Air pulse or vibration, and which one suits you

Air pulse and vibration are not two versions of the same thing. Air pulse moves a pocket of air against the clitoris without pressing on it, and vibration shakes whatever skin it is touching. Women who cannot stand one often like the other.

What the seal is doing

A silicone opening rests over the clitoris. It does not press down. Your skin closes around the rim and makes a seal, and the air trapped in that small pocket moves back and forth. What you feel is the air.

People call it suction. Nothing is being pulled out of you. The word stuck because letting the seal go feels the way suction feels when it lets go. Lift the device a quarter of an inch and the sensation drops away to almost nothing while the motor runs at the same speed.

That is the part almost nobody says out loud before you pay. A woman holds it near herself instead of over herself, feels very little, turns it up, feels a little more of very little, and decides she bought a weak toy.

Vibration is contact, and contact spreads

Vibration works through underwear, and it works through your own finger laid over the clitoris to soften it. A wand held against the vulva is felt across several inches. You can press as hard as you like. Vibration can also go inside.

Air pulse does none of that. It works on the clitoris from the outside and stops at the edge of the seal. Pressing gives you less rather than more, because pushing the rim down flattens the pocket of air that is doing the work. Rest its weight on you and no more than that.

Move it before you turn it up

Most women who tell us air pulse felt weak were holding it half an inch off. Off target, the highest setting feels like less than the lowest setting in the right place. So the useful instruction is the opposite of what people do with anything new. Do not press harder and do not turn it up. Move it.

• Rest the opening over the clitoris until you feel it seat.
• Start on the lowest setting and stay there a full minute before you go up. Thirty seconds tells you nothing.
• If it fades to almost nothing, that is usually the seal rather than the battery.
• A drop of water-based lubricant on the rim holds a seal that keeps slipping.
• Hair or a fold of labia under the rim breaks the seal without you noticing.

Give it ten unhurried minutes on a night when nothing has to happen.

Where women divide

Air pulse suits you if:

• Direct contact on the clitoris is too intense.
• Sensation flattens out partway through when you use a vibrator.
• You are very sensitive right after an orgasm and want something you can lift away in one motion.

Vibration suits you if:

• You want broad contact instead of one small area.
• You want something internal, because air pulse does nothing inside.
• You want to press, or to hand it to a partner without explaining how to hold it.
• Holding still annoys you. Air pulse asks you to stay on one spot.

Plenty of women own one of each and reach for different ones on different nights.

The part that is not about a device

Sex that hurts, dryness that a good water-based lubricant does not cover, bleeding after sex, and sensation that has clearly changed from what it used to be all belong at an appointment, especially anything that changed suddenly.

A device does not change any of that, and nothing we sell is a treatment for any of it. It is worth saying in the first two minutes of the appointment. If you think a medication changed things, that is a conversation with the doctor who prescribed it.

Our four air pulse stimulators, side by side

They do the same thing. All four use pulsing air with no direct contact, in body-safe silicone that charges over USB. What separates them is what the makers were willing to put in writing, plus size and price. Anyone telling you the expensive one gives you a different category of sensation is selling you something.

The blank cells are deliberate. Only the Pleasure Air Pro states a number of intensity levels, and that number is eleven. It is also the only one of the four we can call quiet. The other three may well be quiet. We do not have that in writing from the makers, so we are not going to hand it to you as a fact when your neighbor is through the wall.

The Rose Glow is the odd one. It costs a few dollars more than the Pro and says less, and against the Lemon Crush the whole difference is that one glows and the other travels. Buy it if you want to find it in an unlit room without turning on a lamp. That is a real thing to want. It is not a better stimulator.

Buy the Lemon Crush first if you have never tried air pulse. It runs on the same technology as the flagship, so if this turns out not to be how your body likes to be touched, you found that out for about thirty dollars rather than well over a hundred.

If vibration is what you want instead

The Gemma Turbo is a slim waterproof bullet, and it is where we start most women who have never bought a vibrator. Your fingers do the aiming.

For broader contact we carry two wands. The INYA Pleasure Wand has a working end at each side, one broad and one tapered, and it is waterproof. The Doxy Go is a compact cordless wand, and it is the one powered thing on our shelf that does not say waterproof, so keep it out of the bath.

Buy the Lemon Crush and the Gemma Turbo first

That is under eighty dollars for one of each kind, and in two weeks you will know which one you keep reaching for. Then spend the real money on more of that one.

All of this is silicone, so use water-based lubricant with it. Silicone lubricant and a silicone surface do not get along, and Simply Natural Gel says safe with silicone toys on the label.

We cannot ship a stimulation device to Alabama or Mississippi. State law puts this category out of reach there, so an order from either gets refunded rather than shipped.