How To Use a Dildo:

A Beginners guide to expert level dildo play

Written by: Angela Watson | Updated: April 3rd, 2023

No object is more revered and recognizable as a source of female pleasure than the dildo. It is as simple as it gets when it comes to female masturbation next to using your hands: a phallic object meant to inserted inside the vagina and then manipulated for the greater good of the user. They are just as functional as they are simple, as I've enjoyed using dildos for well over a decade by this point and wouldn't know what I'd do without one.

Dildos go back thousands of years, with wood dildos or dildos with a leather shell on them being some of the first examples that date back to Ancient Greece. 

So it is fair to say that women have known the power of these items as far as self-stimulation goes for an extremely long time. These days we have dildos made from nearly every thinkable material and of every different size, color, and hardness.

Truly, we live in a sort of dildo golden age.

But how exactly do you properly use a dildo to maximize the potential for female orgasm? Lucky for you, I've written up a guide on exactly that.

Let's go from beginning to end and see what happens along the way, shall we?

Before You Get Started (The Pre-Flight Check)

Just before you begin the dildo enjoyment process, make sure you have an environment conducive to comfort and pleasure. Some people go the whole 9 yards and select a full playlist of music and even light candles to get themselves in the mood. The key here is to decide how horny you want to get and how much effort you're willing to put in to getting there.

You should remove anything in your environment that'll make you want to hold back and not commit fully to the experience. So when it comes to things like worrying you'll make a mess, it'd be prudent to lay a towel down underneath you for added comfort and the ability to lose yourself in the sensations without worrying about clean-up afterwards. Bottom line is, get in the mood.

Next, you need to choose the right dildo for the job. The dildo is a lot like a wizard's wand, every one is special to the user and none are exactly alike. You need to focus on what your needs and desires are as far as your phallic stand-in is concerned.

If you're looking for something as hard as possible, glass is the way to go. If it is softness you desire, go for silicone type dildos that are advertised as being particularly plush. It might be tempting to try a "jelly" dildo or something of that nature, but jelly toys are extremely porous and have a high probability of containing toxic chemicals, so stick to medical grade ingredients that are safe for the body. If you do have one of these types of dildos or aren't sure if you do or not and are just now reading this, be sure to put a condom over the dildo to reduce any risk of harmful chemicals leeching from the toy into your body.

Then, focus on size. The best selling dildos tend to be the same size to slightly larger than the average male penis, so something around 6 inches long and 1.1-1.3 inches in diameter is a good starting point to lessen the risk of feeling like you got too much or too little. 

It is recommended that you stay simple as far as dildos are concerned until you get a better feel for what you want, but your first upgrade/modification on the standard dildo design will probably end up being a rabbit style dildo that has an extra arm for stimulating the clitoris while in use.

Either way, just go with what you think will feel best for you.

Next, you should warm yourself up a little bit with your fingers to get the vagina relaxed and able to accommodate the dildo. Some manual stimulation will make your vagina more prepared and ready for the dildo and will also give added lubrication as you'll start to become wet.

After this, it is recommended that you add a water based lube to your dildo to make sure it is properly lubricated. Items like glass dildos are much more effective when lube is applied first and you should always have at least some kind of lubrication before you allow anything to penetrate your vagina.

Read our guide to choosing the best lube to find out which lubricant will work for your dildo.

Once that's all figured out, it's time to get down to business.

The Process

Now we get to the fun part where all of the magic happens, you'll start to see more and more similarities with the magic wand analogy as time goes on if you play your cards right.

Begin by slowly inserting the dildo inside your body. Get a feel for how it stimulates your insides and what kind of motions work best for your overall level of pleasure. After this, get more inventive with the length of your strokes and the speed & intensity at which you move the dildo back and forth. Listen carefully to your body and what it responds to and chase down any good feelings as they come up. Slowly build up tension inside your body until you reach orgasm. 

Its your body and you're completely in control here, so there's no reason to not give yourself exactly what you want.

What gets you off the most will more than likely tend towards certain sensations or motions, but what your body wants on a specific day will have some variance. That's why I recommend you always start out with deep thrusts to see what parts of your vaginal tissue are particularly receptive to play on a given day. From there, you can adjust to short, shallow strokes or any other kind of stimulation that is working out best for you. 

What really makes a dildo different from a penis is that there isn't a human being attached to it that limits the range of motion. Get creative with the angle you insert and you should remember that you can turn it a full 360 degrees when its inside you at whatever speed you manage to pull off, something that is not possible with a real penis (unless your partner is some kind of circus performer).

Also, you can really get inventive with what positions you can get in to get the job done. Missionary style is just the beginning, experiment with twisting and contorting your body as much as possible to apply pressure in different ways which then leads to different sensations being on offer. Personally, I like being on my knees with my posterior firmly in the air and my dildo firmly in my, well, you get the picture. Be creative is all I'm saying. I usually need to throw in some clitoral stimulation with my off hand if I really want to get the job done quickly and with explosive power, so don't neglect the clit!

Keep following yourself down the rabbit hole until you're completely satisfied with the amount of pleasure you've received. If you didn't get what you wanted out of your dildo experience, you might need a different kind of dildo or maybe you need to try different positions or thrusting styles. There are also some days when orgasm just isn't happening, and that's OK too. 

Closing Time

Once you've finished up with your toy and your session is complete, congratulations, you just got yourself off. I don't recommend just leaving your dildo in the bedside drawer and calling it a day, though. 

You absolutely should at least run your dildo over warm water with some soap to give it something resembling a cleaning. I personally recommend doing everything in your power to fully clean and disinfect the dildo so it doesn't become a breeding ground for potentially harmful bacteria or get the dreaded dildo stench. If your dildo is doing its job correctly, its going to get some juices and body cells on it that will end up causing an odor if you don't clean it off. Depending on what toy you have, this process can be either extremely easy or a little bit more involved. Glass is very easily boiled or wiped down while other things like silicone toys that have buttons or things like that you should make sure to give special attention to the grooves or anywhere where fluids can become trapped.

After your dildo has been properly cleaned and stored, you can now call it a day as far as masturbation is concerned.

My Final Piece Of Advice

The dildo is a great piece of equipment, but like any personal care item, the emphasis is on the personal aspect. Spend time carefully exploring with yourself the sensations you like and would like amplified and what sensations you can go without. Over time, you'll be able to start buying dildos that give you much more pleasure per thrust than the ones you bought initially. Never think that you've capped out as far as pleasure potential or that dildos have a ceiling as far as how useful they can get for you, sometimes it is simply a matter of finding what's best for you through trial and error.

I hope you found this guide informative and I hope all of your future sessions leave your legs twitching and your mouth wide open in delight.

About Angela Watson

I'm a sex therapist by day and a sex blogger by night. I love to crush the taboos surrounding sex toys and help people become more sexually liberated. There's no topic too risqué for me to cover and I hope to educate and inform my readers on all things sex. All things that concern the female anatomy or require a more clinical approach than my husband Don can provide is covered by me. Have any questions? You can contact me via email.

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