Toy Review – The Dodil
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to force yourself (and your autocorrect) to type the word “dodil”? Very.
The Dodil is a very neat new idea that came out last year courtesy of an accidentally brilliant Swede who, while apparently trying to help a friend create a moldable fishing lure, wound up making a dildo instead. Like you do. (I’m sure there’s a lot more to this story somewhere.)
I knew ahead of time that I would almost certainly not personally enjoy the Dodil due to its size and firmness, but I wanted to get my hands on it anyhow because it’s so incredibly rare that we see real, useful, wanted innovation in the sex toy industry. Most of the time it’s companies adding features nobody really asked for or making things more complicated just for the sake of adding a gimmick. The Dodil is different, and even though I don’t really enjoy it, I’m still so glad for it – it shows that people out there are really putting in the effort to come up with something that isn’t just new for the sake of new.
The Dodil is sleek and simple. A metal thermos comes packed with the dildo, instruction booklet, and orange plastic cable. I’ve recently heard that the company is also offering unbranded thermoses for people hoping to score a sex toy in regions of the world where such things are less socially acceptable and tougher to get, which I think is really great. My first impression when pulling the Dodil thermos from the box was to consider how much soup I could transport in it, but the instructions caution against such things. Bummer.
The Dodil is an oblong teal rod of heat-sensitive thermoplastic encased in matte silicone. In its natural state it’s roughly 7.5″ long and weighs half a pound. The diameter is over an inch and a half, making it difficult for me to use even before I start changing its shape. Something I found interesting and don’t quite know the purpose of, is that the end of the dildo with the emblem stamped on it has a little over an inch and a half of hard plastic that doesn’t react with the heat. The website says it’s for “stabilizing” but…does it need that? I guess the answer is yes since it’s how its made, but I found it to sort of get in the way.
The first step in the Dodil shaping process is to boil a kettle of water and steep your dildo inside its thermos for about 20 minutes. There’s clearly not a whole lot of spontaneity going on here, you need to really plan to use this sex toy. I’ve put off writing this review for far too long over this issue alone. I’m lazy and I want my orgasms now, not in a half an hour. I’m also not a fan of the possibility of burning myself while trying to get my sex toys ready for use (which I did, because of course I did.)
After 20 minutes you dump out the boiling water without pouring it over your hands like I did, and wait some more until your dildo is cool enough to touch. Once you can safely pick it up and handle it, you’re supposed to start shaping it. The rigid-at-room-temp insides feel like soft clay and can be squeezed into different shapes for roughly 20 more minutes before it will start to re-harden. You can either use the provided plastic string to try to hold the shapes you wish it to take, or you can hold it in your hands and run it under cold water. I opted for the first method because cold water literally pains me, but I’m not a huge fan of the plastic cord provided since it doesn’t really hold knots. The inner material really wants to take on it’s original log shape and will fight you the whole way, pulling the string away from wherever and however you wrapped it, and this gets worse the more details you add, since you’re taking away the space for the material to exist in. It’s certainly not an impossible task but I feel like there’s quite a lot of trial and error involved. Some people might find 20 minutes of experiments in weird dildo bondage to be sexy, but it doesn’t really put me in the mood.
I filled up the thermos with cold water after I’d dumped it out the first time so I could just set the Dodil back inside to harden. It occurred to me when I did this that the more severe of a shape you create, the harder it will be to fit the Dodil back inside its thermos. You may have to boil a pot of water on the stove and use that to get it back to its original shape (which is fine, the Dodils are also sold without a thermos for people who prefer to just use what they’ve got at home. It’s just perhaps and unexpected step, and if you find a shape you really like and wish to keep, it may not fit back inside the storage container it’s meant for.)
I quickly came to the realization that almost all of my options were going to be variations of a bumpy dildo. I don’t really like bumps, and the dildo is kinda too big for me in its log shape and pushing the material into a bump makes it even thicker, so this was not going to be my jam at all. But I wanted to see if I could get the hang of the shaping process so I gave it a couple more goes – 20 minutes at a time.
The more interesting of a shape I tried to make, the more I felt like this was a job for someone with more than two hands (and hands that can handle being stuck under cold water for a couple minutes while the Dodil hardens at that. I regularly give myself burns because I won’t wash my hands with reasonably cool water. I am not the person this toy was designed for.) Even though the company suggests using only their own product, I considered what other materials might work better than the plastic cord I was provided. Something like yarn or thick butcher’s string would certainly hold better and tighter, but may require using scissors to remove which poses the risk of puncturing the silicone that encases the squishy stuff. Rubber bands were another thought but I don’t have any on hand try out. I also realized that while yes, I could make all sorts of neat designs, most of them were not actually useful for me as a sex toy. I don’t actually need something in the shape of a W or something that corkscrews sideways, I don’t want flat ends and big bubbles, I just need something that curves up a little to hit my G-spot. The most boring of shapes is what actually works best for me. The Dodil is more of an odd craft project/science experiment than a sex toy for me, but like I said, I knew this going in. What I really wanted to know was how easy and truly versatile the Dodil would be for others.
My conclusion is that I think it could stand to be a bit longer and thinner to begin with, I think that would give you more room to work with, and maybe alleviate the issue I had with creating a decent shape that wound up being too big for me to then insert. I don’t know the stretchy abilities of the silicone used to encase the toy but if it could be stretchier/less resistant I can’t imagine that being a bad thing, or possibly just slightly less filled with the inner squishy stuff? I don’t know if that would actually work, ultimately I’m just looking for a bit less resistance and more of a clay forming experience. Finally I’d like to see some other cord options explored, maybe something elastic or velcro that could help hold the shapes people choose to make a bit more securely. I know that other reviewers have greatly enjoyed their Doldil experience and overall I think the company is really on their way to carving out a nice little corner for themselves as real innovators in this industry.
Big thanks to Luvoqa for sending me The Dodil for review! You can purchase your own by Clicking Here
The Dodil Tl;dr
