From Podcast

What Does E-Stim Feel Like?

Hi this is Eric Forbes at ErosTek and today:

I want to talk about what e-stim feels like.

A lot of people have been calling us on the phone, sending us emails asking “What does this feel like?” so I’d like to spend a few minutes to try and explain it. I’ve been doing it [e-stim] for so long, it’s like it’s own range of feelings.

Does it feel like a hand job?

Sorta. Let’s start with what it would feel like on the cock and balls since that’s the most popular configuration to start off with. Most guys don’t use an anal plug to start off with, they usually do something with their cock and balls. So, let’s talk about that.

One of my favorite configurations is to use the CockCap on the top of my cock and to put the ECup over my balls with the Neoprene Jock. What that does is create a circuit that goes between the ball-sac and goes up the shaft through the cock, stimulates all the nerve endings in the cock and stimulates the very tip using the CockCap. You don’t feel anything on the balls really because the ECup is so large compared to the CockCap.

There’s a surface area effect going on here.

When you look at the two electrodes and compare them, the surface of one — say the ECup — is so much larger than the CockCap. You’re going to feel the sensation near the one with the smaller surface area because it’s more concentrated. You can think of it like the sharpened tip of a pencil. If you were to touch yourself with the sharp tip you’d feel it more strongly than if you touched the same place with the soft rubber eraser on the other side. The difference there isn’t just because of the different materials, but due to the difference in the surface areas. One has a much larger surface area than the other so you can feel the difference with that analogy.

The same thing happens with electricity.

The same current is flowing through the ECup and the CockCap. It’s in the same circuit so it is in fact the same current but you’re going to feel a different sensation in each end (electrode). So in the case of stimulating the cock, you’re going to feel so many different sensations depending on what power unit you’re using and what mode you’re in, if your power unit has multiple modes or routines.

The mode you’re using will have a big influence on what it feels like.

Some of those modes are very basic, like on the ET312B for instance, there’s a mode called “Intense” which is kind of a bad name because it’s actually one of the cooler routines — it’s very basic in that on one channel — Channel A — the output is continuous, it’s not interrupted. You can adjust the sensation, the way it feels, by changing the MultiAdjust (MA) control. When you turn the MultiAdjust down, to the minimum setting, the feeling is very throbbing and coarse like bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bom and this goes on continuously.

You can speed that up with the MultiAdjust control until it becomes a very smooth, higher frequency output. Again it’s continuous, it’s just ON the whole time. And you can vary the intensity using the the output level — in this case for Channel A — you would turn the “A” knob up or down to adjust the intensity while the “MultiAdjust” knob controls the quality, the frequency, the pitch, the smoothness or roughness of the stimulation if you want to say it that way. As you turn it down, it’s going to feel rougher and as you turn it up, it’s going to feel much smoother and tighter. It’s going to feel like it’s compressing.

So you have a wide range just in that one mode.

I like to use “Intense” as an introduction because it’s a very predictable mode. It doesn’t move around a lot, unless you’re cranking on the MultiAdjust knob and turning it up and down! You can pretty much vary it however you like, but if you just leave it there and slowly adjust the output [level], you’ll get a pretty good idea of what it feels like at a particular MultiAdjust setting.

It’s a little hard to explain.

I’m trying my best to explain it but, the fact is, you’ve got two things you can adjust once you get wired up. You can decide what mode you’re going to go into and where you’re going to set the MultiAdjust knob and that’s basically setting the speed of the routine — how fast it plays — and also the frequency which determines how smooth it feels. Higher frequencies tend to feel smoother and lower frequencies feel rougher and more pulsing and throbbing.

Just imagine a rainbow of colors…

You can basically select any color that you want by adjusting the MultiAdjust knob and you can adjust how bright it is by the output levels, A or B.

It’s completely up to you.

You can start off with just the mildest tingle and stay there for awhile and just… For me personally, I like to go pretty high during a session and then I like to bring it back [down] to where I can barely feel it. I find that my nerve endings get a break and they start to become more sensitive when I turn the power level down. I give myself just like 5 minutes. For me, it’s very arousing to turn the levels down and take a little break without turning it off.

Then I’m ready to go at a higher level again, not necessarily as high as I was before but I can find this happy-medium where I can stay there for an hour and watch videos or look at pictures that I think — well, look at pictures of hot guys basically — or whatever I’m doing. Then e-stim becomes this other layer to my play time.

So what does e-stim feel like?

It’s a factor of the power unit, so which power unit are you using? If you’re starting off with something inexpensive, like a TENS unit, that’s not going to feel very erotic. It’s going to give you a tingle, for sure, but realize that TENS units were made for numbing the nerve endings. They were designed to block chronic pain by making the same pulse train over and over again. It’s like playing the same note on the piano over and over and over again. Ding-ding-ding-ding! Over and over again. The same thing. After awhile, the brain stops paying attention to that area. Which is good if you’re in pain.

But let’s face it…

If you’re trying to get off, you probably don’t want your cock to be numb.

The good thing about ErosTek Power Units is that the waveforms are balanced positive and negative. That means that over time there is no build up of current [or charge] in one direction vs. the other. It’s balanced. It’s going to equal zero over time. There are just as many pulses going in the positive direction as there are in the negative. So if you add that all up, you get zero. It’s neutral.

Some units push the pulses in a positive direction only.

You wind up having this numbing sensation occur much faster. The only remedy is to take the wires off [disconnect them] and flip them around so that you can disconnect the leads going to the CockCap and ECup — turn the levels down first — then flip the wires so that each goes to the other electrode. One goes into the other (and vice versa) and then you can turn the levels back up and stim in the opposite direction for awhile.

ErosTek Power Units do that automatically, with every pulse. There’s a positive-going and a negative-going, alternating current, going back and forth. Like a true alternating current waveform it’s positive, crosses zero, goes negative, crosses through zero and goes positive again. So… that’s a technical thing, I didn’t need to get into that 🙂

The idea is, if you’re using an inexpensive power unit like a TENS unit, it’s a great, I say it’s a good introduction because it’s inexpensive and lots of people got their start with erotic e-stim using a TENS unit. I don’t know the numbers but I would say people were prescribed a TENS unit [for back pain, for instance] and then put the gel pads on their cock and balls and thought:

“Whoa, this feels pretty cool!”

Sometimes that’s all they need is just gel pads on the cock and balls with to a TENS unit. But if they start searching on the web or talking to their friends, someone is bound to talk about there being other companies out there making stuff that’s for sex, that’s erotic not numbing.

Our units are designed to be used for play.

They’re not meant for medical purposes. In that respect they are just more erotic. They produce sensations that are more varied and more pleasant and if you crank the output levels up high enough, they can become painful.

We have a large body of customers that go for [purchase] these units for the fact that they can produce anything from a mild, pleasant sensation, to something really painful and back again. E-stim doesn’t leave any marks, it doesn’t bruise, it doesn’t do anything like some kinds of BDSM play.

You’ve another tool in your toolbox to help you get off.

I hope this helped give you some idea of what e-stim feels like. In a future podcast I expect I’ll plug a speaker into the output so you can actually hear what the routine sounds like. And we’ll go through the MultiAdjust knob and turn it down and then bring it up so you can see — or actually hear — what the pulses sound like. And with that, you might be able to better relate to what it feels like. That’s coming up next.