Henry Hoover: If you’re reading this please look away now.
Sexual experimentation is not only normal, but healthy too, and for a lot of people that involves dabbling in the weird and wonderful world of sex toys.
While that usually constitutes the odd vibrator and maybe some sex furniture, for the more resourceful individual, the phrase ‘sex toys’ constitutes an umbrella term that pretty much includes anything and everything.
As it turns out, some people have a no-holds-barred attitude to what they will happily insert or be inserted into, particularly when it comes to nearby household appliances with suction power.
Porn star and sexual health guru, Harriet Sugarcookie, investigated exactly how many guys have given the vacuum a test run and has shared her findings.
Surveying visitors to her website, Harriet found that at least 5 per cent of men have used an implement more commonly used for cleaning a rug for a quick tug instead.
Speaking exclusively to UNILAD, Harriet explained:
Many teenagers resort to messing around with a vacuum cleaner because they don’t have access to anything else besides their hands. When you’ve just gone through puberty and your hormones are running wild, you just want to have sex with anything. Add that to the fact sex toys are largely inaccessible to teenagers and voila.
Of course, it’s not just teenagers that enjoy the feeling of masturbating with a vacuum cleaner. Many men not only enjoy the feeling, but do it on a regular basis.
Harriet speculates that male sexual curiosity develops for the Dyson sitting in the airing cupboard because they suspect the suction power emulates the feeling of a blow job.
With the perpetual advancements of sex robotics and lifelike human sex toys, Harriet believes many of us are interested in ways to artificially simulate sex.
So she wanted to know what everyone’s using right now, in a time when sex robots are still a glint in their inventors’ eyes.
After conducting her survey, Harriet discovered something surprising:
In a recent survey, I discovered that 5% of men have had sex with a vacuum cleaner – meaning that they’re more popular than high end sex dolls which only 2% of men have used.
Despite the obvious dangers, for some sexplorers the orgasm is worth the risk, according to Harriet:
The common consensus is that the suction and vibrations from a vacuum cleaner can bring on an intense orgasm that’s different to normal sex or masturbation.
Considering 68 per cent of men have admitted to never using a sex toy of any kind, it seems the majority of men are more than happy to use their hands for masturbation.
Harriet explained that fleshlights are a much safer equivalent to Henry Hoover, adding they still leave a lot to the imagination.
She continued:
Fleshlights and their Japanese equivalent onaholes, are very popular with men. 28 per cent of men said they have used or continue to use these male sex toys.
But if vacuuming is your thing, Harriet also shared a few pointers with us, saying:
Cleaning the machine before is important so that you don’t infect yourself with anything. Putting your penis in a dirty pipe is never a good idea.
But, with the availability – and anonymity – of male sex toys that comes with online shopping, and the eschewing of sexual taboo it seems fewer and fewer men will have to resort to Henry the Hoover.
Harriet just suggests you proceed with caution: it must suck (ahem) to get your dick stuck.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.