Fleshlight vs Tenga Comparison: 
Is Fleshlight Better Than Tenga?

Written by: Don Watson | Updated: March 2nd, 2019

By this point in time there's more than just one company out there vying for the title of best male masturbator manufacturer.

Within that category, there are two top dogs who have managed to become practically household names due to their ability to make sure their product lines up with what's being asked for all while keeping things a little bit more above board than the average sex toy fare.

Fleshlight has been around for about twenty years now, to the point where their product is instantly recognizable which flies in the face of their original plan on being a discreet sex toy you could have on your desk or in your closet without anyone batting an eyelash. 

Their story is a classic American Dream tale of an entrepreneur finding a place for himself within a niche then coming to utterly dominate it. Now, Fleshlight produces dozens of different toys with some even bearing the molds of the genitals of famous pornographic actresses. A standard Fleshlight is known to be insanely pleasurable, discreet enough to be hidden nicely, and simple to clean as well as use.

Tenga is only about 14 years old and hails from Japan, the product that launched them to widespread prominence in the Western world would be their Tenga Eggs. There was hardly a hardcore video in the mid 2000s you could watch without seeing an ad for "the future of masturbation" coupled with a demonstration of what they were capable of. These days they've branched into the American market pretty hard with a fully expansive list of products all meant to satisfy all of the different types of wankers out there. Tenga toys tend to be unorthodox in look, innovative in their designs, and quite a good time once it's all said and done.

Naturally much like Chevy & Ford or Apple & Microsoft, these two goliaths of the male sex toy industry have been neck and neck for the loyalty of penises and their owners worldwide. Since both parties are going to tell you they make the top of the line toy and nobody else should be purchased from, I figured it was about time to make a solid comparison between the two brands and what they offer.

Things ranging from the overall customer experience of purchasing the toys to their product lineups and even comparisons between similar products will be made, with no stone left unturned. Let's get down to it, shall we?

Website & Purchasing Experience

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Fleshlight having their very own modern website with a very robust USA shipping system makes them the winners in the overall website category. Tenga puts less work into their website and most of my Tenga products were purchased from third party vendors because of that. Still, their website is by all means passable and I don't want to speak ill of the other places I've bought from so they still take home a pretty good grade.

The Fleshlight website is very sleek and modern, it's very easy to see their full product lineup without feeling overwhelmed plus there's more than enough to direct you through their site bit by bit until you've settled on the right toy for you. Orders only slightly over the typical toy amount will score you free shipping which really mostly translates into lube being free if you spend the money there instead of taking the hit on shipping. Sales are consistent and practically non-stop on their website, every major holiday short of Arbor Day brings significant savings. We've talked to their support before, everything was prompt and professional without any hitch to speak of. Overall, their shipping is extremely quick as well as 100% discreet without there being any indication of what's inside the package.

Tenga has only recently had a branded online storefront for themselves, before that they sold only to sex shops directly as well as to other sex toy vendors online. This is apparent in their website that's a lot less modern by current standards and just has quickly navigable category pages to work with. There's a lot less consumer information, it's more or less assumed you already know what kind of fake vagina you're in the market for without much else to speak of. They do run promotions from time to time and offer an overall good deal on shipping, but their system is not nearly as fast & efficient as Fleshlight's. There is nothing overtly wrong with their website and they do ship discreetly, they just don't have the same special touches that FL does to add a bit more finesses to the experience.

Product Lineup

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It's clear that Fleshlight puts a lot of time into research & development by the sheer number of different toys available. Just about every individual toy has at least two different versions that vary in more than case color with there being something out there for every type of person looking for a really special jerk off session. Tenga doesn't have the same level of products with lots of different options, but the ones they do have are very developed themselves to fulfill specific needs.

Overall, I consider them on par with the variety of products they offer as well as the utility of each. It's more of a question of personal preference than it is true supremacy.

At one point the only Fleshlight out there was their flagship Pink Lady. It was as simple as it was elegant, just a straight shot TPE sleeve inside of a plastic case you could adjust the suction on by moving the end cap around. Now, each of their sleeves have a wildly different appearance to offer different sensations & experiences. Someone who wants a minimalist toy can go with the Quickshot that doesn't require as intense cleaning because of the open-ended design, while those who travel might prefer the Fleshlight Go or Fleshlight Pilot line. Of course, that's on top the ever-expanding Fleshlight Girls line of toys that offer you male masturbators molded from the real vagina & anus of famous adult starlets. They've even gone as far as to make automatic male masturbators such as the Fleshlight Launch & the Fleshlight Quickshot Launch for a fully hands-free experience, better masturbation is the name of the game. No matter how you wank, there's a Fleshlight for that.

What makes Tenga a little different from not just Fleshlight but just about every other manufacturer of sex toys I've come across is how much work they've put into their disposable line of toys. The Tenga Egg as well as the Tenga Cup are some of the most highly coveted products since they are extremely discreet in their look but can expand when used to cover the entirety of the penis. Their reusable options are made from TPE much like their disposable fare, but obviously a lot more durable to take more abuse over time. The Flip Hole was made to fulfill the need for an easy to clean full sized toy and they delivered excellently on that. Their Spinner, Flex, and 3D toys also offer a good variety of pleasurable internals that give a wide variety of sensations.

To this effect, both companies have fully fleshed out lines of different products all intended for the best masturbation sessions possible. I think Fleshlight's is much more expansive and is much more likely to have something specific to someone who is very picky, but it isn't like Tenga isn't trying at all.

I'd say that Fleshlight has a bigger focus on the experience of masturbation itself while Tenga focuses a lot more on some of the things surrounding sex toys like their clean up and storage.

Build Quality & Product Design

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The look and feel of both manufacturers is leagues ahead of people who produce a $40 pocket pussy meant to be mostly an impulse buy. Still, Fleshlight comes out on top as having products that are simply a lot more durable, easy to own, and are designed with a lot more overall engineering. Tenga appears to do a lot to try and make their toys special without really testing them fully in my opinion. As far as textured internals go, Fleshlight takes the cake easily with sleeves that are all very different but insanely memorable from the first pump to the last.

With Fleshlights, the thing is you're getting a sex toy that doesn't really always seem like a sex toy. By that I mean there's a lot of bigger concepts at play that makes Fleshlight toys stand out as worthwhile products that happen to be sex toys instead of the other way around.

Take their case design for example and think about what it accomplishes. With all of the caps on, the toy is 100% protected from any dust or dirt making its way in plus you can store it just about anywhere. The back end cap of the toy also functions to adjust the airflow of each toy to give a more or less tight experience depending on personal endowment as well as overall preference. Add in little things like special places to put your fingers while using the toy, little grooves for the sleeve to sit in securely, and finally enough different textures to help you find the exact sensations you're looking for and it's clear why Fleshlight takes the cake in this category.

The TPE blend of Fleshlight is known as Superskin. It has a huge focus on being smooth while also providing realistic supple sensations. In this regard, Superskin performs fantastically. There's a reason they can offer the best experience in male sex toys possible and a large part of it is tied in to their proprietary blend of materials. It doesn't smell weird, feel weird, plus it holds up to the test of time. I can press my finger into any part of any Superskin sleeve to feel the soft, bouncy nature of the material which springs right back to where it belongs once my finger is removed. Superskin can also be handled a bit more aggressively when cleaning compared to Tenga products.

Tenga's products just don't have the same level of ingenuity behind them. The Tenga Egg is hands down the best disposable masturbator out there, but it not being meant to stick around forever limits the amount of extra bells and whistles. Other toys like the Flip Hole are easy to clean overall, yet the mechanisms involved aren't super refined. The internals of their toys are also a lot less resistant than Fleshlight's internals. Plain and simple, a company that's built its empire largely on disposable toys has put little time into making toys that can have a long effective lifespan with lots of use.

Their toys also make use of the TPE material, although they follow different philosophies in their blend. Instead of going for unmatched realism they focus pretty much entirely on being pleasurable. The thing is, those sensations are pleasurable indeed but not for the same reasons as having sex with a flesh and blood person are. It is a more synthetic feeling overall. Soft and supple to a degree, but the TPE inside leads to feelings on the body that are in a different category altogether. Not only that, their reusable toys require a lot more tender care when cleaning, it's very easy to accidentally cause a tear in the material if you scrub a little too hard or blast it with tap water on full blast.

The focus on pleasure vs realism is also present in the overall designs themselves. The orifices of Tenga products are usually just holes of some kind while Fleshlight uses realistic enough looking vaginas & anuses as their orifices. Fleshlight does know what details to omit to avoid the uncanny valley, but some people aren't super comfortable with having a disembodied vagina laying around their room.

Don't get me wrong, Tenga toys aren't going to break on you in little time, they just lack the finesse of Fleshlight products. They are very good manufacturers of worthwhile sex toys, I just don't think they have nearly the same amount of staff on hand to perfect every single part of the experience offered. Fleshlight is just more refined, period.

Don't get me wrong, Tenga toys aren't going to break on you in little time, they just lack the finesse of Fleshlight products. They are very good manufacturers of worthwhile sex toys, I just don't think they have nearly the same amount of staff on hand to perfect every single part of the experience offered.

Ease Of Use

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Neither manufacturer makes toys that are difficult to figure out. Every time you pick up a new Fleshlight or Tenga toy, it won't be long until you're left sitting post-orgasm satisfied in every way besides the newfound desire to clean yourself up. However, Fleshlight has a lot more quality of life enhancements on their sex toys compared to Tenga. Everything from where you can put your fingers to how you can adjust the toy was just made in a better way that works perfectly from the very first time onwards.

Using a Fleshlight is always a straightforward experience. Open up the end cap that exposes the orifice, add some lube evenly throughout the entrance and to your genitals, then get down to work. Changing the suction is absurdly simple plus it doesn't need constant attention to maintain the pressure. Each toy will have some kind of thought put in as to how to really make sure your fingers stay in place, whether it be small finger divots, a dimpled case, you name it.

As for the actual time spend jerking off itself, nothing about a Fleshlight will take you out of the zone. The material feels very real and disperses sensation very evenly over the entirety of the penis. On top of that, there's no weird noises to speak of when using the toy. Some sex toys will sound like those ketchup bottle farts we all know a little too well which is very far from sexy. Every time I've used a Fleshlight, the focus was entirely on a good time versus managing all of the extra considerations.

Tenga toys are equally simple to use, with just adding some lube then you can use the toy as you please. With their disposable options like the Egg a lot more focus on placed on your hand if you want to adjust the level of stimulation offered. That means contending with death grip like symptoms if you use them consistently. On the other hand, the Flip Hole does offer targeted tightening of the sleeve within by pressing on any of the three buttons on the fron of the case. This requires constant pressure from your hand and doesn't really work as nicely as the suction cap from a Fleshlight. When it comes to the Flip Hole it also isn't as convenient to hold for longer periods of time.

Once again, it looks like Fleshlight has Tenga beat by a very small margin in yet another category.

Sensations

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In overall feel and how easy it is to use, Fleshlight both looks like and feels like the real thing without going too far. Their material just makes for a better experience and they know how to design sleeves in a way that will give a distinct experience from every single other one I've used. Tenga material isn't as true to life, nor as perfectly designed with their internals. When you look at a picture of the inside of Fleshlight sleeves you'll know exactly where you are by feel alone, Tenga sleeves tend to feel very similar throughout even if you're at a completely different structure entirely.

Overall, the experience offered by Fleshlight sex toys are simply better than what Tenga can offer. Being inside a Fleshlight feels, well, right. I've used just about every toy in their catalog by now and I'm always eager to get more added to my collection. Even their basic Pink Lady offers great sensations despite having not much going on to speak of. Other options like Sex In A Can, Fleshlight Pilot, or Fleshlight Go all offer a tighter overall experience if that's what you really want. Other toys, most notably options from the Fleshlight Girls line can offer an experience ranging from sensations that get progressively tighter over time or with specialized "pleasure domes" inside that have their own variety of tickling protrustions within.

Then there are other toys like the Quickshot that can even be kind of spun while in use for something a little different entirely. What's not to love about the feels offered here? They are all connected by similar attributes: unparalleled pleasure, excellent realism, and a complete lack of any ickiness.

Tenga TPE just feels a whole lot more synthetic from the get go. It feels great, but for instance the Tenga Flip Hole just doesn't make use of it's specialized internals that properly. It's a bit too supple I think to create the variety they're looking for. Each different part of the sleeve should feel wildly different, especially the end meant to tantalize the glans, but in the end it's just a soft hole to thrust into without much variance to speak of. The "volume" of the experience isn't the same as Fleshlight. Whenever I use a toy, it's a good sign whenever I mouth something under my breath about how great the sensations are. Whenever I've used a Tenga product, that happens a lot less often.

For those looking for the absolute best feeling material to be used, Fleshlight has taken the cake and then some.

Clean Up & General Ownership

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This is the only category where Tenga has Fleshlight beat. Cleaning up a Tenga toy after it's been used tends to be much simpler since their toys are designed with being easy to clean in mind or just straight up disposable. Fleshlight more than likely won't make their toys easier to clean any time soon because it would mean the design of the sleeve would need to be changed entirely. Still, clean up isn't impossible by any means but it does take more than just a little more effort to get it right back to where it was before.

To clean a Fleshlight toy, a few things need to happen. First, you'll need to extract the sleeve from the case itself. That's easy enough to do. Now you have a cylindrical heap of plastic in your hand with two ends, one being just a fairly large hole and the other being the orifice. At this point you'll need to run warm water & a gentle soap through the entirety of the toy until you're confident all of the nooks and crannies are free from lubricant and your leavings. Once that's done you need to begin the drying process. The orifice itself can be dried using a towel and the internals can be cleaned a little bit by reversing the sleeve from the hole side the using the towel, but there's still usually a period in time when the sleeve needs to sit on a paper towel for a bit while it fully dries out.

With Tenga toys, there's three real options. The first is just throwing the toy out which is exactly what you do with disposable toys like the Tenga Egg. Next comes using the Flip Hole which you can open right up to put water right on every single part of the internals to wash them out completely. Finally, their other toys were made in such a way that reversing the sleeve completely is extremely simple so you can hit it with water that way. From there you can either towel both ends and dry them out individually, or in the case of the Flip Hole simply leave it open for it to air dry much more quickly than any Fleshlight sleeve will.

So it really looks like Tenga takes the cake when it comes to clean up afterwards. Fleshlight sleeves don't allow for the same level of precision cleaning nor do they have the same extremely quick dry time offered by Tenga toys. After writing most of this comparison I'm glad there is something Tenga managed to do better, I do want to give the impression they are still good toys even if Fleshlight has them beat in a lot of key places.

Overall Ratings

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After reading all of this it really does seem that Fleshlight is the better manufacturer. Well, in a lot of ways that is true. Their toys feel the best, you get a good deal when it comes to overall lifespan, and you can be sure yours will be well used. At the same time, I feel that Tenga just makes different toys as opposed to worse toys.

Tenga has cleaning down pat plus a few really ingenious ideas for how to make their toys work inside & out. They just aren't as well developed as the Fleshlight line of toys however. The sheer range of experiences offered is much more expansive through Fleshlight with no two products being exactly alike. Also, I enjoy how Fleshlight has made a toy of some kind that focuses on a more individual part of improving the experience versus their generalized male masturbators. Want a smaller toy than usual? They've got one. Want one that's easier to clean than their originals? You bet your ass they've got one. Want one that'll look even more discreet? Yes, you guessed it: they've got one.

If Fleshlight wants to keep their status as one of the top dogs out there, they'll need to ensure that they keep pumping out new toys that follow the same philosophies as their current lineup. That means more sleeves with wicked intense internals and the ability to have people like me reaching for them time and time again thanks to the sheer ease of use. If they don't play their cards right, they risk being dethroned one day but a new kid with some fancy ideas and a lot of mettle.

For realism, a personalized experience, and a great material: pick Fleshlight. If you want a toy that feels a bit less organic than the real thing while providing a bit more stealth & being easy to clean: pick Tenga.

About Don Watson

My name is Don Watson and I love to support my wife Angela's passion for human sexuality. It pays dividends for me personally and I enjoy writing about the topic as I'm a sexual person by nature. I concern myself with everything on the website that has to do with the male reproductive system to compliment my wife's female-oriented content. Have any questions? You can contact me via email.

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