Vibease Review: A High Tech, App-Controlled Vibrator

Here we go with another vibrator that works hands-free! If you’ve read my review of the Eva II by Dame Products, you’ll know that I have a love-hate relationship with hands-free vibrators. They sound great in theory and can definitely get the job done, but generally don’t cooperate with my anatomy.

Enter (pun kind of intended) the Vibease. The Vibease is primarily marketed as a wearable, app-controlled vibrator.

It’s small, about palm sized, and silicone covered with a hook-like nub at the end. This nub is designed to sit flush against the external part of the clit. This design choice wasn’t particularly helpful for me and I’ll explain why a bit later. It’s fairly basic design-wise, with two buttons at the base for power and switching the speed.

The vibrations are incredibly muted even at the higher intensities, so this isn’t something you’d want to pull out if you’re in a rush or just want to get the job done. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that a lot of the time, masturbating is just a means to an end and we disconnect ourselves from the actual act in pursuit of orgasm. That isn’t always a bad thing, let me say.

But the Vibease is supposed to encourage a more sensual, intentional approach to masturbation which can be a welcome change of pace.

Because part of the fantasy the Vibease sells is about the ability to use it in a wherever, whenever kind of situation, the small size and low-key vibrations are definitely marked in the “pros” column in that regard. But just how wearable is it? Does the app actually work?

Feature 1: The App

VIbease control screen within the app. Moving the bubbles up, down, left, or right changes the speed and intensity of the vibrations.

The Vibease app (available on the App Store and Google Play) is truly the bread and butter of this product. Sync your Vibease to the app via Bluetooth and you can control it, give control of it to someone else, and listen to downloadable Erotica Audiobooks that sync vibrations with the pace of the story.

While the audiobooks are a unique feature, they didn’t do much for me as I’m not the biggest fan of erotica in general - I much prefer visual stimulation.

The bigger issue for me though, is that selection of books was very white and seemed pretty basic. I didn’t see much diversity on the covers of each audiobook, which leads me to believe that the content is written for an audience that I’m not part of.

This is unfortunate, because I would’ve felt inclined to at least give an audiobook a try if the selection was more representative. I don’t know the process for developing or submitting audiobooks for inclusion within the Vibease database, but this seems like a fairly avoidable oversight.

Options within a chat in the app.

There’s a bit of a learning curve with using the chat and control features of the app, though. There aren’t too many directions or help guides, so be ready for a bit of trial and error.

I used the app to give control of my Vibease to my partner while he was in Chicago on a work trip and it worked like a charm after we figured it all out.

Within the chat section of the app, there are options to do things like voice call, video chat, and even send voice memos to make the experience more dynamic.

Feature 2: Wearability

Where something like the Eva II is designed to be used with a partner, the Vibease is meant to be used on your own. This toy is not at all practical for partnered activity because it’s SLIPPERY. There’s also nothing that can actually hold it in place, except for a hand or someone else’s pelvis. Maybe labia if they’re long enough, but that is definitely not factored into the design.

But the Vibease knows it isn’t the most compatible for physically partnered play. In fact, that’s where it shines through the use of the app that allows someone else to control it. The person in control can use it to tease the wearer throughout the day, during a meal, really whenever they want to. And it’s quiet enough to make that feasible.

For me though, putting it in my underwear and trying to use it like a traditional panty vibrator just didn’t work. The biggest problem is that it won’t sit right against my body, so it always required manual assistance and repositioning for me to actually get off.

The nub that’s supposed to lie against the clit would just press against part of my clitoral hood which caused uncomfortable pressure for me, so I would turn it upside down and put the nub further down, on my actual clit.

This also meant that putting it in my underwear didn’t work because it would just kind of slide around the part of my vulva between the apex of my labia majora and actual clit. Positioning aside though, I couldn’t get enough pressure from the Vibease when it was in the right position and I would try to use it hands free by clenching my thighs together.

So while it wasn’t exactly a monumental failure, the Vibease fell short for me in a lot of respects. Every vibrator isn’t compatible with every body, and I don’t want to imply that the Vibease is inferior just because it wasn’t the right one for ME.

I quite enjoyed my experience with the Vibease overall because it made me slow down and really focus on what I was trying to do instead of speed to the finish line. The app is pretty robust and decently user friendly, and it is impressive to have such a high level of control over the vibrations I want. I’d suggest it to anyone looking to step into sex tech and interested in taking distance play to a new level.

Want one for yourself? You can get your own Vibease here!

Black Women, Let's Rethink Our Loyalty

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”

—Malcolm X, 1962

I came back from a month-long social media detox to this garbage. Part of why I decided to take time away from the internet was because I felt like I was becoming too consumed by toxicity and it was exacerbating my anxiety. I wasn’t wrong.

I originally thought about a long twitter thread in response to this but decided against it. I try not to be too reactionary when I’m frustrated and calling this dude a fool in a couple different replies to the original tweet seemed sufficient. I’m also hyper-aware that the majority of my Twitter (and blog) audience is white and this is one of those things that felt better suited for an intra-community conversation. But, things needed to be said and I’ve taken it upon myself to say them, so here we are.

Because it’s not really about him, it’s about his mentality and the reality that’s created for young Black women like me. Because let’s be honest, the City Girls and Baller Alert chicken heads he’s referring to are Black women.

Black women are one of the statistically least likely demographics to partner and marry interracially, second to Asian men last I checked. Black men, on the other hand, are one of the most likely to partner and marry outside of their race. There’s a lot of reasons for this, mostly relating to desirability. Black men, as a group, are considered more socially desired than Black women. There are also a lot of reasons for this, mostly relating to racist ideas about Black men’s sexual prowess. This desirability, in general, allows them a level of romantic and/or sexual access to non-Black people that Black women don’t generally experience. The stereotype about the successful Black man with a white wife isn’t an accident or a particularly negative one depending on who you ask. But I digress. (yes, you “not all Black men” keyboard warriors, I know this doesn’t apply to every Black man, but enough of y’all either agree or don’t care enough about Black women to say something about it yourselves.)

“But Sexology Bae,” you’re probably saying, “people can’t help who they fall in love with. Are you really shaming Black men who don’t partner with Black women for their preference?”

At the risk of psychoanalyzing a whole group of people to make my point, if your preference is rooted in considering a group of people as inferior, then yeah. You’re trash and so is your mindset. The tweet above is concerned with being taken advantage of by Black women specifically, not women in general. As if non-Black women are somehow less likely to be gold diggers. Or, is it that those women deserve “the bag” even if they come across it dishonestly and Black women don’t deserve it at all?

When raging about this tweet in a reply thread on Twitter, my friend Lex touched on the concept of racial meritocracy, which is at play here. If Black women are at the bottom of the barrel as far as our racial hierarchy is concerned, then any woman above us is more deserving of the benefits they’d get from a Black man. Black women are more likely to be better educated and make more money than Black men so why are we the ones regarded as gold diggers? There’s a long legacy of racist characterizations of Black women as money hungry, most obvious the “welfare queen” of the mid/late 20th century. According to this joker and the bums who think like him, we can’t come across love for a Black man naturally, we have to be getting something out of it.

Which brings me to the point about being “trapped”. Did you know there are ways to prevent pregnancy? And maybe you shouldn’t fuck someone in the first place if you think they’re going to get pregnant on purpose just to keep you around? I don’t really desire to have kids so I always have trouble relating to this perceived mindset of women who have kids just to spite men and/or keep them in relationships

I’m sure it happens, but I think what’s more likely is people being on two separate pages about the nature of their relationship when they’ve decided to add a child to the mix. Pregnancy and childbirth, plus the stress of raising a child seem like excessive reactions to spite someone.

Less excessive? Having a child with someone because you love them and think they love you too. But I could be wrong about this, I don’t even desire a child with my partner of nearly 7 years because kids are a lot of work so I can’t even begin to imagine having one because I’m ANGRY.

But Black Patriarchy has us fooled. Black women have been the backbone of our communities and movements because we understand that racial uplift requires unity. But misogynistic leaders have warped that messaging to convince us that we must protect and stand by Black men at any cost, even if it’s to our detriment. What if we let go of this loyalty to people who did not have our best interests at heart?

Even in the responses to the tweet above, most women were calling him (rightfully) trash and challenging other Black men to call him on his behavior. But there were still a few women who agreed with him, saying that we (Black women) got ourselves into this predicament by adopting an “Independent Woman” mentality, being argumentative or aggressive, and idolizing women like the City Girls, Cardi B, or Megan the Stallion, who pride themselves on getting over on men who don’t respect them as fully realized humans in the first place. I argue that flipping the script on someone who wasn’t going to respect you (regardless of what you did) so you get something out of the interaction isn’t inherently dishonest, but of course it’s seen that way when you’re historically expected to take that kind of treatment laying down.

I’ve seen the argument that Black women have let white feminists convince us that we don’t need Black men which is why our race hasn’t made any progress. Not only is this infantilizing, it’s gaslighting Black women into thinking that our experiences with gendered abuse at the hands of Black men aren’t valid.

What if I said that we’ve been receiving messaging like the above tweet for generations and of our own volition decide that we don’t need to tolerate abuse? I know that I’ve been called a bed wench for dating outside of my race by Black men who’ve also dated interracially.

But because loyalty to your race is only one sided, there’s no derogatory equivalent for Black men. Expecting accountability or critiquing how the treatment we’ve historically received at the hands of Black men colors our interactions today does not make Black women man-haters. It doesn’t mean we don’t care about our people. It means we care enough to want to undo the trauma that plagued our foremothers.

I can only hope that one day, we’re ready to have a conversation about how loyalty to and support for Blackness should not be contingent upon an infallible loyalty to men who will cast us aside for more worthy options.

Beyond Talking the Talk: HealthLabs.com's Commitment to LGBTQ+ Health

Wondering where all of the rainbow-colored merch has gone now that we’re in July? Once the advertising cash cow of Pride Month is over, the overwhelming majority of companies that “support” the LGBTQ+ community go back to pretending we don’t exist, if not being outright hostile to us.

It’s always refreshing to see companies, especially ones founded in the South, be open about their support for the LGBTQ+ community year-round. HealthLabs.com, a Texas-based company, is transparent about their commitment to the queer + trans community, going beyond lip service and helping to lower some of the barriers to care for folks.

In a country where LGBTQ+ people face health disparities like these:

• "Lesbians are less likely to get preventive services for cancer

• Gay men are at higher risk of HIV and other STDs, especially among communities of color

• LGBT populations have the highest rates of tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use

• Trans people have a high prevalence of HIV/STDs, victimization, mental health issues, and suicide and are less likely to have health insurance than heterosexual or LGB individuals.”

  source

And the effects of which are compounded by other marginalized identities due to not having access to adequate healthcare, companies that help close that gap are invaluable.

By allowing clients to select the testing they need, HealthLabs prevents the stress of having to have a test ordered by a personal doctor, avoiding the potential denial of the request as well as additional costs. It’s all incredibly straightforward, cost-effective, and best of all, PRIVATE. By eliminating the middleman, clients can get their results quickly (within just a few days) and with more discretion. Even though they don’t accept health insurance, one can still request documentation for reimbursement.

In addition to having STD/STI tests as part of their catalog, they have recently introduced a pioneering test for trans people, allowing those who are medically transitioning to monitor hormone levels and the health of organs impacted by Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). While money is always going to be a major barrier to healthcare access for LGBTQ+ people given the disparity in pay and job access, reducing the number of hurdles people have to jump to receive information about their bodies and health is always beneficial. All tests are available online at www.HealthLabs.com or by phone at 1-800-579-3914.

Thanks to my friends at HealthLabs.com! All opinions mine.