Product review: The Pinwheel

07/05/2011 at 10:57 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments
Tags: pain, reviews, sex education, Sexuality, TMI

(Not into product reviews? Consider this a warm-up before we get to the juicy stuff, as I’ve been out of practice with writing for awhile.)

My partner and I have a love/hate relationship with the Pinwheel, a medical-device-turned-sex-toy.
That is to say, I love it and my partner hates it.

[Description: A silver device with a long, thin handle resting on white cloth. A circle is attached to one end. There are something like 20+ thin, sharp points, each equal length, sticking out from the circle.]

What we’re looking at today is the Pinwheel, which some of you may recognize for what it really is: A Wartenberg wheel. The Wartenberg wheel is a medical device originally designed to test nerve response. It was developed by Robert Wartenberg, a doctor specializing in neurology, who practiced in Germany until he fled to the US in response to persecution by the Nazis. Wartenberg syndrome, a pain condition, is named after his work.

I don’t know if the Wartenberg wheel is still used in clinical practice, as most of the google results for a it point to the device’s use in kink and BDSM activities instead. Somewhere along the line, someone figured out that using the spiky wheel on yourself or on a partner could feel good in and of itself – at least outside of a clinical setting. Nonetheless, because of its original intended use, some readers here may not want to incorporate this into their sex lives – it may have too clinical of a feel, and it has the potential to be genuinely painful.

How and why would one go about incorporating something so sinister looking into their sex life? According to Babeland, it’s a sensation toy. I don’t 100% know what that means, but a label like sensation toy seems to indicate that, what you’re using is supposed to introduce new physical feelings – touch that you or your partner don’t usually feel, like sharpness instead of softness, metal instead of flesh, cold instead of warmth, and so on. It’s to add variety rather than to speed up orgasm. For example, I like to incorporate it into massage with my partner, though this can break a deep state of relaxation.

Now there is one problem with my Pinwheel:

[Description: A close up of the wheeled spike circle on the end of the pinwheel’s handle. There are clearly some prongs all bent out of shape at the very tips.]

I think mine’s broken, and I’m not sure if it got messed up during shipping or if it got all bent out of shape the first time I was taking it out of the packaging. Either way it was like that when it got here.
In practice, the 3 bent prongs don’t seem to make much of a difference. The points are small enough so that I can’t tell the difference when my partner rolls the bent part over me. But the bent parts have gotten stuck on my hair, so it could be a problem. And the bent parts take away from the device’s aesthetic – it doesn’t look pretty and I find the bent parts distracting. So sooner or later, I’m going to need to replace it.
In other words, if you decide you’re interested in such a wheel, don’t pick one out if you notice any problems with it. Hold out for a nice new one. Once you have one, handle with care – the Pinwheel is more fragile than it looks.

It makes some noise. Because it is made of metal, and the wheel has to be free to move, the device jangles around when you pick it up. Once I recognized the sound it made, my partner was no longer able to sneak up on me with it – I could hear the metallic parts clinking together.

It’s lightweight, especially if you can hold the entire handle in your hand. It could become tiring to hold if you can’t get a good grip on it, or if you have to hold it from only the very bottom of the handle.

When rolled over skin, the metal points will leave little red dots behind in a long unbroken trail; how long it takes for these marks to fade will depend on your own biology. The sensation is difficult to describe – have you ever just barely noticed the feeling of an insect crawling on your skin? If you look down at your arm or hand, yep, there’s a critter on there alright – and at this point you (I) usually kick or flick it off. To me, a light touch with the Pinwheel feels like that, minus the gross-out realization of “Ew there’s a bug on me!” Medium and heavier touches feel much more intense and surprisingly widespread. The wheel may be rolling over only a small part of one of my limbs, but the feeling and muscle tension reaction will spread all the way down the limb.

When my partner uses it on me it makes my muscles tense up involuntarily until the stimulation stops. I’m not sure if this is good or bad for me, since those muscle contractions include my pelvic floor, and my pelvic floor is already messed up as it is – what that means is I can’t decide whether or not it would interfere with Kegels. Heavier touches on healthy skin border on pain but so far do not cross the threshold into actual pain.

So although I enjoy it, in contrast, when I tried it out on my partner, it didn’t go over so well. The spikes produced a lot of skin welts, a little red pinprick of blood, his wriggling away and finally, after a few generous attempts and “I don’t know if I like it yet,” a final “No more I’m done I hate it.” He is still willing to use it on me at my request, but he does not understand why I like it. I don’t have an answer. But clearly this is not the right toy for him.

It’s relatively inexpensive, though the price can vary widely – between $4 – $20, depending on where you buy it from. A Pinwheel from Babeland (which is where I got mine from) will set you back $20, but you can get the same thing for less through Amazon (this might be a more innocuous option if you share your computer with someone who would not appreciate navigating it towards adult-themed sites.) Supposedly there are expensive versions which are more geared towards medical use in a professional setting, though I did not find them during a cursory search.

I do have some caveats before you rush out and pick one up. It broke my partner’s skin, so there’s a risk it could break yours, too – watch out for bodily fluids. It’s stainless steel and it can be cleaned, but most of us probably don’t have the means at home to truly sterilize a medical instrument to medical standards. My partner doesn’t like the ticklish sensation it produces, so if you dislike light touches it may be too uncomfortable. It has the potential to be painful as well, and so if you are sensitive to touch it might not be the right toy for you.

As with all reviews posted on Feminists with FSD so far, I had to pay for this out of pocket with my own money, and I don’t get any compensation out of posting this.