TV

We Tried The ‘Broad City’ Sex Toys, And Learnt The Sexiest Thing Of All Is Friendship

"It was actually pretty fun once I stopped laughing, which is a good summary of my sex life in general."

by Patrick Lenton and Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen  7 March 2019
Broad City sex toys review

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Friends! Sometimes you have them, sometimes you don’t. But when you do have them, one’s thing for sure — you’ve always got someone to help you test drive some Broad City branded sex toys for content.

Here’s the thing — Broad City and Lovehoney offered to send me some of their weirdly branded sex toys, and I said yes immediately, because I love free stuff, and I have internalised the “always say yes” rules of improv comedy, because I’ve made several bad choices in my life.

Broad City is a very sex positive show, and Abbi and Ilana got their start in New York’s improv scene in real life, so it all kind of made sense! Sorta! I’d had a lot of coffee.

Did I mention I love free stuff?

So, after saying yes, a week or so later I opened up a box of admittedly very cute looking sex toys: fluro vibrators, pastel butt plugs, all emblazoned with the smiling mugs of my favourite comedy stars. Cool! A big box of celebrity endorsed vibrators really makes you look at your life and say “this is occurring”.

I was given a ‘Respect Your Dick 10 Function Love Ring’, a ‘Ride The Rocket Clitoral Vibrator’ and an ‘Ass Of An Angel Silicone Butt Plug’. In my limited experience with sex toys, they all looked aesthetically pleasing and mildly functional.

But then I realised there were two problems:

  1. I am mildly sexually repressed
  2. Permanently single

Was I going to write some sort of weirdly sad article where I just shoved a bunch of things up my butt? Who would even want to do that? Who would want to read that? Most of these were designed to use with someone else — and, sadly, I realised I had nobody else.

Luckily, I remembered that Broad City at its heart is a show about friendship, about a couple of pals, about two weirdos with boundary issues — so I decided to get my friend, writer and cultural icon Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen to help me review these toys, because we also have boundary issues.

“You are definitely the Abbi because you are pretty sensible and have at least some semblance of shame left in your body” says Giselle, as we try to work out which of us are the Abbi or Ilana. “But then I am also the Abbi because of that time I pegged someone on a first date.”

It’s important to note that we were reviewing these separately. We’re friends.

Friendship Is About Asking For Help

Perhaps it seems obvious, but a friend is someone you can ask for help.

Remember Broad City season 2 episode 3 ‘Wisdom Teeth’, in which Ilana goes out of her way to look after Abbi after she gets her wisdom teeth out, and hijinks ensue? That’s the kind of attitude that a good friendship requires.

“I felt like this was a natural progression in our friendship,” said Giselle to me. I agree.

Random Guy: “I need someone for the amazing race because my mom just pulled out.”

Abbi: “Maybe your dad should have pulled out.”

Friendship Is About Organisation

You have to WORK for a friendship, frankly. Or at least I do.

You have to make the time to see them, reach out and keep them in your life. Giselle and I used to live 10 minutes from each other, and had the world’s best pub in between us, so it was easy to hang out. Now we live in different cities, so we have to try harder: such as test driving some dildos from our respective home and writing about it.

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It’s a bonding experience! The whole show is about bonding experiences.

“You told me that I had to take the cock ring because I was bonking someone and you weren’t. At the time I had been seeing this person for only a couple of weeks, so it was a slightly nerve-wracking conversation to ask if I could put a piece of plastic onto his dick to generate content, but luckily he was a good sport and said yes,” Giselle reminded me.

“This was basically the only planning I had to do, as the rest of it was business as usual for me, which is lying on my bed cranking/crymaxing.”

Friendship Is About Keeping Promises

By this point, I had very firmly decided I actually didn’t want to do this, because of the previously flagged mild sexual repression, and also because I should have more work/life boundaries. I should stop taking my work butt plugs home with me!

But then I discovered that Giselle had gone through with her end of the deal, despite some significant hurdles.

“I am a woman of my word and will absolutely commit to doing something even if the circumstances change, such as putting a cock ring onto the dong of a dude I casually dated for three weeks even though he dumped me, because I promised my best friend I would.”

That’s commitment! I decided to bite the bullet, or at least put the bullet in my bottom.

Friendship Is About Road-Testing A TV Show Butt Plug

So, let’s review the products, because that’s what all this nonsense is about.

1. Broad City Ass Of An Angel Silicone Butt Plug

I am SURE this is a perfectly cromulent butt plug. It’s very pretty, and it definitely does the terrible task it was designed to do with minimal impediments.

It’s use made me confront a whole bunch of feelings and thoughts about myself that are better repressed frankly — and I guess that’s pretty impressive for a butt plug. I don’t know if Broad City wants to advertise the fact that their butt plug plunged me into a state of existential confusion, but at least it’s a point of difference.

Did I enjoy myself? No, through no fault of its own. I’m sure most people would have.

Also, it’s quite large and I am but a tiny boy.

I think if you wanted a butt plug that you’d be proud to put on your mantelpiece, it might as well be this one?

I dunno, I’m uncomfortable both physically and mentally.

As Abbi once said in Broad City: “I finally masturbated above the covers without my eyes being closed.”

Looks like I’m definitely the Abbi.

2. Broad City Respect Your Dick 10 Function Love Ring

“The cock ring experience was a truly memorable one, because by the time I got around to using it, this person I was seeing and I had decided we needed to call things off. In his words, though, I had a job to do, and so we went ahead as planned,” Giselle told me.

Now, that’s true professionalism.

“It was actually pretty fun once I stopped laughing, which is a good summary of my sex life in general.”

“Emblazoned with the words RESPECT YOUR DICK, the cock ring has two little loops, one for your peen and one for the lads. It also has 10 different settings — various speeds of vibration, some fancy pattern ones — and it is very, very loud. Like, distractingly, hysterically loud.

The vibrating attachment is also kind of awkwardly big, so it took a lot of wriggling around for us to work it out. It was actually pretty fun once I stopped laughing, which is a good summary of my sex life in general.”

“In the morning when we woke up, my dude immediately asked if we could try it again, though later he said that it was ‘merely hilarious’ and it wasn’t an actual hot sexy thing for him, which, who knows. However, it turns out that the cock ring actually is a really sick vibrator — it’s very compact, the speeds are pretty powerful and it’s super easy to clean. I went through two battery cycles on it in as many weeks, because I am very lonely.”

3. Broad City Ride The Rocket Clitoral Vibrator

“The ‘Ride the Rocket’ vibrator, on the other hand, is a cheap flimsy pink plastic thing that looks like a toy for your cat. It has four different attachments for the top, all of which fell off as soon as I put them onto the vibrator and switched it on. I did not put those anywhere near my vagina after watching them all wobble off in record time, because I do not want to fish around inside my body for something that looks like the cap off a promotional bottle of Impulse body spray.”

Fair.

“However, using the vibrator without the attachments was fine. It was a bit bumpy because of the bits on the top of the vibrator that attach onto the caps, but it got me there so I guess that’s good. It’s a good, compact size and the vibrations are decent, but the caps are totally redundant and the cock ring does a better job overall and is even smaller so you can slip it in your pocket whenevs. Thank u next, to the vibrator.”

Friendship Is About Doing Dumb Shit For No Good Reason

At the end of the day, while I might not have a dedicated life partner to help me try out a TV show themed cock ring with, like I always dreamed about — it’s pretty impressive that I have a friend willing to do this kind of dumb shit with!

That’s the moral of Broad City. That’s the moral of life.

Or as Giselle said: “I also pictured your literal butthole during the conversations we had, which is not something I have ever or hopefully will ever do again. Best friends forever!”

Anyway, buy a butt plug I guess.

Patrick Lenton is the Entertainment Editor of Junkee. He regrets this.

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen is a Melbourne-based writer and bookseller.