OhMiBod - traditional vibrator discontinued by OhMiBod - review by Backseat Boohoo

(This review is long and continues in to the experience section.)

Music is sexy. Turn on your radio and you're bound to hear a few danceable pop tunes where the singer invites her lover home for the night. Flip to one of the many music channels on your TV and you'll see music videos rife with sexual imagery, sensuous dancing, and beautiful people. Even a walk through the park proves just how sexy music is: joggers keep themselves fit and trim with upbeat and motivational tracks that thump in tandem with their pounding feet, and fresh-faced high school kids flirt by comparing their playlists. It was only a matter of time before somebody realized that this sexiness would be an incredible compliment to a vibrator, prompting the creation of the OhMiBod.

The OhMiBod arrives in a cardboard box roughly the size of a DVD box set. The packaging is neatly and professionally designed, with simple pictures and promotional text that provide you with a variety of ways to enjoy your new toy. The package includes a manual, a pink carrying case, the traditional-shaped vibrator, two interchangeable battery compartment lids (one with a jack for using the vibrator with music, the other with buttons for using the vibrator quietly), and a connector cable.

The OhMiBod is easy to use. The forked end of the cable has a headphone jack and a jack that you connect your music source, which can be an iPod, a non-Apple MP3 player, a guitar, or any other compatible audio device. The jack on the other end of the cable hooks in to the vibrator. When you're ready to use the ohMiBod, simply insert 2 AA batteries in to the vibrator, hook up the cable, then turn on your mp3 player and start up a song. Theoretically, the vibrator will vibrate in tandem with the music, and the intensity of the vibrations will vary depending on how high you have the volume cranked.

I say "theoretically" because this doesn't work as well as it should. Unless you're listening to some really quiet, relaxing music, like a Mozart concerto, the OhMiBod will react not only to the beat of the song, but also to the vocals, pronounced instruments in the melody, and so forth; hence, for most songs, the OhMiBod simply vibrates non-stop. This will be a bit of a bummer for folks who really wanted the OhMiBod to vibrate to, say, a hip-hop song's thumping beat, not its rapid-fire vocals.

That being said, if you do find the right song for the situation, you can easily create a variety of functions and vibration patterns with your device. For example, we discovered that certain hardcore tunes that varied between ascending guitar riffs and piano segments made the vibrations pulsate and escalate. I tested this mp3 player out with some Marvin Gaye music, and it provided low vibrations to the background beat which strengthened only when the late Mr. Gaye belted out a few notes. You can use just scroll through your iPod playlist with the "clicking" noise turned on: the OhMiBod picks up on any and all audio inputted through the cable, not just mp3s.

Most importantly, the OhMiBod IS very responsive to volume changes. Using the volume meter to weaken and strengthen the vibrations is easy, since you simply roll your finger around the iPod wheel, and it creates plenty of degrees of strength for you to choose from. This is a nice change from most traditional vibrators, which only give you two or three vastly different strengths to choose from.

While it's hit or miss getting this vibrator to work just the way you want it in connection with an audio device, it's easy to use the OhMiBod with the extra battery compartment lid screwed on. This lid has several buttons on it: a circular button that turns the toy off and a triangular button that turns the toy on and cycles through the various speeds. Now, if you ask me, it's a little silly that you have to use the triangle button to turn the toy on and cycle through the speeds while you use the circle button to turn the toy off, but not on. As for the settings, there are 3 continuous, 2 pulsating, and 2 escalating, all of which are REALLY strong. There is a slight pause each time you change settings, which gets a little annoying.

Speaking of annoying: regardless of which cap you use with your OhMiBod, this toy will be LOUD when it vibrates. I'm usually very forgiving about noise, especially in a toy as powerful as the OhMiBod, but it really sounds like a chainsaw going off. You could definitely hear it echoing across the quad when my friends and I tested it out on-campus!

In the end, the big question is, "Does it work?" Well, yes and no. It does vibrate in reaction to the audio inputted through the cable. However, as my video review shows, the OhMiBod is hyper-sensitive to each and every noise it hears, so it basically ends up vibrating continuously on a super-high level rather than vibrating in time with a song's beat or melody. Also, while it works well enough with the non-audio battery compartment cap, the toy is so rigid and loud that I really don't see myself reaching for it all that often. Still, it's a fun toy once you work out its quirks, and it definitely makes for a interesting afternoon with your friends on campus!

............EXPERIENCE............

As soon as the OhMiBod was in my hot little hands, I was hooking it up to my iPod and testing it out. I tried several very different songs to get a handle on how well the vibrator reacted to different kinds of music: Marvin Gaye's smooth and funky "Let's Get It On," "Dhoom Taana" from the Om Shanti Om soundtrack, a Mozart concerto, and power metal band Kamelot's "Forever." With the exception of the Mozart concerto, the OhMiBod pretty much just vibrated at full and top speed the whole time, reacting not only to the beat, but also to the vocals, the background instruments, etcetera. I was a little disappointed, because I really wanted to toy to have a "more refined" reaction and vibrate primarily to the beat and the beat alone.

I was also stunned by how LOUD this toy is! I masturbate with my Hitachi Magic Wand roughly once a week, so I'm well versed with how loud a powerful toy can be. The OhMiBod, however, far outstriped the giant Hitachi in terms of sound. Not only was the OhMiBod louder, but it also had a more grating noise. The Hitachi Magic Wand just sounds like a really strong vibrator on top speed, whereas the OhMiBod sounds like the batteries in it are loose or are banging around in a blender.

Masturbating with this toy was also an interesting experience. The plastic vibrator is very rigid, which makes it a little uncomfortable for insertion, and I was unable to stimulate my g-spot with it because I could not curve the toy up enough without hurting myself. However, it was more than strong enough to get me off when I used it as a clitoral vibrator, and I have to admit that attempting to masturbate to "The Hampster Dance" was an interesting experience.

The OhMiBod is made out of hard plastic, which is easy to clean with a little soap and water or a 10% bleach solution. I recommend screwing on the non-audio battery compartment lid when you do this; that way, you won't get any water in the audio jack during cleaning. Plastic is compatible with silicone, water, and oil-based lubricants.

Do NOT use this vibrator anally! It does not have a flared base and the cable is detachable, so it's all too easy to lose the vibrator in your bum. Nobody wants to have to tell the ER doctor they lost a vibrator up their butt because they were too distracted by "The Macarena" to realize the cable had detached mid-session.