I am a 30-year-old woman and the longest relationship I’ve ever had is with my vibrator. Ours is an enduring love built on trust, a single AA battery, and five inches of silver plastic. Kenneth, as the toy was lovingly dubbed by my husband — the name of an oversized dildo featured in the British comedy Peep Show — has been there for me for 14 years.
As the child of a hippie E.R.-nurse mom, I grew up in a more sex-positive household than my friends. My mother insisted my brother and I call our genitals by their proper names even as toddlers — no “willy” or “hoo-ha” allowed. I’m pretty sure she was the only parent in our WASPy Connecticut town who taught her kids how to put a condom on a banana when we were 15. When my brother, then 12, asked her on the way home from the community pool how two men have sex, she told him. And when masturbation came up in conversation when I was around 14, I told my mother assuredly, “Only boys do that.” She looked at me interestedly and said, “Girls do too. Maybe they start later, but they do.”
At age 14, I hadn’t done it, and I wasn’t yet interested. My friends and I didn’t talk about masturbating. The sex we fantasized about was of the romantic, softly lit variety, the kind hinted at in movies, magazines, and Victoria’s Secret ads. Most of the sex tips I learned as a teen were gleaned from issues of Cosmo I procured from grocery store checkout lanes. My best friend and I pored over them like we were cramming for the College Board’s lesser-known exam on how to please your man (I’ll always remember one pro tip that involved a scrunchie).
The sex we fantasized about was of the romantic, softly lit variety, the kind hinted at in movies, magazines, and Victoria’s Secret ads
We learned that if you had “the big O” yourself, that was all well and good; models who were as thin as I aspired to be helpfully illustrated the perfect face you might make while doing so. But to my friends and me, female orgasms seemed difficult to achieve and a largely optional part of sex, second in priority to blowing your guy’s mind.
And despite the fact that I started having sex at 16 and grew up in a family that didn’t treat this as shameful, I wasn’t comfortable with my own body or sexuality. I struggled with anorexia and bulimia throughout high school, hiding my self-doubt with good grades, a packed schedule, and a veneer of false confidence. As I pleased those around me, I struggled inwardly to figure out who I was. Even though I let men attempt to make me feel good, I didn’t truly value my own pleasure in the way I wanted to.
Kenneth changed that. Nothing about him seemed particularly special when I selected him from the wall of vibrators at a sketchy-looking, off-the-interstate sex store. I was too embarrassed to choose a model that looked explicitly like a penis, and I wasn’t ready for the bells and whistles other toys seemed to offer. So I chose Kenneth, a silver, one-battery model with a slightly curved tip and two speeds: on and off. I threw away the packaging in a public trash can and brought him home. For a while, I left him in a drawer, behind a stack of school awards, unsure of just when I planned to try him out. But the simple knowledge that he would be there when I was ready made me feel powerful.
I chose Kenneth, a silver, one-battery model with a slightly curved tip and two speeds: on and off.
When I finally tried Kenneth, I came quickly. I was 17 and had never orgasmed with a partner before, but it took less than 30 seconds to come with Kenneth. The feeling was an opening, a rush of warmth that spilled out over the edges of the restrained persona I had created for myself. I was overwhelmed both by how good I felt and how easy it was to make myself feel that way. Unlike with a partner, I wasn’t concerned about my Cosmo-worthy “O face.” I didn’t feel the need to suck in my stomach or wear itchy lingerie from the suburban Victoria’s Secret the next town over. I didn’t wonder why I didn’t feel as blissed-out as the women I saw in magazines looked. I could just open up, let go, and feel. After spending a lot of time doing everything I could to stay in control, that was pretty fucking liberating.
I could just open up, let go, and feel. After spending a lot of time doing everything I could to stay in control, that was pretty fucking liberating.
Soon, I got a scholarship to go to the college I had always dreamed of across the country. I knew I had to bring Kenneth, despite the fact that I would have multiple roommates. I quickly developed a stealthy way to get myself off using Kenneth and a pillow, even while sleeping in a bunk bed surrounded by other women. My imagination was potent, and Kenneth did the rest.
My college boyfriend was lovely and tender and so was the sex, but I balked at showing him Kenneth. “Girls don’t masturbate” was still scribbled in the back of my mind somewhere. Ours was a polite sex life, one we thought of as adult and mature, just like we wanted our love to be. With Kenneth, things were different: There was the effortlessness with which I orgasmed, and the feeling of power it brought me to get myself off so easily again and again. The fact that I believed no one would think of me as the “kind of girl” who masturbated nearly every day before class added to the pleasure. Instead of pleasing others, in those moments I was worried only about pleasing myself.
When my college boyfriend left to study abroad in Asia, I dropped him off at the airport and returned to my apartment, despondent. My roommates were all at a football game. I collapsed on the sofa and cried great big 19-year-old tears, feeling hugely sorry for myself. And then I went into my bedroom, got under my Ralph Lauren bedspread, and used Kenneth for the better part of two hours in the blissfully quiet, empty apartment. After that, I realized would be O.K. after all.
When I graduated from college in what was helpfully described by cable news pundits as the worst year to find a job since the Great Depression, I landed an unpaid, full-time internship in Washington, D.C.. To save money while I worked, I went to live with my cousin’s ex-girlfriend’s sister in suburban Virginia. They were a lovely, conservative, strictly Catholic military family; my room in their house had big, Vera Bradley pillows and floral dust ruffles on everything. I stuck Kenneth in the drawer of an antique desk and used him liberally, but only while running the bathroom faucet so no one would hear.
When later I got ready to leave D.C., the dad of this family insisted he use his military-grade packing skills to help me as I moved out. As he arranged my belongings Tetris-like in my suitcase, his hand came to rest on Kenneth, who had rolled out from the sweater I had wrapped around him. He held him and frowned for a second as I held my breath. Then he fit my vibrator neatly between a digital camera box and a Tupperware container full of coins, saying cheerfully, “What they teach you in the service, you never forget.”
As I built my career, Kenneth traveled with me on work trips and waited at home for me after uneventful first dates. More than the Headspace app ever could, Kenneth helped me relax and focus the morning before a big job interview or major presentation. I bought other vibrators but didn’t stick with them; by that point, Kenneth and I had spent a decade together and had a good thing going. Kenneth worked for me.
When I met the man who would become my husband, I waited exactly a week to have sex with him. I wanted to take things one step at a time, but not too slowly. When those seven days were up, sex with my now-husband was unlike any I’d had before. He was older, experienced, and not the least bit embarrassed. Without him having to say so, I knew he didn’t care if I didn’t look like someone in a magazine. He cared about me, asking directly and early what he could do to get me off. I knew I’d feel safe introducing him to Kenneth. He embraced him gamely and Kenneth became part of our sex life together, but stayed part of my solo sex apart, too. And last spring, when I learned I was pregnant with our first child, I used Kenneth to ride the waves of hormones surging through my body and embrace the changes that at once frightened and excited me.
I don’t know how long Kenneth was built to last. Over the years, he’s gotten less quiet — he occasionally omits more of a “last chopper out of Saigon” noise than his usual buzz — but at 14 years old, he is still going strong. When his motor finally whirs its last, I’ll be sad. But my self-love won’t go with him to the landfill. What Kenneth and I have built is bigger than five inches of plastic.
