Good Vibrations Magazine

I’m absolutely not a follower of the cult of the real penis. Quite the opposite — in fact, I, and most of my lovers, are transsexuals on the FtM (female-to-male) spectrum, and you don’t have to ask twice for me to tell you that I’m not out chasing the ‘real’ thing. Actually, I would declare myself as someone with a strong preference for dick, penis and cock that can be removed, changed in size, boiled for cleanliness, hand-held, bolted to the wall, or harnessed to my partner’s thigh.

I’m talking about the cult of the realistic penis, dildo, or packer. Yes folks, I’m a big ‘ole fan of the kind you buy at the store.

So I decided to take some of our best “realistic” packing, pissing and playing toys into the field for a go. I’ve listed below all of my picks for products we currently offer at Good Vibrations that may address the needs of drag kings, transsexual men, and all others on the FtM spectrum.

For now I want to focus on a couple of my own personal favorites — Mango Packer and Tex. Try these out, and have fun playing!

Mango Packer
I first used the Mango Packer to prepare for a workshop for an FtM conference, for which I was presenting on packers. I was supposed to be the “fun” presenter at the end of the day, so I got pumped and prepped by having some fun of my own with the Mango.

The Mango Packer is a basic softskin packer in the ‘Mini’ size, with a medical-grade latex tube running through it to create a realistic packer that someone with female anatomy can actually whip out and pee through. The Mango has a fabulous design because the tube for pissing is soft, has a small cup at the base to catch the pee, and it can be tucked up against the body in a subtle way so you can pack with one of these just as you would with a plain softpack.

With soft packs, a lot of folks like to use a stocking or a Packy Pocket underneath briefs to keep the bulge in place. With the Mango packer, you probably want to find yourself some underoos tight enough to hold the packer in place without additional support, because it’s much more difficult to pull it out and pee through it if you have to dig through more than two layers just to get to it.

Please believe me when I say you need tight briefs-my first night out with the Mango, it got all sideways in my pants, and then fell down my pant leg and onto my shoe. I had to make a swooping lean-down-and-shove-in-pocket save. Good thing I revel in humiliating situations.

The packer comes with detailed instructions for use and cleaning and I highly recommend that if you get one of these that you read the instructions! It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not entirely obvious how it is used.

Step one with the Mango is to practice. I got started in my bathroom at home, which turned out to be a fantastic move because I definitely peed on myself a bunch. I recommend doing this at home, in boxer shorts or naked, because the first couple tries you are likely to spill. Basically, you want to take the cup-end of the nice, smooth latex tube and create a seal so that the stream of pee from your urethra goes straight into the cup and out the other end. I have pretty strong pissing muscles, and after a couple of drips of pee down my leg I found that I could stand in front of the toilet and shoot a stream of piss out of my new toy with no trouble at all.

Step two with the Mango is to squeeze that tube clean. If you plan to actually pee with it in public places, it’s very important both for your own hygiene and the Mango’s that you squeeze the tube out as thoroughly as possible while still standing in front of the toilet or urinal. If you have some privacy, you might want to grab a little toilet paper and actually wipe off both ends of the tube before you tuck it back into your tightie whities. Trust me ladies and gents and others, it is no fun to discover as you walk out of the bathroom that there’s still a little lingering urine in there, just waiting to drip down your leg!

You will also need to clean the Mango after daily use. It’s recommended that you wash the packy part with soap and water-although if you use it every day, soap every day will degrade the surface, so you should sometimes use just water. The inside of the tube should also be cleaned with a q-tip or some other instrument, rinsed thoroughly, and allowed to dry. Finally, as with any softskin product, you’ll want to cornstarch the surface of the packer to keep it from being sticky when it dries. After all, lint-dick is probably not what you’re going for. As someone that does not use packers on a daily basis, mine has lasted me a year already and I expect it to last more. However, be aware that if packing is part of your everyday regimen, the Mango packer will last about as long as any softskin packer, and then need to be replaced.

The final step is figuring out the Mango’s best and safest public uses. Keep in mind that you probably have to undo your pants, and you definitely have to fumble around in your pants, in order to make use of the Mango. The first few times I used it I dropped my drawers entirely for fear of soiling them — now I can get away with keeping my pants and underwear on. The Mango is best used in public bathrooms with actual stalls, or in a urinal where you have a little space. Of course, we would all be better of pissing in bathrooms that are non-gendered and have separate stalls for all, a political issue that the Mango can undermine, but sadly cannot solve.

After a few public mess-ups, a bad leg-of-the-pants incident, and another couple of go’s in my home and work bathrooms, the Mango packer worked for me like an absolute charm. I was on my way into a club last week, packing so the boys would notice the bulge in my tight jeans, and realized-as I often do entering a long line-that I was going to need to pee desperately within a very few minutes. I was faced with the choice of waiting in the long line outside to get in, and then getting into the long line for the bathroom inside, or finding a spot to piss in an alley before I even got to the club. Then it dawned on me: I don’t even need an alley! To the surprise of my friends, I just turned around into a doorway on Seventh and Howard, unzipped my pants, and peed standing up for the whole world to see. If you’ve ever hated people who do that, while envying them at the same time, the Mango packer is surely for you!

Tex
Listen up people, I’m telling you now so you won’t have to ask again: the hype is real! As a Good Vibrations’ employee, I touch a lot of silicone, rubber and softskin. I don’t just touch it, I handle it. I mean that I take out fresh new dicks from their packaging and smell them, wash them and replace them when they break or tear or get funky. I am intimately familiar with the fascinating topic of sex toy materials and I have never seen anything like the Vixskin™.

Vixskin™ is the solution that Vixen creations, a San Francisco based, women-owned dildo company that makes many of our dildos, came up with for the lack of hypo-allergenic, easy-to-clean, realistic dildo materials. Softskin has a great feel to it, but it is highly porous and therefore both requires condoms, and degrades over time.

Vixskin™ is hard in the center and soft on the surface, fully sterilizable in boiling water, and lasts as long as any silicone dildo (basically, ’til eternity if no accidents happen). Every time I wash my Tex I am astounded by how fresh and new the surface looks and feels.

Tex was the first Vixskin™ product we received, and it’s also the smallest at 5 ¼ x 1 ½ “. I chose to focus on the Tex because in my opinion, the combination of a hard “erect” feel, and a soft, delightful surface is best balanced in Tex. (Size queens, please see the Lonestar). When harnessed, although it lacks balls, it stands up at a nice upward curve for fun with G-spot and prostate stimulation. At the same time, it’s soft and flexible (and small) enough to pack it into tight under-garments and bring it out later for play. If you like to get or give blow jobs or hand jobs with toys, Tex is ideal. The “skin” surface seems to move in your hands or mouth while the center stays firm. Also, it’s an incredible relief to have a “realistic” toy out there that’s not picking up and absorbing bacteria from all of its surroundings. You can slide a clean Tex straight inside of someone’s mouth without having to fear for their health. No strange odor, no rubbery texture-it is truly pliable and lifelike.

The Tex is available in Chocolate and Peach, and hopefully we’ll see more colors and sizes from Vixen soon. Vixskin’s motto is “Worth every inch”. They’re not kidding.

Another Packing Option
Mister Right is Vixskin’s™ silicone packing option. If you pack with any regularity, or have ever had the unpleasant experience of replacing an extremely destroyed softskin packer, you should really just invest in one of these while they’re available. Being able to boil this, and store it in the shapely hard plastic box it comes it, will make your packing experience more hygienic, with noticeably less maintenance.

If you take my advice on the Mister Right, and you have trouble keeping packers in place, the leather and elastic Packing Strap is for you. These two were literally made for each other and they’re the best packing combination on the market.

FtM-Friendly Books and Resources

Non-fiction:
The Ultimate Guide to Strap-on Sex
Body Alchemy
Genderqueer
My Gender Workbook
True Selves
Public Sex
Pomosexuals
Anal Pleasure and Health
The Gender Frontier

Fiction:
Boy in the Middle
Hard Men

Best Gay Erotica 2006
The Leather Daddy & the Femme

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