Review: New York Toy Collective’s Shilo and Love Bump

Step into your neighbourhood cock-shop and regardless of if it’s a skeevy porno store or a quality, progressive, education-based, sexuality boutique, one thing becomes immediately apparent- there is a lot of variation in what people like in their faux phalluses. Big, small, fat, slim, heady, veiny, curved, straight– there are a lot of variables. What if you could control some of those variables, and change them, from day to day?

Ok, so pose-able dildos aren’t new. They’ve actually been around for quite some time. For as long as I can remember, seeing Craigslist and Freecycle listings for “pack-and-play” cribs always made me cringe a little as I immediately envisioned prisons made of weird bendy penises. I don’t care how sex-positive you are, that’s just weird. Up until a year or so ago though, bendable dildos were at best made of porous “real skin” or elastomer and at worst made of jelly. Their bases were strange, if you bent them too much the wires exploded out of their sides, and they weren’t really something you wanted to have in your pants all day.

New York Toy Collective changed all that by making the first silicone pose-able dildo on the market- Shilo. I first found Shilo through Sinclair Sexsmith during a Cock Confidence workshop. I was thrilled. I’d had Vibratex’s Silky for a while, but hated the texture of it and the porous material. Here was a beautifully sculpted, dual-density silicone toy with a bendable core, which was designed specifically for packing AND fucking. Not to mention- it didn’t have a face on it! So I asked New York Toy Collective to send me one.

I love the texture of the silicone on Shilo- it reminds me of an ever so slightly firmer VixSkin, but less “sticky” to the touch when freshly washed. Unfortunately for me, Shilo has a really pronounced head. This would be great for most people, since that paired with the ability to bend it to the perfect curve means a lot of g-spot action is a guarantee. G-spot stimulation isn’t a pleasing feeling for me though and toys with pronounced heads have a tendency to get stuck behind my pubic bone on the out-stroke, which feels really unpleasant. I’ve tried flipping it upside-down, but I seem to unconsciously rotate toys as I use them, and inevitably I end up with the same pubic-bone fish-hooking going on. It makes me sad, because if it weren’t for the head I’d probably love the daylights out of it.

New York Toy Collective has a companion product though which I absolutely ADORE- a pair of removable testicles on a cockring. That vibrate. Do you love the ball-slapping feeling? Disappointed that the balls of your cock are forever doomed to live out their lives inside your harness? Want to be a weird multi-scrotumed monster? Fancy fisting someone with bonus balls? All of this and more can be yours with the Love Bump! Yes- I said fisting with bonus balls. Hey- if rednecks can have truck nuts, I can have wrist-nuts, OK?

I do find the the cockring portion of the Love Bump is a bit too big- it’s pretty much the diameter of most toys you’d be wanting to put them onto AND it’s stretchy, so it tends to slip down. There’s nothing more awkward than getting a blowjob, looking down, and realising your nuts have migrated to the head of your dick. Using a stretchy elastomer cockring or a ball-stretcher can help prevent them from shifting in use, and can look pretty hot. The bigger size of the ring is a boon though for wearing as wristnuts, but I feel like since they’re stretchy silicone that even if the ring becomes snugger you’ll still be able to rock the look. The vibe pocket is also a little too roomy, and vibes tend to slip out pretty easily. I wonder if adding ridges to the inside of the vibe pocket might help, or maybe just making it snugger. Vigorous ball-slapping with these as they stand tends to cause the bullet to eventually go flying across the room. Wrapping a rubber band around the bullet helps prevent this in a pinch though.

Both Shilo and Love Bump come in four really well thought-out skin tones, as well as some fun colours (you might even still be abel to find it in a black-and-blue swirl, which I had a hand in making happen). The colours tend to vary a bit, and I do find that the lightest tone can be a bit too opaque and peachy for a lot of folk, but the tan tones and dark brown are great with wonderfully realistic undertones. Probably the best skintones of any dildo company out there, that I’ve seen at least.

So- if you want a dildo that you can stuff into your trousers during the day, then fuck someone with at night (or vice verse, if you’re a day-sleeper), you want a pair of balls to accessorise your favourite outfit/dildo,  or you want to emulate Jiz Lee pornstar extraordinaire– I really can’t recommend New York Toy Collective‘s offerings enough.