I once overheard a conversation in Whelan’s in which a guy advised his female friend that all her emotional and sexual needs could be met by the simple expedient of getting “a dog and a rabbit”. The canine for companionship, the well-known mechanical sex-aid for the other thing.
At least I presume that’s the order he meant it, and not the other way around.
Anyway, it seems like vibrators have assumed a place in women’s affections once occupied by chocolate. Though I understand you can now combine the two, in a variety of flavours and power settings, but that’s a subject for another day.
Tulisa Unspelleablename – you know, her off X-Factor – was caught with a vibrator at the airport. The Sex and the City gals had to stage an alcoholism-style “intervention” when Charlotte got addicted to hers. And Googling “vibrators” gets you a mind-blowing – in every sense – 24 million hits.
By the way, FBI, I only looked that up as research for this column, so don’t bust down my door and arrest me for crimes of degeneracy just yet. Don’t worry, guys, you’ll get your chance.
So is the vibrator about to replace woman’s best friend, i.e. man? If that Whelan’s conversation I unethically eavesdropped on is correct, then yes.
But hold on a second, girls. Before you go throwing himself out in the gutter and rushing off to splurge five hundred quid at dasgrossensexxxmekanik.com, read this – my list of the ways a man is better than any electrical sex-toy.
Yes, even those ones they brought out in the shape of Barack Obama’s head.
- A vibrator won’t take out the rubbish.
- Or the recycling.
- Or that icky “green waste” bin that’s now a festering mulch of rotten food and swarming slugs, because the both of you were too drunk to remember it had to go out a fortnight ago.
- A vibrator isn’t very warm to hug in bed, when you’re feeling “soooo cooooold” in that way Irish women have, as mocked/honoured by a Des Bishop sketch.
- A vibrator won’t get up and change the channel when the remote is missing-in-action.
- A vibrator won’t get up and change the channel AS-bleedin’-AP when the opening credits to Tallafornia are rolling.
- A vibrator won’t do the shopping. Alright, so most fellas are probably stone useless at doing the shopping, and bring back Kinder Buenos and lemon-scented room-freshener instead of the carefully compiled list you had made out. But a vibrator can’t even manage that much.
- A vibrator won’t investigate that noise you hear downstairs in the middle of the night.
- In his jim-jam pants and ironic Bon Jovi t-shirt. Wielding a hurley like a samurai sword.
- A vibrator can’t even pick up a hurley.
- There’s another one: a vibrator can’t play hurling.
- Or any sport. Even the crappy ones, like rugby.
- Possibly snooker, now that I think about it.
- A vibrator won’t explain the plot of the movie you’re watching. The one with the really straightforward story and clearly drawn characters and how the hell can you not follow this? Did you fall into a coma halfway through or something? YES, Jesus Christ, that’s the villain.
- A vibrator won’t remove the decapitated carcass of a rat that’s been strewn around the utility room by the two cats for no apparent reason only to annoy you.
- Or root around on all fours, searching for the head.
- Or make grisly-but-amusing jokes about how the blood and entrails look like squiggles of kids’ paint.
- A vibrator won’t do loud Al Pacino “Hoo-hah!” impersonations at hilariously inopportune moments. Like Great Aunt Annie’s funeral.
- A vibrator can’t balance a balloon on its head for two minutes to entertain small children.
- A vibrator won’t paint the house in summer. A vibrator won’t even promise to paint the house in summer, then conveniently “forget” until it’s too late in the year to do any painting.
- A vibrator won’t tell you it loves you. (They’re notoriously commitment-shy.)
- A vibrator makes even more noise than a man. Except for when he’s drunk. Then it’s like whoa, earplugs in folks, the deaf, blaring walrus has just trundled onto the beach.
- A vibrator won’t write funny articles like this one.
- A vibrator won’t read funny articles like this one to you as you lounge in the bath.
- Which it didn’t run for you.
- Sipping a nice glass of wine which it didn’t fetch for you out of the fridge.
- A vibrator will never appreciate the violent delights of a good old-skool Schwarzenegger splatterfest. You don’t either, but that’s beside the point.
- A vibrator can’t empathise with or understand someone.
- A vibrator may seem like it’s listening – but is it really hearing what you say? I think not.
Darragh McManus, author and journalist 