Review: Gender X Sunflower

Navigating the world of sex toys as a non-binary queer person is not easy. Go to almost any online sex store, and you’ll see a menu with categories like “female”, “male”, “couples”, “gay” and “lesbian”. But where do I fit? I could choose female, my gender assigned at birth, but what if I want a toy I can use solo and with a partner, and what if I don’t know the gender of said partner? It gives me a headache just thinking about it, and that’s as someone with almost a decade of experience in the industry. So I can’t imagine the difficulties that arise for someone new to all this, regardless of how you identify. Because at the end of the day, it’s all bullshit. Sex toys have no gender or sexuality, and the vast majority of them can be used by anyone, regardless of your genitals or preference of partner. So when Betty’s Toy Box (one of the few retailers doing the right thing by categorising toys by type and which body part they stimulate) recently introduced me to Evolved Novelties’ new brand Gender X, which offers a range of gender-neutral sex toys, I signed right up to review the Sunflower.

The Brand

Based in the USA, Evolved Novelties are a manufacturer whose products are available in more than 25,000 stores worldwide. While I’ve seen them around, their typically unoriginal designs never really caught my eye before, which is why I haven’t previously reviewed any of their toys. But when I heard about the launch of their new Gender X range, I was impressed. Described as a range of products that emphasise form “over gender suggestion or niche marketing”, brand representative Lucy Vonne D’Olimpio was quoted saying that “We’re letting the shapes and functions speak for themselves, allowing our customers to discover their own pleasure, no matter what that looks like for them.” Now, whilst gender-neutral toys and marketing is nothing new, and has been offered by many smaller sex toy businesses for a long time, to see a major manufacturer come out with something like this shows how the mainstream is finally starting to catch on to these issues, and I couldn’t be more excited. Although it’s also worth noting that whilst the brand name and logo is identical to that of transgender porn site Gender X, I have not been able to find a connection between the two.

Product Description

Despite being around for less than a year, Gender X already has a huge catalogue of products to suit pretty much every preference, with most offering unique interpretations of the classics. My eyes, however, immediately went to their Sunflower, which is a mini massager quite unlike anything that I’ve seen before. As a lover of both pin-point and broad stimulation, usually I would need both a wand massager and a bullet vibrator to achieve the two different sensations, but with dual-ends and an independent motor at each, the Sunflower is offering the best of both worlds. At the top, you’ll find a squishy silicone head, flat at the top and ribbed on the sides for extra stimulation (which makes the toy look an awful lot like a lemon juicer), whilst at the bottom there’s a hard silicone tip for those after something a little more direct. Between the two, reflective black ABS plastic provides an easy handle, whilst the Gender X logo sits just below the massager head. Dual buttons then feature at the opposite end, one for each motor, whilst on the back of this is the magnetic connection points for the charger. Plus, as you can probably guess from the name, this toy only comes in yellow, which was another aspect that attracted me to it since it’s quite an uncommon colour for a vibrator. Finally, the Gender X Sunflower is also fully waterproof, USB rechargeable, and 100% body-safe.

Packaging

My order with Betty’s Toy Box for the Gender X Sunflower was placed on the 26th of July and I amazingly received it just two days later on the 28th, which is easily the fastest anything international has ever arrived to me. The box was then fully discreet, with no mention of who sent it or what was inside. As for the packaging of the toy itself, I found a simple cardboard box featuring pictures of the product and plenty of information on it. Opening this up, the Sunflower was then safely resting in plastic, alongside its charging cord, an instructions sheet, and a small slip describing Gender X’s generous five year warranty. Overall, I think this is all fine, but if you were expecting anything special (or just basics, like a storage bag) you might be a little underwhelmed.

Charging

Since the Gender X Sunflower is USB rechargeable, charging it is easy. Simply plug one end of the charging cord into a USB port, and then the other end will connect magnetically to the product. Although it’s worth noting that this is a little finicky, so make sure the LED light on the buttons starts to flash before you leave it (which, unfortunately, is on the opposite side to the charger), with this becoming a steady light once complete. You can then expect to wait around 30 minutes for the initial charge, with subsequent charges taking around 2 hours to complete, and this will give you around 50 minutes of playtime at the highest level of vibrations and 60 minutes at the lowest level.

Controls

With one button for each motor, controlling the Gender X Sunflower is very straightforward. While they look the same, it’s easy to remember which is which since the two buttons simply control the end of the toy that they are closest to, and they can then be used entirely separately or together. To turn either motor on, just hold the associated button down for 2 seconds, which will place it into a stand-by mode as indicated by the button lighting up (this isn’t always easy to tell, though, as your finger will be covering it). You can then continue pressing this to cycle through the toy’s 10 modes, three of which are steady speeds and seven of which are patterns, and these are all the same across the two motors. When done, you can then hold down either button again for a few seconds. Overall, I am happy with all this, my only note would be that the stand-by mode feels a tad unnecessary, and just means you’re more likely to drain the battery by leaving the toy on by accident.

First Impressions

Upon turning the Gender X Sunflower on for the first time, I very quickly noticed two things. The first was that the vibrations in the two motors are quite buzzy, especially in the smaller end, and the second was that the residual vibrations are by far the worst I’ve ever felt in a sex toy. You see, when you use a vibrator, there are areas you want the vibrations to be, such as the head of a wand massager or tip of a bullet vibrator, and there are areas where you don’t want them, such as the handle. Vibrations that bleed out to these unwanted areas are called residual, and while it might seem like a common problem, most sex toys are actually really good at avoiding them. But they are so strong across the Sunflower that I can barely tell which motor is on at any given time, because the whole toy vibrates with such an intensity that I could easily use the motor for the larger head to stimulate myself with the smaller head, and vice versa. This was a big concern, because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to hold the toy for an extended period of time with the handle vibrating as strongly as the area touching my clitoris. Plus, as I said before, neither motor was particularly intriguing, and the smaller one has to be one of the buzziest I’ve felt. In the same vein, the larger motor has quite a low depth of sound to it, so is fairly discreet, whilst the smaller one is very high-pitched, making it likely to be heard behind closed doors.

My Experience

As expected, the residual vibrations across the Gender X Sunflower make it a genuinely difficult toy to use, which, after almost a decade of reviewing sex toys, is the first time I’ve experienced this. Even if the vibrations were the best I’ve ever felt, it wouldn’t take away from the fact that it is incredibly uncomfortable to hold this toy during use, almost to the point of pain. In fact, during the times I have tried, my hand becomes numb, and when finished it leaves me with a kind of throbbing pins and needles sensation. And due to the small shape, I haven’t been able to figure out a way to prop it up against something else instead, at least not with the kind of pressure I would require. Plus, none of this really matters, because the vibrations themselves aren’t anything special anyway. The larger end is definitely the better of the two, being rumbly enough to give me some good stimulation and satisfying orgasms, and I really enjoy the ribbing around the sides, reminding me of a grinder. But the smaller end is a complete miss, being so buzzy I doubt I’d ever be able to orgasm with it, meaning the only real way to enjoy it is to use the other motor, which just wreaks even more havoc on my already numb hand. It’s also worth mentioning that in the short time I’ve been testing the Sunflower, the silicone on the smaller end has started to come loose, which seems to add to the already high noise level here, and while it is irritating at best right now, I do believe with further use it would start to come off altogether.

Cleaning & Care

Cleaning the Gender X Sunflower is quick and easy since it is fully waterproof and intended for external use only. Simply wipe it down with some warm soapy water (or soak for a short amount of time if fluids have dried), and then rinse and leave to air dry. After that, you can store it however you wish. Additionally, make sure to not use silicone-based lubricants with this toy, as it may damage the silicone it is made of.

Final Thoughts

Making sex toys more inclusive by introducing gender-neutral marketing is one of the biggest areas for improvement in the industry right now. So to see a big name US manufacturer like Evolved Novelties take this on is very exciting. But perhaps their choice to release a whopping 50 products in the first year of sub-brand Gender X should have been a hint to me that something was not right. While the Sunflower was a good product on paper, and functionally it works as well as any mid-range mini wand massager, I would say their choice to release so many toys at once has led to not enough user testing, and it is only there that the toy’s issues really come to light. With such strong residual vibrations throughout, holding this toy is pain, and even the enjoyable vibrations of the larger motor can’t make up for it. Plus, whilst this is certainly no luxury toy, I’d be remiss to not mention that at $90 USD, the Sunflower is not only more expensive than the great Honey Play Box Pomi Wand ($60) that I recently reviewed, but it is actually more than the iconic Magic Wand Mini ($75) as well, meaning there really is no reason to fork out for this vibrating mess instead.

You can get the Gender X Sunflower from Betty’s Toy Box for just $143 AUD / $89.99 USD, plus use my code GRACE to get 10% OFF your total order!

I received this product in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Affiliate links have been used in this post.