Personal Lubricant

Final Post, for the time being

Alec — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:51:54 +0000

Dear readers, This is to be my final post for a while. Please feel free, though, to write into the blog with any personal lubricant questions or comments during the abeyance.

Parabens, Glycerin bibliography

Alec — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:26:56 +0000

The Sliquid website now includes a very useful list of links to reputable information about the risks associated with both parabens and glycerin. Of course, you must keep in mind that the selection is clearly biased towards Sliquid’s point of view.

Lubricant on the Railroad

Alec — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:13:41 +0000

I came across an article this morning about commuter rail in Long Island. One of the first things the author does is complain about is the presence of a K-Y ad on the train. As someone who has a lifetime of familiarity with the many frustrations of commuter railroads, to single out a personal lubricant advertisement as what you have to complain about is almost impossible to fathom. However, perhaps some understanding can be gleaned when you read her uncomfortable description of another ad for the “Bodies” exhibit. Perhaps the conclusion should be: uncomfortable with the body=uncomfortable with personal lubricant.

Menopause–follow up

Alec — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:12:07 +0000

As a follow up to yesterday’s post, I wanted to offer a link to an article I just found that lack of interest is a more common concern among women than lubrication problems. Although the two are linked, and problems with dryness is a very common concern.

Vaginal Dryness and Menopause Revisited

Alec — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:58:33 +0000

I wrote months ago about personal lubricant as a solution for women who experience vaginal dryness as part of menopause. However, what I neglected to mention, and what I think the lubricant manufacturers intentionally tip toe around is the fact that personal lubricant on its own is not a panacea under these circumstances. During menopause many women do experience vaginal dryness, but the change in hormones also leads to a decrease in sex drive, which is a change the lubricant doesn’t address. Thus personal lubricant is crucial but not a total solution, and I think this something that should be acknowledged.

Feminist perspective

Alec — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:21:04 +0000

I just read a great blog entry on Feministe that addresses both lubricants and the “sure grip” product I wrote about in my last post.

I’m linking to it today as it points out that personal lubricant is high on the list of things women are not eager to buy in person and then gets into a great discussion about why this is. The debate, generally speaking, is about whether this shame is rooted in sexism or a culture that’s up tight about sex. I would tend to think the latter, in this instance anyway. However, the silver lining is that if you’re buying your personal lubricant on line because your ashamed to do it in person, at least your saving some money.

Sure Grip

Alec — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:49:38 +0000

While researching my last post, I stumbled on a product that’s new to me and perhaps to you as well: Sure Grip. It’s not a personal lubricant, in fact it’s sort of the opposite of a lubricant. It’s a vaginal tightening cream. It’s stocked by places that also carry personal lubricants; however, many if not most of the places I go online to buy lubricants don’t stock it, which is why I thought it might be something you might not know about.

Lubricants on Ebay

Alec — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:25:53 +0000

There are tons of lubricants for sale on Ebay, most of them offered not by individuals but virtual lubricant purveyors like Undercover Comdoms.

I can’t actual imagine the motivation for buying on ebay when there are so many established lubricant store with sites that are so much easier to navigate.

I also noticed that Undercover Condoms sells lubricants on ebay that it doesn’t offer through its website (amazingly, they don’t seem to offer K-Y on the Undercover condoms website). Not sure when the implications of this are, but it seemed worth noting.

More thoughts on K-Y

Alec — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:05:32 +0000

As a follow up on K-Y’s Yours+Mine, I thought it worth pointing out that Yours+Mine currently tops drugstore.com best sellers list while also being one of the lowest rated lubricants on the entire site!

This glaring contradiction seems typical of K-Y, though. This company is so consistnently creative in its marketing and product innovation, but often seems to come up with a product that falls short of fully satisfying.

Lubricant Novices

Alec — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:47:17 +0000

I’ve written about t.v. commercials a lot lately, so I thought it quite a coincidence when I was watching television with some friends and K-Y’s Yours + Mine commercial came on (a commercial I’ve never actually seen outside of the internet). The commercial sparked a conversation that made me realize just how uninformed people are about lubricants. Granted Yours + Mine is relatively high concept, but I realized the friends I was watching the commercial with not only didn’t understand the nuances of the product, they didn’t seem to even grasp the fact that lubricant has sexual enhancement applications that go beyond just lubricating the process. Clearly, I thought, this is a shame and people are being needless deprived. This then lead to the further epiphany that many of people out there who are informed about personal lubricants many uses may well have partners who are not.

So the moral of the story is: don’t dispair. Just because your partner doesn’t experiment with some of the lubricants that interests you, doesn’t necessarily mean he or she doesn’t like them. It might just mean your partner doesn’t even know they exist.