The novelty of Twitter polls still hasn’t worn off for me yet – whatever inane questions people are asking, I still stop and look. The other day the gay sex shop Prowler ran a poll which was retweeted onto my timeline – cheerily asking their followers what their favourite type of lube is.

 

This sent me down a rabbit hole (no double entendre intended) of browsing the online store. I’ve never owned a dildo – I think when I first came out I intended to get one because it seemed to be the ‘done thing’ but I ended up spending the money on a sequin cape (what am I like!) – so this was my first time engaging in sex toy window shopping.

The first thing that alarmed me is that dildos are ranked on size, but instead of small, medium and large the taxonomy used is Beginner, Intermediate and Expert. It’s like when you have a bad hangover, decide you want to cut down on drinking and take up a French class for the first time since school – “what am I? I still know how to ask where the tourist office is – does that make me intermediate?! “

You browse a few of the dildos and see that, as further a guideline, they are using a non-branded coke can next to the dildo as a size comparator.

This isn’t just curious browsing anymore. This is science. The names in the intermediate section put me off. I learn that there is an entire brand of dildo called ‘Domestic Partner’. “Well that’s heteronormative!” I sneer to myself. “First gay marriage now even the dildos are offering to wear a pinny and make you dinner”. In fact, the object in question looks less like a 50s housewife and more like the next successor to The Shard in London’s development-obsessed skyline.

If the shapes and sized weren’t confounding enough the blurbs on the products cause more stress. The “Super Trooper” with its Abba-inspired name sounds friendly and approachable. I like sparkle and Swedish pop – maybe this will feel more glamorous. What I find is a dildo in the shape of a penis with the following description:

“Big, fat, and black; The Super Trooper will claim your arse for its own once you’ve mastered its impressive size.” I move on – I’m a socialist – in the current housing crisis I’m fully against this cultural thirst for private ownership and so the acquisitive attitude of this dildo over my arse irks.

Suddenly, I find that there are ‘flesh coloured’ (if you’re white) alternatives moulded on actual human penises – usually of a porn star, who also graces the cover of the box the item comes in.

I go into meltdown as I study these intricately crafted devices complete with the imprint of a glans and veins. These Frankendicks are even stranger than the dildos with no pretensions of impersonating the human penis – come back Super Trooper! All is forgiven!

This gives me pause for thought. Why did I find these sincere replicas – simulacra of the sexual - more terrifying than the lurid neon-coloured dildos that weren’t so earnest in their representations? In a way, a dildo may be seen as just a substitute penis – in North American lore of the whalers of Nantucket, made famous by Moby Dick (now itself a name for a dildo, moulded on a whale’s penis) there are stories of 19th century whalers’ wives being gifted porcelain, china or plaster dildos by their husbands as an insurance of their fidelity while they were away for years at sea. In this context, the dildos were literally referred to as He’s-At-Homes.

 

 

In many ways, this is what I dislike so strongly about the synthetic penises with their vein structures and glossy tips. They are the modern He’s-At-Homes. In their attempt to body the member of an actual man – they in fact signify the absence of a man. In their presence we are all lonely 19th century whaler’s wives, widowed by the sea. This idea infuriated me – how dare these dildo’s judge me or my life – they were like that annoying aunt who asks if you’ve got a boyfriend every time they see you.

Not wanting to let these dildos lord it over me any further I was determined to prove them wrong. I turned to queer theorist, Judith Butler, who is pretty much the founder of the modern idea that gender roles and sexuality itself is performative. In her analysis of drag queens (and drag artistry in general) she states that drag is not designed to merely mimic “natural” womanhood but instead “brings into relief the utterly constructed status of the heterosexual original” exposing “gay to straight is not as copy to original” but is a copy of copy. In other words, drag is an artform that rejoices in its failure to embody the “natural” because it exposes the disturbing fact that the natural gender role never existed in the first place. Everything is a performance, a copy, and drag is simply a heightened means of expressing that.

“These Frankendicks are even stranger than the dildos with no pretensions of impersonating the human penis”

Perhaps this is actually what was unnerving about the veiny dildos - they were themselves a form of camp, a kind of dick drag. If the flesh coloured dildo is stood on the sex shop shelf, totally unapologetic about its inability to embody the penis -did the “real” penis ever exist? Does my penis exist? Or is it a photocopy with no original? Are penises just a signifier with no signified – do I need to warn people of this on my dating profile?  Suddenly, I’m too existentially anxious be turned on by anything.  The dildos can go fuck themselves. Just get me a Terry’s chocolate orange for Christmas.