My Wife Has a Special Helper in the Bedroom. I Want to Surprise Her With an Upgrade.

How to Do It Will she love it or hate it? Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by panic_attack/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous! Dear How to Do It, My wife loves her dildo. Sometimes we use it together; sometimes she uses it herself during solo time—I know because she tells me. We have a good sex life, and I like to think we’re pretty good at talking about what we both like and our fantasies. Lately, I’ve been thinking about something that I almost feel bashful about admitting. I’ve discovered the world of making a mold of your penis. And I’ve become really into the idea of getting one done that she can use both when we’re together and when she’s alone. It’s a turn-on for some reason—probably because I’ll still be the one “pleasuring her” even when she’s using a toy. Is this an OK idea to surprise her with? I’m worried about feeling rejected or inadequate if she doesn’t want it, but I think it would probably feel worse if I do get it for her and she still prefers to use her regular dildo when we’re together. Is there a pro to using my mold over the old tried-and-true? Should I ask her first? Side note: Will doing this hurt? —Clone Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Jessica Stoya: Oh, I have so many questions. Are we talking about the Clone-A-Willy kit or something more elaborate? Maybe they have a lot of disposable income, and there’s some service now that will Fleshlight-level mold your stuff for you. Rich Juzwiak: Because he signed off Clone, I was assuming Clone-A-Willy. Jessica: There are several quality control issues inherent to at-home molding that are exponentially more stark when we are talking about penises that are meant to be represented as erect. This is not a dig at at-home kits, but there are constraints when it comes to what is achievable with an inexpensive, at-home process. There are 5,000 different things that have nothing to do with this man or his penis that could absolutely be completely off-putting for his wife about the resulting dildo—smell, texture, shape, all of it. She might have qualms with the texture of the surface or even how squishy it ends up being. All of these things are so down to individual taste and preference that it’s really hundreds of small things that could be just out of alignment with her ideal dildo. Rich: Yes. Also, in my understanding, making a mold requires maintaining an erection when there’s no actual stimulation. You just have to be hard, and it has to solidify around it. So you have to be hard for that time, and that is not easy for everybody. If you’re not thrusting or manipulating it in some way, your wood starts to go down. The Clone-A-Willy website says it takes 60 seconds, but while saying this, it acknowledges that “one of the most common difficulties some men face is staying hard for the 60 seconds required to keep your penis erect while submersed in the molding mixer.” So it won’t necessarily hurt, but it may be a trying minute as you’re really trying to stay hard. You might not get the perfect Xerox that you’re going for anyway if you can’t maintain this erection. There are definitely people for whom staying hard without stimulation is not an issue, so maybe the writer is one of them. But it’s definitely not, as we’ve illustrated, a perfectly easy, seamless process necessarily. Jessica: I have a line of Fleshlight products that are shaped after my own anatomy. I do not have a penis, so I have not personally experienced that, but I’ve been privy to discussions about it, and everything you said is true. The material, even if they manage to make it not start out unpleasantly cold and clammy, will become unpleasantly cold and clammy before it has completely set. When you have a team of people who, for their jobs, mold people’s genitals, and the people who are being molded, their job is to control what their penis is doing, people can end up having to take a second or third cast. And completely regardless of who, the genitals and whatever, at the professional level, they are still going to have to go back in and do some sculpting or some computer-assisted tweaking, not because they’re putting artifice there, but because the molding process is not completely precise.nWhen people are looking at the product and images of the body part of the person that the product is based on, you need it to match, and there’s always a little bit of a gap. So you have got to set your expectations really, really low with the whole thing. And will it hurt? It’s going to be unpleasant. If you get any kind of pinching of tissue or pubic hair dried into the molding compound, there will be some amount of pain. Will it be devastating pain? No, probably not. Rich: But it might be unpleasant in multiple ways. Jessica: These fun little at-home chemistry projects, whether it’s Clone-A-Willy or something that has nothing to do with sex at all, when you have a fast-moving chemical reaction situation, only having your own two hands can make things a lot more hectic. So I’m going to say the idea of I’m going to at-home mold my penis with a lot of self-confidence staked on whether my wife loves the resulting dildo more than this dildo that she’s probably taken a lot of time to zero in on as her dildo is probably not going to work out well. But asking his wife, “Hey, do you want to try this as a fun together project?” will. If he can take the ego and pressure out of it and just have it be fun, that tends to increase people’s chances of staying hard for the 60 seconds. Rich: Definitely. Jessica: You have an extra pair of hands on hand to help. And then, even if this ends with her being like, “I just don’t like the texture or the color or whatever,” it was a shared activity instead of a quest to make the perfect dildo in unlikely conditions. Rich: The perfect dildo. It’s potentially a comedic scenario where he shows up with this misshapen thing that doesn’t look like his penis or any penis really, and then is so deflated when she’s just like, “What am I supposed to do with this?” Jessica: From what I’ve seen and heard from people who’ve actually used Clone-A-Willy and had a good time with it, it’s typically coming from a place of, “This is a low-stakes, goofy, sweet time,” rather than trying to compete with the professional-grade manufactured stuff. That said, if there’s some company out there that’s legitimate and professional and doing these elaborate molds for people, and the letter writer has the budget for it, then absolutely ask your wife first so you know every detail about her preferences, down to length or whether it should have a flanged base. Rich: The writer asks, “Is there a pro to using my mold over her tried-and-true?” And I just think that is his question to answer. You’re hanging your ego on this scenario. If you don’t have the answer to whether there’s a pro or not, then avoid it and make it a collaboration, really, because there’s a lot at stake, unfortunately, for him. Sometimes when you surprise somebody, yes, you’re giving them a gift, but it can put a burden on them to react. This is something that’s supposed to be for fun, but when she becomes responsible for something that’s so attached to your ego, it can take a turn quickly. I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Jessica: I’m also a little worried that his question is coming from a place of wanting a talking point with which to argue the logic. So I’m going to make this not about sex at all for a minute. For several months, I have had this fantasy of getting one of those little hydroponic gadgets for growing strawberries that you keep in the kitchen. Finally, I said to my partner that I live with, “Hey, I want to get one of these things.” And I go through the talking points and show him a picture, and he’s like, “Where’s the sunshine going to come from?” I’m like, “Well, it uses LED lights for that,” and he makes a face and eventually ends up saying, “Well, it’s not going to taste as good. And we’ve got a store and farmers nearby.” Those were all really good points. If asking for a pro to using his mold over her beloved dildo is coming from a desire to make a solid argument, consider how unpartnerly it would’ve been for me to push in the face of reasonable and fact-based information for this gadget that will affect many things about the home we share and result in him having to eat subpar strawberries. Then remember that we’re talking about your wife’s solo masturbation time and her body. Rich: Exactly. I’m sure there can be success in blind-buying a sex toy for somebody and giving it to them, and then they end up loving it. But not everything good and generous has to come in the form of a surprise. This is one of those things, unless you have a partner who specifically says, “I love your penis so much, I wish there were some way I could carry it around with me.” In that case, you found that way; they weren’t aware of Clone-A-Willy, and you’re going to blow their mind. In any other case, work on it together. Talk about it. The product is relatively inexpensive, but if she’s not into it, then you just saved yourself at least $50. Jessica: At least $50, probably some physical discomfort. Rich: And ego, all the ego stuff. Jessica: I know we often like to make the most generous assumptions about the letter writers. I do get a strong sense that it’s not really a present for her so much as it is a way for him to hopefully assuage some small but existing ego pain. So again, we can take the sex completely out of it and think about how it usually goes when we “give people presents” that are nothing to do with them and what they want. It doesn’t often work out. So ask first, but don’t try to pretend that this is something you’ve decided you want to do for her, and that’s the only motivation here. Rich: Right, because then what kind of a gift is it anyway? More Advice From Slate My husband recently had an affair with a co-worker. When I first discovered the affair and confronted him, he said it was just an emotional affair but they ended up having sex one weekend while they were traveling, and emotions ballooned further from there. The whole thing has been the most horrifying, destabilizing experience of my life. My husband has recommitted to our marriage and we are trying to heal, but dealing with the fallout has been horrendous, and I often find myself wondering how to put the pieces back together. Advice Sex