I remember a very long time ago when my sex toys ran on batteries. Emphasis on a very long time ago here, this was way before Honey Play Box was founded. Anyway, there I was, lying on my unmade bed enjoying a recurring fantasy and just as I was getting to the really juicy parts of the narrative, I could feel the pleasure building up inside my body. My breath had quickened and deepened and the excitement that had started in my loins was now consuming my whole body. I was trembling profoundly. I was convinced that I was about to erupt and have an epic, sheet-gripping orgasm.

To my horror, my high hopes were shattered when my beloved bunny vibe stopped vibrating all of a sudden. It felt hot. Had it overheated? I wondered. Surely it wasn't the batteries, I'd just put new ones in the day before! Had I really spent that long masturbating? As they say, time flies when you're having fun. Maybe they had run out…

I got up out of bed and made my way to the lounge and removed the batteries from the TV remote control (again) and put them into my rabbit vibrator. I pressed the 'on' button, hoping for the best, but nothing happened.

I wasn't going to give up. I absolutely had to have the orgasm that was building up inside me! I owed it to myself to continue with my troubleshooting. Next, I wondered if the toy had overheated, so I impatiently waited until it had cooled down to try and switch it on again, but that didn't work either.

My sexual arousal quickly became sexual frustration and I felt so helpless. I suppose this was the risk of having only one sex toy to my name. To prevent this from happening the best thing is to buy quality sex toys and more than one, or even a bundle of sex toys, so that you never have to compromise on your pleasure.

Yes, I could have gone manual and used my fingers which would be very old school. Although I always say that sex toys do not replace human partners, nor do they replace your own fingers, I still wanted a vibrator. I find that a sex toy helps me to engage my erotic imagination more effectively as it helps me to imagine that it is someone else touching me and it turns me on so much more. It would have been like going from an electric orange squeezer to a manual one, I just couldn't be bothered to put so much work and effort into it.  I just wanted to lie back and receive the pleasure that I knew I deserved.

It never occurred to me to try and make a homemade vibrator. Or to find any homemade solutions for that matter.

I know many women enjoy the sensation of a handheld shower head against their vulva and clitoris. You can adjust the angle, the pressure and the temperature of the water. While I concur that this does indeed feel nice, in order to make me orgasmic it would take a long time and I'd end up wasting a lot of water in the process. As a planet-conscious individual, this did not feel like a feasible option to satisfy my needs.

I even have a friend who swears by her electric toothbrush when she needs some focused clitoral stimulation. I can't get my head around how this could be safe and effective so I've never been tempted to try it. In fact, the thought of it going wrong and ending up in the ER room is enough to put me off.

For a more indirect approach to clitoral stimulation, another solution would be to sit on your washing machine during the spin cycle to enjoy a full-body vibrating experience, similar to a massage. This only works if you have an old-ish washing machine though. Most modern, high-end washing machines tend to be more silent and vibrate less than their older counterparts.

A few years ago, someone told me about an app that makes your smartphone vibrate continuously. I was curious so I downloaded it to see how it, the honey play box app, worked. Although it was a novel concept, the mere thought of using a smartphone for self-pleasure is one of the most unsexy things I can think of, especially when you think of how many germs a smartphone screen has. In a study, scientists at the University of Arizona found that your phone is ten times dirtier than most toilet seats. Another study also found that a typical smartphone can have as many as 17,000 bacterial gene copies on it. In addition to these unsexy discoveries, the smartphone just doesn't have the type of shape that my vulva craves. 

Following a whole food plant-based diet means that there is no shortage of phallic vegetables in my refrigerator. But just because something is natural doesn't mean it is safe and healthy. It's always best to get an actual dildo if that's what you want.

The only solution that made sense to me at the time was to grin and bear my disappointment. Then when I got my next paycheck I decided to buy a new plastic playmate that was similar to the one that died on me. Needless to say, I made sure it was slightly better quality, of course, so that it wouldn't end up disappointing me.

I counted the days until it arrived and when it did, I was finally able to unbox it, wash it, put some new batteries in and lie on my unmade bed and hold the toy against my clitoris. I enjoyed one of my favourite, recurring fantasies and just as I was getting to the really juicy parts of the narrative, I could feel the pleasure building up in my body. The excitement that had started in my loins was now consuming my whole body. I was trembling profoundly. I knew that I was about to erupt and have an epic, sheet-gripping orgasm and this time, nothing was going to stop me.