Ready, Willing, and Kegel: Adventures In Feminine Fitness

Disclaimer: If you are a blood relative, co-worker, or anyone whose opinion of me would be sullied by the mental image of me crab-walking around my apartment with something protruding from my lady bits, please do me a favor and back slowly away from your computer. Yes, right now.

With a baby coming out of me in four short months, you’d think the last thing I’d want to do is insert foreign objects into what my college roommate would call my “woo.”

But after publicly disclosing my ineptitude at kegel exercises on this very site, I was contacted by not one, but TWO lovely women who offered to help. Which is how I ended up doing dishes with balls hanging between my legs. It’s what my husband would feel like… if he did dishes.

Kidding! He totally does dishes. The point is, I had balls.

Kegel balls.

Let me back up.

So after I bitched and moaned about vaginal prolapse, Garnet from MyPleasure.com sent me a set of K-Balls and Maria from Eden Fantasys sent me the Juno (links somewhat NSFW).

I had to have them shipped to my office, since I’m not home to get UPS or FedEx packages, and worriedly asked Garnet and Maria to make sure the boxes did not say “KEGEL BALLS” in comically large letters, because our mail room guy, Carlos, gives me enough shit as it is. Anyway, here they are, with a basic (for winos) household appliance. See if you can guess which one I have not had intimate relations with:

No, it's not THAT kind of rabbit.

I must say I was relieved that neither of them was one of those contraptions that looks like a garlic press. My vagina is not a Play-Doh Fun Factory.

Anyway, the K-Balls, center in the above photo, are round and pink-patterned and look like what Jonathan Adler might come up with if asked to design a cat barbell. The Juno, by comparison, is more abstract and imposing, a sort of MoMA Design Store dildo. But both got the job done.

Traditional kegels, as most of you probably know, involve squeezing your pelvic floor muscles and holding them, sort of like genital crunches, but I’ve always found them difficult because you’re trying to engage muscles you most often use when stopping yourself from peeing or while having sex–two activities that involve having something inside you. For me, doing kegels just for kicks is like trying to strengthen your hand by grabbing onto… nothing. So having something tactile to, ahem, snatch up (thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week) made the exercises a lot easier, and more fun, once the slight embarrassment subsided.

(Only now, in retrospect, am I realizing that in a perfect world, I would have conducted my experiment while listening to “Pussy Control” by Prince. Sigh.)

So: for everyday, around the house use, I would recommend the K-Balls, because they’re lightweight enough that you can still move relatively freely with them, um, in you. (I mean, you can’t slap some pants on and wear them to work, but you can definitely fold laundry, or watch a few episodes of Modern Family, wearing a loose-fitting robe). I was a little confused about whether both balls were supposed to go in or only one, so I settled on one, mostly for fear of accidentally vacuuming them up in there and having to be one of those shameful emergency room cases that comes around once per season on every prime time medical drama. The texture and weight of the K-Balls was pleasant–it was easy to flex my pelvic floor around the orb shape–and as an added bonus, they were… arousing. As arousing as lady balls get, I’m betting.

The Juno was more advanced. It’s actually fairly heavy, so the manufacturer suggests that you start with the smaller tip and support the weight with your hand as you build up your strength. But emboldened by my K-Balls experience, I went right for the business end, and was shocked to discover that it wouldn’t just stay in on its own, as the K-Balls did–I had to really clench. It was kind of like I was trying to prevent a giant glass icicle from falling from my crotch and impaling a small creature below. So even though I couldn’t walk around as freely (or, really, at all, unless I waddled with a makeshift tee-shirt safety parachute held beneath me), I was working much harder.

After using both exercisers over the course of a week, I could definitely feel a difference. I mean, I could crack walnuts without even using my hands! OK, that’s an exaggeration. But I did find that I could perform traditional kegels more easily, and without the futile, straining feeling I used to get. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that my training paid off in the boudoir. The greatest test, of course, will be how quickly my pelvic floor bounces back after ejecting an eight pound human from my loins. I’ll keep you posted on that. But in the meantime, I highly suggest you invest in a kegel-cizer.

They truly are the sex toys that keep on giving.

Ready, Willing, and Kegel: Adventures In Feminine Fitness

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