By Charlie · huxi Adventures
Let me set the scene.
It's a Tuesday. Jamie and I have been together for four years. We love each other very much. We also, if I'm honest, have been having the same sex for approximately two of those four years. Not bad sex. Just… familiar sex. The kind where you both know exactly what's going to happen, in approximately what order, and roughly how long it will take. Predictable in the way that a reliable boiler is predictable. Functional. Comforting. Not what you'd describe as electric.
Jamie suggested we try something different. I said, 'like what, a board game?' Reader, it was not a board game.
I want to be clear that I was not resistant to this idea. I was, however, extremely British about it, which meant I said 'sure, sounds fun' in a tone that communicated moderate alarm, spent three days quietly Googling things while pretending I wasn't, and then ordered a huxi product at 11pm on a Thursday while Jamie was asleep.
What I did not expect was to end up down a rabbit hole of actual peer-reviewed research about couples and vibrators. But here we are. Because it turns out that scientists — real ones, at universities, with PhDs — have been studying this. And what they found is both reassuring and, if you'll allow me, slightly vindicating for every person who has ever hidden something under the bed and felt vaguely embarrassed about it.
The bit where I quote science at you (bear with me)
A researcher called Rebecca Cobb — associate professor of Clinical Psychology, not someone who makes this stuff up — published a piece earlier this year looking at what happens when couples use pleasure products together. The findings are not subtle.
More than 75% of couples who tried using a vibrator together reported that their sex lives had improved. Not just in the moment — overall, in the weeks that followed. They also reported feeling more satisfied with their relationship. Not just their sex life. Their relationship. The whole thing. The arguing-about-whose-turn-it-is-to-empty-the-dishwasher relationship.
| Men who used vibrators with their partners reported feeling more intimacy — not less. The toy didn't become the focus. Their partner did. |
I know. I was surprised too. There's this persistent anxiety — and I've had it, Jamie definitely had a version of it — that introducing something external into your sex life means admitting something is missing. That it's a criticism, somehow. A commentary on inadequacy.
It is not. According to the research, it's actually the opposite. The couples who used toys together ended up feeling closer. More connected. More focused on each other, not less. The vibrator wasn't replacing anything. It was just making room for more.
The awkward conversation I didn't have to have
Here's another thing the researchers found, and this one I felt personally: women who use vibrators alone and with their partners talk about sex more. They're more likely to have the conversations that most couples find genuinely difficult — what works, what doesn't, what they'd like more of, what they've been too embarrassed to bring up.
I have been with Jamie for four years and I could count on one hand the number of times we'd had a direct, specific conversation about what we actually wanted. Not because we don't communicate — we're good at communicating. We talk about everything. Except, apparently, that.
What the researchers suggest is that introducing something new and physical gives you an opening. The conversation starts around the thing — 'shall we try this mode? Does that feel good? What about here?' — and then, almost by accident, becomes about everything adjacent to it. The things you'd been quietly thinking about for months but hadn't found the right moment to say.
| We spent about forty minutes afterwards just talking. Not about the product. About us. About things we wanted. It was one of the best conversations we'd had in a year. I'm not saying that lightly. |
It sounds almost too tidy to be true. But it happened. The object created a context. The context created permission. The permission created a conversation we'd been circling for longer than I'd realised.
The part where Jamie's ego survived intact
I want to address this because I know it's what some people — specifically some of the male halves of couples — are quietly worried about.
Jamie was initially about as enthusiastic about this idea as he is about going to IKEA. Technically supportive. Emotionally braced. There was a specific energy in the room that I can only describe as 'politely game but internally unsure what this means about him.'
The research covers this too, usefully. Men who were studied after using vibrators with their partners didn't report feeling replaced, or redundant, or like the toy had somehow out-competed them. They reported feeling like they'd given their partner something better. Which, for most people, is actually the whole point.
The framing matters enormously here. This is not 'we need this because you're not enough.' This is 'I want more of this with you, and this might help us get there.' Same destination. Completely different road.
Jamie, for the record, is now an enthusiast. He would not want me to tell you that. I'm telling you anyway.
What actually happened
I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow account — this is a blog post, not an episode — but I'll tell you this: it was genuinely fun. And I mean fun in a way that sex hadn't quite been for a while. There was laughter. There was some mild confusion about which button did what. There was a moment where we both agreed the instruction diagram was unhelpfully abstract. There was, ultimately, a very good time.
And then there was the conversation afterwards. Which was, genuinely, one of the better ones we've had.
I'm not a couples therapist. I'm not a researcher. I'm someone who ordered something from huxi on a Thursday night and ended up learning more about my relationship in two hours than I had in several months of us just… getting on with it.
So should you?
If you're reading this and you're in a relationship that's fine — comfortable, functional, occasionally excellent — but you've noticed that the spontaneity has quietly packed its bags and moved out without leaving a forwarding address: yes. Probably yes.
Not because something is wrong. Because something could be more.
The researchers suggest starting simple: just ask. 'I've been thinking about trying something together — would you be up for it?' That's it. No grand declaration. No PowerPoint presentation. Just a question.
The worst case is you have a slightly awkward conversation and then order a curry and forget about it. The best case is that it opens something up between you that you didn't know was waiting.
Jamie and I are firmly in the second category. We've since had three more good conversations, one bad one about the bins, and considerably more fun than the previous six months. I'd call that a net positive.
One last thing
The vibrator I used that Thursday is available at huxi.global. Body-safe silicone. Discreet delivery. Guaranteed orgasm or your money back — and yes, that's a real guarantee, in writing. I used it before I worked with huxi, which is either a coincidence or the universe's way of telling me to pay attention.
If something in this has made you mildly curious, go and have a look. If something in this has made you want to show it to your partner without comment and see what they say — I fully support that strategy. It's approximately what I did with a research article three months ago, and look where we ended up.
Good luck. You probably won't need it.
— Charlie
