ToyTorture.com is not only about reviewing toys. On a regular basis small toy makers approach me and ask for advice on market research and product design. Since clever, ingenious toy design intrigues me, I am always excited and happy to bring a new means of perversion into the world.
During the holiday season last year Jonas from Tromsø in Norway contacted me. His primary kink is impact play and in the long dark winters he taught himself how to make floggers. Like his father and grandfather he is working in fishery. After mastering the “traditional” hides like bull or elk, he quite successfully started experimenting with hides from his daytime job, mostly classic aquatic leathers like shark or ray. In October he got his hands on a truly unique hide and started turning it into a flogger which he was very eager to show me. Since he was in Berlin for BLF Easter, we met for a coffee at Romeo&Romeo today. I have seen many extravagant toys and unique designs, but this one blew my mind.
Knowing of his passion for exotic hides, a friend from the Norwegian College of Fishery Science gave Jonas a hide of a whale penis and he turned it into flogger tails. When I first saw the flogger, it looked weird. It had a standard sized grip but only six thin and short tails. I know this kind of tails from pocket floggers I sometimes use in spanking scenes. But they have smaller grips for better handling. The tails’ leather is very soft and flowing, almost like Deer hide and has a smooth, slightly grained surface. The magic start when you start stroking the tails: They quickly grow in length and width, get heavier and after a minute of caressing and jerking a full-sized flogger was lying on the table! What first was a light warm-up toy for small areas grew to a big, heavy thudder. This effect is the reason why there are only six tails. He experimented with eight or even twelve, but as soon as they started growing, the knot holding them together burst.
Obviously, this toy has great potential. It is small enough to fit in a pocket and is easy to carry around. The small tails work great for a close-up, intimate warm-up. Once you are done, simply stroke the tails or expose them to vibration to make them grow and continue the scene with full-size flogger.
As excited I am to get to call one of these floggers my own, Jonas still has some major problems to work out. First, there is the right amount of stroking. If you overdo it, the tails get hard as a rock and you either have to use it as a paddle, wait at least half an hour or put them into ice-water to make them soft again. Especially when using the ice-water, it takes a lot of rubbing to make them grow again. The next issue is the grip balance. It is either too small and too light to control the big thudder or cartoonishly large for the small, short tails. Until now, he only managed to make round-cut tail-ends. He experimented with angle-cut but if you hit the sub too hard with them, sometimes the tips squirt, soiling the sub’s back. Last but not least, ethically sourcing the hide is a big issue. But Jonas is determined to work out these kinks and bring this amazing product to the market soon. He is already experimenting with some other exotic hides. He showed me a video of an electric eel hide flogger he is hoping to turn into a toy, combining e-stim and impact play. So I am very certain we will hear a lot from this talented young man in the near future.