There are any number of reasons why people might be wandering the snow-covered streets of New York City trying to find a store that sells tiny balls to insert into their vaginas. Maybe you're a writer who feels the world needs to know more about Ben Wa balls, the sex toy featured prominently in Fifty Shades Darker . Maybe you're a staunch sexual health advocate. Maybe even though you're 34 years old, married, and have to use a special prescription toothpaste so your teeth don't hurt when you drink cold drinks, you still like to think of yourself as an "adventurous person."
Luna Black Beads, $47, Amazon
Or maybe your parents didn't teach you the difference between good attention and bad attention when you were little, mostly because they were always too busy arguing or having sex in disguise. Maybe you once lived a very sexually freewheeling lifestyle as a person—a lifestyle that was actually unsatisfying in any major important way, like having an orgasm or responding to your texts quickly—but Now that you're monogamous and mostly know what you like and don't like, you feel like a nerd. Maybe, like me, you are a multifaceted person who fits all of these descriptions. A lot of things can push a person and her vagina to the point where they feel like they have to make dramatic gestures to show that they're still alive and well with it.
What I'm trying to say is, my parents are now divorced, my teeth hurt, and even though I now have some sex beads in my vagina, I still feel uncool.
Luna Black Beads, $47, Amazon
What the hell am I doing? good question! In Fifty Shades of Grey , the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey , which opens today, there's a scene involving Ben Wa balls, also known as Kegel balls, although they're never mentioned by those names in the movie (spoiler alert Anytime you read a few hundred words of this article but don't want to know any details about the movie). Instead, Christian Gray just provides our beautiful heroine Anastasia Steele with some chunky beads that she thinks are for the butt. Christian assures her they're not for the butt at all, and to prove it, inserts them into her vagina. They attend a costume party and she finds these bead things so stimulating inside her that they eventually explode. You know, standard date night.
These beads/balls also appear in the first book of the series, where Anna briefly wears them while being spanked rather than while talking to Christian's parents at a party. However, neither story really explains what they are, so I will.
Used both for sexual stimulation and for toning vaginal muscles (which is claimed to lead to more pleasurable sex and stronger orgasms), Ben Wa balls do look a bit like anal beads, but are definitely not anal beads. (Seriously, don't put them anywhere near your butt. They're not shaped for anal play and can slip into your colon and have to be removed by a doctor, which is terrible on date night.) Instead , they are weighted balls that go inside the vagina and can help build muscle strength or, if you prefer, provide some sexual pleasure. As sexual health website Go Ask Alice points out, they "come in a variety of sizes and materials. Some are metal and naturally weighted, and some are plastic with metal ball bearings inside. Some come with silicone or nylon cords for easy removal ”
This part is easy to explain. What I can't explain is why, after the Penguin Ball scene in the movie was described to me, I started laughing like crazy and said, "I have to try those." While I appreciate the Fifty Shades movies and books for Many provide a safe space to explore and experience new ideas about sex (although they also have many ideas that are wrong), but I think they can also lead to some racialization in the sex weapon culture. While I'm glad that the Fifty Shades craze has gotten more people to be more open about their sexual desires, some of the discussions about the movie and book seem to have a subtext: How can your sex life really be done if it doesn't involve sex? So satisfying? Ben Wa Balls and sex contracts and those creepy millionaires who never seem to actually work? After the first movie ended and I waded through those " Fifty Shades of Gray changed my sex life" bits, I spent more time thinking about this question - and feeling uncomfortable with my answer - —More than I should.
This time, I want to be at the forefront of the arms race. I hope to be able to participate in any and all discussions with hard-earned personal knowledge of how I personally feel about inserting some giant beads into my Yankee Doodles.
Since Anna was so excited to try them while walking around at the costume party (one of the least erotic scenes on earth to me), I also committed to getting mine without being sexy Ball Run: When I run some lunch errands. While this may sound like next-level perversion to you, many people do wear Ben Wa balls in their daily lives, if not for sexual reasons, then to enhance the properties of their vaginal muscles. The person sitting next to you might be wearing Ben Wa balls right now and you wouldn't know it! Maybe you should ask them! (Please don’t ask them.)
While I choose to run alone, some people do wear Ben Wa balls while having vaginal penetration. But looking at the size of the balls, I couldn't understand the geometry of the situation, especially since I often have trouble pushing a regular old man's penis down there comfortably. I have an image flashing through my mind of the trunk of my car filled with junk and rarely cleaned. So I decided to go it alone. Hey, that worked for Anna! Is going to a deli and deciding between wheat or rye as sexy as a costume party? I think so (I really hate costume parties).
When I finally got some Ben Wa balls, I lubed them up (unlike the saliva used for lubrication in the movie, experts recommend lube), stuffed them in, and stood up. I bought two weighted balls tied with string, meaning each ball has a small weight inside that jingles inside the larger ball. Theoretically, this should cause your vaginal muscles to grip the balls, helping to exercise them; some people also find it pleasurable. For me, it feels like the bells from The Hunchback of Notre Dame ringing in my vagina every time I move.
The feeling was so foreign that my brain raced through a million common vaginal sensations trying to make sense of it. Do I have to pee? Is my vagina hurt? Did I...fart? Of course, everyone's answer is no. I just had some balls rattling in my panties.
As I explored the city streets with my new friends, the Vag Bell Twins, I tried tensing my vaginal muscles to see if they felt sexy. Wearing the balls didn't feel bad, which frankly surprised me a little - my vagina often has a lot of resistance to sexual penetration, and those balls looked huge. Getting them in and keeping them comfortable inside feels like a victory.
But it didn't feel like anything special. When I sat down to eat my sandwich, I completely forgot they existed. I just remember that when I sat up, I felt again like my vagina was like an attic with a confused bird trapped inside that went crazy and flew into all the windows.
Do I still look like I’m having a good time?
When I got home, I took the ball out. They don't make me any sexier, although I'm proud of trying new things with my vagina. She's also 34, married, and no longer spending wild nights with men who find living in a van "you know, really liberating, man." I'm glad she -- and I -- tried something a little weird before I settled in, indulging in joys that were too perverse to be contained in any Fifty Shades of Gray movie , like sitting in the dark picking out dead people while watching "Dawson's Creek" and the skin on my feet peeled.
If watching a Ben Wa scene (or any other scene) sparks your imagination and leads you to explore your fantasies in an exciting, safe, consensual way, then that's obviously great. But if you don't explode into an operatic climax by adding some jingle to your Queen Clarisse Renaldi, then you're in the clear. There's no right or wrong way to enjoy sex, and there's no reason to feel ashamed if something doesn't turn you on or bring you the same pleasure as others. Your vagina, just like Anna Steele, is on its own adventure and journey of self-discovery. If it self-discovers that it likes things just like you've always done them, hey, that's a perfectly acceptable shade of gray.
