I started masturbating when I was a teen and was once caught by my mother. I covered it up saying, “I am just scratching a mosquito bite”. My mother let me off without much scolding but told me that it (obviously she didn’t believe my mosquito bite excuse) was harmful to health. After this incident, for a while, I tried to “control” myself and scolded myself for wanting to masturbate. Of course, that vow of self-control did not last long, and I continued masturbating. I did not know the word back then, but I knew the urge.
I sneaked around, used the storeroom, and kept an eye out for everyone’s activities in my big joint family to find myself space to masturbate. However, I still felt a lot of guilt and shame. I felt worried about the negative impact that my mother had warned me about. When I finally moved to a bigger city, I mustered the courage to visit a gynaecologist and ask if there were any negative health impacts of masturbating. She said none.
In such a context, vibrators inspired curiosity. They sounded scandalous. The subject of hush-hush conversations in college, in friend circles but never to be spoken of too loudly. We made jokes about it, teased each other but did not exactly know much about vibrators. I also feared vibrators, particularly because I was a law student and was all too aware that obscenity laws in India are very broad. And vibrators seemed too exciting to be legal. I continued relying on my fingers and hands for masturbating.
I ultimately bought a vibrator in 2021.
Buying a vibrator, in part, was result of my accumulated anger towards men (I have lots of it!). I have had a rocky dating history and had a pregnancy scare out of a bad date during this time. I wanted to feel a sense of ownership over my own body. Buying a vibrator felt like a liberating choice. It seemed almost as if one is making a declaration to the world that, “look, I am master of my own pleasures”. I joked that I would replace men with vibrators and never ever look at them ever again. (Spoiler: I did continue to look at men!)
In buying the vibrator, I stumbled upon various hilarious situations. First, I didn’t know where to buy one. It did not occur to me that you can simply order online. Shouldn’t vibrators be sold at some sort of hidden, more special place? To me, they seemed so forbidden that I imagined them to be handed out from a tiny window of a mysterious woman’s house outside the city. But thankfully, you can buy them online! (I happened to be in the UK at this time, but you can buy them online in India, too). I later also learnt that in the UK there are physical shops where you can buy them. I did not, however, get a chance to visit one.
Second, I wasn’t sure which one to buy. There were so many options: various shapes and sizes. Some looked pointy, like one of those old English castles. Some had designs that I thought would make the vibrator get lost in my vagina, requiring a search and rescue team to be sent down under. And some looked too big, like Mt. Everest on a remote-controlled stick. I took a queer friend’s help in this journey. After exchanging a lot of pictures, we realized that I needed to find something of that shape and size that I would feel comfortable going in my vagina. We discussed what it would feel like when it touched my inner parts. We finally picked one. A simple design. No rough surface. Soft. Beautiful. And dark pink.
Third, when the vibrator eventually arrived, I could not use it. I did not realize that vibrators require batteries and that you have to buy them separately. It took another month to try out different batteries and figure out which one fits. If only I could have carried it to the grocery store to try out different batteries like a TV remote.
Finally, my vibrator was ready to use. A magnificent thing with an extra side portion for the clitoris.
To me it was simple: you have a vibrator; you use it and get earth-shattering orgasms, and you replace all men. A three-step process to annihilate patriarchy. Conversations with friends also portrayed the same image.
But it did not happen that automatically.
Initially, I only put it on the opening parts of my vagina (i.e. the vulva); I did not put it in. I was a bit scared. “What if it gets stuck?”
I had read some stories on the Internet about vibrators getting stuck and people ending up in embarrassing situations. (In hindsight, I realized I did not have many authentic sources of information; I relied on whatever I stumbled upon.)
The first time I used it, my body had a reaction to the vibrator, but nothing beyond that. It did not give me the earth-shattering orgasm that I was expecting. Maybe I was just not in the mood that day.
Slowly, a journey started. Sometimes, I teased myself by rubbing it only on my outside walls. Sometimes, I was lost or distracted, and it did not even completely go in. Tip-toeing outside as if marked by fencing. Other times, I was so excited that I was hardly able to control myself. Sometimes, I felt just enough. Sometimes, I stopped in the middle because it wasn’t it. Sometimes, I needed different men, different plot lines, different role plays in my head. Sometimes it would be just me and the vibrator without any images. I took it more and more in. And gradually, I also took it all the way to touch my innermost parts and got the out-of-the-world pleasure I wanted. Sometimes it worked immediately, hitting the exact right spot and leaving me breathless.
Sometimes I would be too exhausted to use it. I also had a period where I could not use my vibrator. I had broken up with someone I deeply loved. Then, whenever I tried using my vibrator, his memories clogged my mind, and I would cry and stop.
The thing is, a vibrator is not a magic wand. It is a tool. I always have a bodily reaction on using the vibrator, but not always pleasure.
I had thought that the vibrator would change my life. It did. But also, it did not. It instead became part of my life and remains interwoven with all of me—my moods, my imaginations, my mental and physical health. It isn’t a linear story of going to happy endings. It is a journey of knowing myself, what I like, how I like it, what intensity I like it in, what are the imaginations that help, and what doesn’t. The vibrator gives me a sense of freedom not because I always get earth-shattering experiences. But because it allows me a journey where I am in control. Knowledge of oneself and one’s body can be freeing. Vibrator is my partner in this journey.
Sex, for me, has been difficult, particularly because many of my dates did not bother listening to what I liked. Even the so-called progressive men I dated, the ones who asked if I had orgasmed, did it out of a sense of obligation. I often mechanically replied yes, for the fear that their ego might hurt if I said no. Sex often felt like something I did for my partners. Often, it did not feel like a shared journey of pleasure. The vibrator allowed me to pleasure myself without pretense or performance.
I did not replace men. Instead, I soon wanted my male partners to be part of the process. I imagined lying comfortably while a partner with all his might used the vibrator on me. I have not done it so far. Some men coughed at the idea of using the vibrator. As if me getting pleasure from a vibrator would make him less of a man.
Another guy was mad at me for getting an orgasm too quickly. He complained that I did not let him show his “full range”. I wondered if the point of the exercise was for him to exhibit all his tools or if it was to get pleasure? I did not bring up the vibrator with him.
Even the better ones have only given sermons and supportive messages so far. No one has actively asked or shown interest in using it and I did not feel like bringing it up. This does not mean the possibility is foreclosed. I am hopeful that I will have space with someone to feel comfortable and what it entails to use vibrator with a partner.
Then I had to travel back from the UK to India. For days, I was conflicted about what to do with the vibrator. I wanted to carry it to India. But I was also worried that Indian airport security would check it and charge me with violating laws on obscenity. I had read some news reports on something similar. I was angry, but I had to throw my vibrator away. I texted my friend that day, saying that I missed my vibrator.
I was back in India. For two months, I was home. There was no chance that I could use, let alone order a vibrator, in our rented small-town house. But one day, while talking about my vibrator with a friend, I found that the same vibrator is available online in India. I was in Delhi by now. So, I ordered it immediately. Here, they did not deliver it anonymously, and I felt a lot of shame taking the delivery of it. But it was the same model, and I was very happy to be reunited.
This year, I moved to New Zealand. This time, I did not want to throw my vibrator away. I mustered courage and called the airline. On a friend’s advice, I told the airline that I had a “battery-operated massager”. They asked me to remove the batteries and put it in the check-in baggage. I have now carried my vibrator here. If only someone had told me this previously!
