Is it as good as it is in porn? (Picture: Amazon – Getty – Metro.co.uk)

Anyone who’s watched a reasonable amount of porn will be familiar with the Sybian.

This heavyweight beast of a sex machine – calling it a toy would be like describing Motorhead as ‘chamber music’ – is a favourite of adult movie producers everywhere.

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Sybian celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and shows no signs of giving up its claim to be the most intense experience around. And as someone who specialises in writing about sex, I’ve long been curious about whether it could live up to the hype.

Would anyone really spend upwards of £1500 on a machine that only does one thing – albeit in different ways – and if so, would they be getting their money’s worth?




There was only one way to find out. And because I am clearly the luckiest woman on earth, Sybian themselves offered to send me a unit (via The Kinksters, an adult retailer based in the rather unlikely surroundings of Wrexham, north Wales).

Unpacking my new best friend was an experience in itself – the Sybian has endless different attachments and the company had been kind enough to send me pretty much one of everything. It was like a particularly sexy Christmas morning in my bedroom:

(Picture: Violet Fenn)

There’s a huge amount of information included in the Sybian package, including leaflets about female anatomy and a genuinely useful guide to sexual satisfaction – they take women’s sexual satisfaction very seriously indeed.

Using the Sybian itself is really simple – you just attach your chosen toy, connect the mains cable and switch on. The controls are nothing more than a wired box with two dials, one for rotation and another for vibration – a refreshing change from the endless vibe patterns and over-complicated programmable remote controls often found on other toys.

Sometimes, all a girl needs is a hefty dildo and a power dial.

I write about adult products all the time, so I recognise a serious bit of kit when I see it.

And with a motor – and a reputation – such as the Sybian’s, I was under no illusion that this was going to be a quiet experience.

Limited to the bedroom for privacy reasons, I decided that the floor would be the sturdiest place to site the unit.

I sat it on folded towels to aid noise muffling and, confident that I’d done what I could to silence the beast, switched it on. Which is when the earthquake apparently hit.

My bed – a solid wood four-poster – leapt off the floor as the Sybian roared into life. Not only did the floorboards shake, so did the walls.

I have never heard anything as loud as this and I speak as someone who owns three Doxys.

Having hurriedly switched it off and assured the other occupants of the house that no, I hadn’t suddenly decided to demolish a ceiling without warning them, I lugged the beast up onto the bed itself in the hope that the mattress would add insulation (and that the weight might stop the bed from dancing a jig).



I’d been supplied with so many attachments that there was no way I’d have time to try them all, so I hid the finger shaped one (because I’m sorry but there is nothing about seeing a disembodied finger waggling around at high speed that makes me think ‘ooh I really want to sit on that’) and just picked out the most likely candidates.

The medium standard insert seemed the obvious place to start (you can also buy ‘RealLike’ penis covers that attach to the insert, with sizes to suit all appetites).

Let’s be clear on this from the start – there is no sexy way to climb onto a Sybian, no matter how hot the porn movies make it look.

I ride a lot, and get on and off horses all the time, but I still found it awkward to clamber on top. But then horses’ saddles don’t usually have a 6″ dildo attached. Although I can’t help but think that the riding community might be missing a trick, here – added fun and security while attempting that difficult showjumping course, maybe?

Having wriggled around for a good few minutes, I decided that I did indeed need more pressure on the magic button, so got off again and attached a ‘red riser’, a little wedge that raises the front of the attachments up against the user’s clitoris, before reinstating myself on my new throne.

Honestly? This thing is weird.

The vast majority of us learn to masturbate while lying down, because that’s the easiest way to do it. But the Sybian requires you to actually ride it like a sexy pony, and that is a very strange thing to get used to.


Apart from anything, it feels more than a little bit exposed, especially when your boyfriend is sitting in front of you giving a running commentary: ‘It looks a bit awkward to get onto, your face is a picture. Shall I turn it up a bit? Jesus it’s loud. Are you supposed to be sweating that much?’

I’d read reviews that said it was too intense, that it only worked for those who got off on internal stimulation, that it was too much hard work to balance on it, etc. So I decided to throw away expectations and just see what happened – settling myself in for the ride, I started turning those dials.

And – nothing very exciting.

It felt nice, but who wants ‘nice’ when they’re riding the world’s most famous sex machine?

Given the cost of these things, I’d expected instant gratification, but it clearly wasn’t going to happen.

So I braved it and turned the dial halfway (official advice is that most women need around three quarters of the power to get real results, but I was genuinely concerned that the neighbours might start banging on the walls).

At this point, it started to work – there was enough vibration coming up through the stimulation pad on the front that, with a bit of wriggling and a lot more sweating (my Sybian was supplied with a luxury washable cover by Sheets of San Francisco, which can be bought separately and which made all the difference – I suspect I’d have stuck to the machine in a very unglamorous fashion without it), I managed to achieve my goal.


But it all felt a bit, well, lacklustre.

Washable covers are very handy in sticky situations (Picture: Sybian)

There was no way I was going to settle for ‘lacklustre’ when I had the best part of a couple of grand’s worth of sex kit sitting on my bed, so I had another shuffle through the attachments in the hope of finding something that would press the buttons more efficiently.

I also made my boyfriend leave the room at this point, because sometimes a lady needs time to herself without worrying about what sort of facial expressions she’s pulling (on the subject of men, Sybian also make the Venus, a hands-free male masturbator that quite frankly looks as though it would easily send most blokes into orbit).

I eventually went for the G Egg, a rather hefty-looking g-spot stimulator from Sybian’s new silicone collection – and hopped back on, with what was probably a look of grim determination on my face.

The G-Egg – eggciting, you might say (Picture: Sybian)

I’d have argued that, up until now, even if I had a G spot, it didn’t do very much – I kind of knew it was there but it certainly wasn’t the magic button that luckier people seem to have.

But with the rotation turned only a third of the way up, there was definitely something going on. Either it was touching me in the right places or I was going to pee myself – I just wasn’t entirely sure which. It felt a bit weird – pleasant, but weird.

But I’m nothing if not determined, so I turned both dials up a bit in order to see what happened.

What happened is that the world exploded.

No kidding – my insides went from zero to full throttle in less than a minute.

Timing is nowhere near accurate because I was incapable of seeing straight, let alone reading a clock, but it was quick. It felt as though I had absolutely no control whatsoever about what was happening – I was just there for the ride and had no option but to hang on for dear life.

Yee haw! (Picture: Getty)

There is an absolutely mind-blowing insanity about the way the Sybian forces orgasms.

The only thing I can compare it to is a mains-powered wand vibrator – Doxy fans will know exactly what I mean here. But with the Sybian, you are upright and riding the machine itself, which adds a whole new element to the adventure.

It was all I could do not to fling my arm in the air and yell ‘Ride ’em, cowboy!‘ while whooping with glee. But my neighbours had suffered enough already, so I gritted my teeth and settled for muted yelping.

The very lovely lady at Sybian – still a family firm and one of the most friendly and helpful companies I’ve ever dealt with – assures me that it’s perfectly possible to stay aboard and achieve multiple orgasms with a little practice (the word ‘squirting’ may also have been mentioned), but it was all I could do to scrabble at the ‘off’ button and collapse into a heap.

The idea of that happening again so soon made my newly sensitive ladybits clench in fear, quite frankly.

Would I recommend the Sybian to others? OH HELL YES. It’s the best thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of testing and I plan to spend most of the summer trying all the different attachments (although I’m going to need to sort some childcare, because this is not something you would ever get away with just by turning the music up a notch).

It would probably terrify anyone who’s never tried more than a Rampant Rabbit, and you’ll only get full use out of it if you have an empty house (with solid foundations). But if you take your sexual pleasure seriously then you’re not going to find anything more dedicated to making you squeal with happiness.

And those elusive multiple orgasms? Well, I’m willing to put the practice in – but first I need to buy the neighbours some earplugs.

Violet Fenn is a freelance writer and blogger. She can be found at Sex, Death, Rock’n’Roll.

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