for show. They just want to put it on and feel sexy in it.

[00:13:58] And that's awesome. And that is serving a purpose. So that's totally legitimate. You also want to think about just that The getting in and out several times, like I said, before sex, making sure you've practiced that. Making sure you remember that the laughter and awkwardness is actually an adorable part of sex, so embrace that because even if you practice, you will try to get it on and it will be, it will, you will get stuck and it will be silly and funny.

[00:14:28] Material wise, you want to think about, you know, if you're vegan, look for vegan leather vinyl, there's sometimes velvet there's also some leather harnesses will tend to be more expensive, of course. And then another thing I really suggest is asking yourself or the store people, really looking into whether it will fit a dildo pad or the brand's name is called Bumper.

[00:14:55] B U M P H E R, a bumper or a dildo pad. And those are super handy if you are someone with a vulva because you are going to have this basically dildo attached kind of right over your mons. And if you have a partner who wants to get on top especially, I strongly recommend getting a bumper or a dildo pad.

[00:15:23] They fit over the base of the dildo and they cushion it against your body. Because otherwise you can really bruise and thrash your man's area. Your partner is having a great time riding you and she's grinding that dildo into your man's really hard and it's going to bruise and hurt and you're going to be like cringing and like, man, I hope she's, I hope she's done soon, right?

[00:15:47] Like you don't want that situation. You want to be enjoying your lover's pleasure, not like, like trying to kind of like hold her off you because you're Your mons is getting really, really severely bruised. And I promise, even a tiny lady can manage to bruise you. So, grab a dildo pad. And for some people they may even, they kind of advertise that they might stimulate your clitoris.

[00:16:11] Uhhh. I don't have that experience. Maybe they do for some people if they, if you somehow managed to get it to fit in just the right way. But at the very least they will keep you from getting so bruised. So those ones work best if there's a backing of fabric or leather or vinyl or whatever behind the ring that will help hold that in place.

[00:16:37] And often you can get also one that has that fabric backing will have a pocket for a bullet vibrator too, which, you know, To be honest, look, may or may not actually work for you as the harness wearer, because it's often kind of in the wrong place for your clit. But hey, it's worth a try. Like, try it out.

[00:16:57] Maybe it'll hit you in just the right place and it'll work out great. But just, you know, be a little bit skeptical of all the claims that they're gonna stimulate you. Like, this is really about serving a partner who wants to receive that cock. That is really going to be the primary emphasis on whose sensations we're really focusing on.

[00:17:19] And if you as the wearer manage to get something sensation wise out of it, that's a bonus. A lot of times you'll get more like psychological arousal out of it and it'll just be really hot and lovely. The other thing that's important, of course, with fit is body size. So make sure you get the right size to fit you.

[00:17:37] And there are plenty of bigger, I mean, okay, I take that back, not plenty. There are not equivalent numbers and I wish there were, because there are a lot of bigger sized humans out there and we should have just as many options. But there are other options. There are a lot of bigger sized harnesses out there for bigger bodies, for sure.

[00:17:57] So look for those specifically for you, if you or your lover who wants to wear it are bigger bodied. And like any sex with bigger bodied and plus size lovers, you want to consider positions carefully and be really generous with using lots of props like pillows and stuff for comfort, which I frankly recommend to everyone.

[00:18:15] Everyone. Okay, so there are some other harness types you might consider, too. I mentioned thigh harnesses. There are also mouth harnesses, which I also kind of briefly mentioned. They're not as common. And there's even a hand harness, which is also not as common because most people will just kind of. you know, hold a dildo in that case, but you can have, you can find those different types of harnesses.

[00:18:41] There's also something called strap free strap ons, which is just a double ended dildo that has a section for the person who is sort of the designated fucker, as opposed to the fuckee, to put inside their vagina or anus. And I don't really ...Again, I want to caution you to not totally buy into the hype about how amazing this is going to feel for you as the wearer.

[00:19:15] And also, the control is really hard. So take the advertising with a grain of salt, but if you are excited to try it, then go for it. You know, I think they're kind of more of a novelty item than super effective for a lot of couples, but they can be awesome for psychological arousal for the right people.

[00:19:38] people but they just know they can be kind of logistically challenging and they're not necessarily the best place to start out if you're just starting with some sort of insertion play with dildos. You might want to start with the nice thing about a regular dildo and using it with a strap on harness is that even if it's not working very well with you all for the, with using the harness, you can actually just pull the dildo out of the harness and just use it as a regular dildo.

[00:20:07] Or if you get one that, you know, suction cups on the floor. You can do it that way. So there's a little, there's plenty of options there, right? And you know, you can use that with a double ended dildo too. You can just use one end. All right. So that brings us to the topic of dildos. These need to fit with your harness ring and have a fit flared base so that they do that.

[00:20:30] And the most important consideration is your recipient. So, whether you or your partner are going to receive or both of you will receive, make sure the length and width of the dildo is something the recipient can easily receive and will enjoy. You can, quite literally, use a dildo with any shape, as long as it has that flared base to fit in the ring.

[00:20:57] So just decide if you want to use a, you know, penis looking one, a realistic type of cock looking one, or not, you might want to use a really not penis looking one. You can use a dolphin, you can use the Tower of Pisa, whatever, there's all kinds of dildos out there made to look like all kinds of things. So pick whatever you want with a flared base.

[00:21:18] Just make sure the recipient can handle the size enthusiastically without stretching past comfort. Because still, Drop on play is not the time for stretching. More on this later, but just recall that the wearer of the dildo cannot tell what is going on with the dildo. And so there's very little control, but there's often a whole lot of body weight behind it because it's got on our pelvis.

[00:21:45] It's on, you know, right next to our center of gravity. So we want to be really careful with strap on play not to, like, get too enthusiastic until we are ready. So don't start with giant King Kong dildo right away. All right, the other consideration, rigidity, dildos can kind of bend under pressure and might actually tend to slip out.

[00:22:10] Moderately firm is often a really good choice for strap on play. Super firm can be kind of hard too because there's there's a lot of air, you know, potential to kind of like poke someone in uncomfortable ways and there's not as much bendiness to kind of moderate kind of where that's going.

[00:22:31] Right? If you already have a penis attached biologically to your body and you want to get a dildo you can put your dick inside, there are these ones that are kind of like a sleeve and they go over your existing cock. So you can look for those. All right, so the other things you're going to need, you're going to need lube.

[00:22:49] You need to use a toy safe lube. So not a heavy silicone lube if your toy is silicone, which many of them will be. So try to find one that lasts pretty long too. If you can, ask at your local toy store or a couple of my recommendations. Recommendations are Good Clean Love or Sliquid Lubes and all of those are available at one of my favorite stores which is goodvibes.

[00:23:13] com. You are supporting great people if you buy from them. Other stuff you're going to want, those accessories. So I recommended the bumper or a silicone dildo pad to go around the base of the dildo. That's a really great accessory. And getting started, make sure that I recommend You don't have to listen to me, right?

[00:23:36] But you, you have the option. That's why I'm here. So make sure you have played with the dildo using hand control first to make sure the receiver likes it and that it's comfy for them before you try to control it with the harness. So for example, if you are going to start pegging for the first time, please go to the, you know, butt play also.

[00:23:59] And make sure that the person who's receiving this dildo in their butt can actually take this dildo in their butt comfortably and enthusiastically with a hand controlling it, which is going to have a lot more control of like the angle and the depth than once it's on the harness. It's very hard to tell what angle it is or what depth it is when you are wearing it in your harness.

[00:24:27] If you are the strap on wearer, when you do move to starting to play with the strap on and the harness and the dildo attached to that, plan to use your hand to hold the base of the dildo for control at the start of any insertion and possibly throughout playtime. That might actually be really important.

[00:24:48] So you want to gauge that with your partner and see how it's going. Bye. And also, kind of depending on the position, it will help you gauge the angle. And so you're not like poking them or penetrating them in some weird ass angle that's like really hurting them. And also it will keep it from sort of slipping and doing weird stuff.

[00:25:11] Because you can't feel what's going on there, it can be a little bit dangerous to be poking poking someone, right? So make sure you go slow, hold on to the bass, and it's really helpful to let the receiver set the pace first. And so that brings me to positions. So I recommend starting out with the receiver on top.

[00:25:34] That lets them really set the pace, that lets them set like, really like, control how they're moving and how it's moving. If you want to move on from that, you can also try things like spooning positions or doggie style, but just be very careful with any position where the wearer's full body weight is behind thrusting an object that they can't feel.

[00:26:02] Right? So wonky direction, which it will at some point, it could hurt the partner. So if you just start with missionary and doggie style, you could really You know, do some damage. So you want to be really careful first. And so that's why I suggest receiver on top. Receiver. Be a bit careful when you're starting out on top not to get too enthusiastic with grinding at first.

[00:26:28] So check in with the wearer because that dildo bass can really dig in even with a bumper on. So ramp up your play energy slowly, especially the first few times and just check in with each other consistently. So the really take home message here is have fun and really communicate. The communication is so important.

[00:26:52] Expect that things will be a little bit awkward and kind of take a little bit of time, right? So you may want to like have a lot of like yummy foreplay, then like have like kind of a silly interlude where you try to shimmy into your harness. And get everything set up, make sure your lube is there and everything, and then have another bunch of yummy foreplay, right?

[00:27:12] And then sort of gently move into trying to play with your strap on. 

All right, my dears, let it be silly, let it be sexy, let it be joyful, make sure it's safe and have a really good time. And I will see you here next week. Hey, if you're curious about how you could have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide, Find Your Secret Turn Ons.

[00:27:34] It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com and the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.