From Getting Started
To Shave or Not to Shave?
I got 3 emails this week asking about the same thing, which means it’s time to post something for those of you who didn’t ask. The question this week: “Should I shave before I stim?”
Shaving has always seemed optional and I’ve never given it much thought. I shaved my balls and butt in the shower a few weeks ago and noticed a big improvement in the e-stim session I had later that evening. Shaving started innocently enough — I wanted my cock to look a bit bigger by shaving some excess hair from my sac — but wound up making my stim session one of the best ever.
Shave Your Balls!
Do you need to shave your balls before you stim? I depends on how much hair you’ve got on your sack and how you stim.
If you’ve got a dense matt of fur down there and never use a gel pad or E-Cup when stimming, you get a pass. If you’re using the E-Cup which is held nice and tight via it’s neoprene jockstrap, the hairs won’t interfere as much, but they might impede current flow enough to cause you to turn up the levels higher than you’d need with shaved skin.
Higher levels tend to cause numbing and require more frequent rest intervals — which is something I do during longer sessions (1 hour or more) — but when starting out, it’s nice to feel every little sensation.
Shaving your balls when using the E-Cup is optional but I can definitely feel an improvement after I shave.
I can start at a lower level and feel more of the signal through my cock. I almost always pair the E-Cup with a CockCap XL and even though the cup diffuses the current enough to make is “silent” in terms of sensation, the improved conductivity with a shaved ball sac is noticeable and an overall improvement.
Those Sticky Gels
With gel electrodes, shaving is more important since the gel surface needs bare skin to adhere properly and hair simply gets in the way. You’ll notice a big improvement in adhesion and conductivity if you shave, wash and dry your skin before applying gel electrodes on your balls.
My Butt Too?
With the MJ and Moaner butt plugs, we enter the area of shaving the skin adjacent to the anus. Yes, I’m suggesting that you shave your butt if you use the MJ and Moaner type plugs, simply because they use a top-bottom electrode arrangement, placing one of the electrodes on the outside of the anus which is impeded by too much hair. I personally love these two plugs and didn’t realize the difference a little shaving in the shower can make. If you’re using the ElectraStim plugs, shaving your butt isn’t as important as these plugs have a side-to-side electrode arrangement and are mostly conducting inside rather than outside.
How to Shave?
I recommend taking your time in a warm shower, with lots of shaving cream and a fresh disposable razor blade securely clipped into your shaving handle. Warm water tends to relax the scrotum, making it easy to grab a bit and pull it taut while shaving it free of hair. To free the hair you’ve just cut, simply move the shaver along your leg going the opposite way, thereby transferring the cut hairs to your leg where they can be easily collected with a piece of toilet tissue after you’re done. You can flush them down the drain of course, but depending on your plumbing, this might not be a great idea.
Shaving your butt can be challenging to do all by yourself. I do it all the time, but I’ve had some practice. If you have a willing shower buddy, this is a great way to bond over something that requires a moderate amount of trust. Either way: go slowly, enjoy the process and imagine how great your stim session will feel when you’re done.
Safer by Design
Many of our readers have asked about the safety of our power units. I posed this question to our electrical engineer — here’s what he had to say:
ErosTek products have been designed to be within approved levels of electro-stimulation.
Many medical devices have a maximum output exceeding ErosTek power units. The energy in the waveform is a function of the current delivered into the body over a period of time. ErosTek products employ very low duty-cycle waveforms with very little “ON” time. Consequently, the total energy delivered to the body is kept below levels of medical devices designed for safe use on the human body.
At the intensity levels typically used, the current, voltage, and total energy are very similar to a TENS unit. TENS units are often used for extended periods of time without medical supervision to reduce back pain and other chronic forms of pain.
The maximum average output, per channel, of ErosTek devices is well under 1 Watt.
The same amount of power sourced from a continuous-wave AC source equates to about 5 mA of current — 0.005 Amp — at 120 Volts AC. This amount of energy is too small to cause burns when used with commercial erotic electro-stimulation electrodes and very unlikely to cause any sort of lasting harm.
ErosTek power units also, unlike most competing erotic power units, use a fully bipolar symmetrical waveform similar to high-end medical devices. This more costly design significantly reduces the risk of potentially harmful electromigration.
In summary, ErosTek power units are similar to many medical devices in terms of output power and stimulation waveforms. They also have one of the longest track records for safety of any erotic electro-stimulation devices on the market.