Review: Luvkis bird-shaped kegel exerciser set (+ intro to Kegels)

I love car­ry­ing heavy objects in my vagi­na, as any­one who has read my review of the 1.5lb (680g) njoy Pure Wand knows. But it's not exact­ly prac­ti­cal to walk around all day with a big hunk of steel hang­ing out of my vagi­na. And my 11 oz. (310g) njoy Pure Plug got lost in the mail when I moved to a new state.

So when Luvkis con­tact­ed me, their bird-​shaped Kegel exer­cis­er set charmed me with its cute­ness. And I have zero shame in admit­ting that. (Though I'll prob­a­bly grow salti­er and less eas­i­ly impressed the longer I stay in the sex toy industry.)

Though the set's dens­est weight (4.05oz or 115g) is far from the heav­i­est weight I've per­son­al­ly used for Kegels, it was enjoy­able. I'll dis­cuss the med­ical ben­e­fits of Kegels in a minute. But for now, I want to empha­size how fun it is to have my vagi­na con­stant­ly aware of the (silicone-​covered) met­al in my vagina.

I've insert­ed mul­ti­ple weights from the set to increase the total mass. Their heft makes me want to hop up and down, move around, climb stairs, and so on. Like using plugs vagi­nal­ly, or anal plugs that jig­gle, the resis­tance is like con­stant, sub­tle arousal through­out the day. It feels good to move my body and to clench around the toy, and my enjoy­ment is high­ly discreet.

What are the benefits of Kegel exercises?

Kegels exer­cise the pelvic floor, which is a set of mus­cles at— as the name would sug­gest— the bot­tom of the pelvis. Its pri­ma­ry pur­pose is to sup­port the pelvic organs and keep waste inside.

But a strong pelvic floor also offers some­thing more excit­ing: enhanced sex­u­al plea­sure and per­for­mance. That could mean increased arousal, stronger orgasms, eas­i­er mul­ti­ple orgasms, and so much more. And there's no shame in seek­ing that out. That applies even if you:

• are in your teens or twenties
• have nev­er giv­en birth
• have a penis (though that's a top­ic for anoth­er post)

Building a strong pelvic floor is so much more than post­par­tum care or feel­ing youth­ful or vagi­nal tight­en­ing for a partner's sake. It increas­es sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion for you and brings bal­ance to your core. And these weights are just one of many fun ways to keep your pelvic floor strong and healthy (vag-​controlled smart phone games and vagi­nal weightlift­ing, any­one?).

A strong vagina vs. a tight vagina

It's true that a strong pelvic floor can squeeze more tight­ly, but that's not the same thing as a tight pelvic floor. Strength is the abil­i­ty to con­tract, while mus­cle tight­ness is the inabil­i­ty to length­en. My vagi­na is very flex­i­ble, able to con­sume a dil­do the size of a soda can, but also able to crack a partner's finger.

Think of it this way: you can have strong legs for run­ning and jump­ing and be able to do splits. And exer­cis­ing to build ham­string strength is ben­e­fi­cial in many sports.

But if you nev­er stretch or relax your mus­cles, ham­string tight­ness is prob­lem­at­ic. Your knees might hurt, you might be more prone to injury, and your pos­ture might be thrown off, lead­ing to imbal­ances and back pain.

Likewise, a tight pelvic floor that can't relax isn't a good thing. It can be quite uncom­fort­able, espe­cial­ly when expe­ri­enc­ing penetration.

The downside to Kegels

Even though Kegels bring ben­e­fits to many peo­ple, not every­one should dive right in and start doing them. At least, not with­out balance.

If you're expe­ri­enc­ing issues with mus­cle spasms, very sud­den urgency to "go," pain with pen­e­tra­tion, or are just tense over­all; those are poten­tial signs of a tight pelvic floor. You might want to see a pelvic floor spe­cial­ist, mas­sage, or prac­tice reverse Kegels (con­scious­ly relax­ing) for a few weeks first. (Nicole Guappone is an excel­lent exam­ple of a sex writer with a focus on pelvic floor dys­func­tion and pain.)

Then add Kegels where you con­scious­ly relax between sets. If you want to use the weights in this review, I sug­gest sit­ting down to take breaks often. Otherwise, the ten­sion could wors­en the pain.

What material coats the Luvkis Kegel exercisers?

Whenever I review sil­i­cone prod­ucts from a com­pa­ny I'm unfa­mil­iar with, I flame-​test them to make sure they're safe. There are plen­ty of afford­able and body-​safe sex toys on the mar­ket, but I don't trust all man­u­fac­tur­ers to label their prod­ucts accurately.

Luvkis's silicone-​covered bird Kegel exer­cis­er didn't melt or quick­ly spread the flame. There was some black soot, but that was it. These results con­firm that the coat­ing is sil­i­cone, it's not porous, and it's safe for inter­nal use.

I am, how­ev­er, skep­ti­cal of the claim that any of Luvkis's prod­ucts are made of medical-​grade sil­i­cone. Luvkis is China-​based, and their prices are gen­er­al­ly low. Only a hand­ful of man­u­fac­tur­ers in the US make FDA-​approved, medical-​grade sil­i­cone, which is more expen­sive than food-​grade and under­goes test­ing for dif­fer­ent purposes.

But that's okay— food-​grade sil­i­cone by def­i­n­i­tion has to be safe for use with mucous mem­branes. And accord­ing to Kenton from Funkit Toys, "[The sil­i­cones] are immersed in ace­tone, eth­yl alco­hol, oil, and water, and if any­thing harm­ful leach­es out in dan­ger­ous amounts, they don't pass food-​safety testing."

Using the Luvkis bird-shaped Kegel exercisers

One thing I like about these Kegel exer­cis­ers is how easy they are to insert. They're slen­der (about an inch wide at the most) and tapered. The tip is flex­i­ble and about the width of my thumb, but the weight­ed part is firm and intu­itive to guide.

There's just enough dec­o­ra­tion for me to rec­og­nize that this sex toy is designed to resem­ble a bird, but the tex­ture is min­i­mal over­all. Its mat­te sil­i­cone is only a lit­tle drag­gi­er than LELO's lux­u­ri­ous fin­ish. And it's com­fort­able for wear­ing through­out the day, thanks to its long and flex­i­ble retrieval cord— more so than, say, a met­al plug.

How much do they weigh?

There are five weights in this set, labeled on the birds' tails/​retrieval cords:

• 30g/1.06 oz — the light­est tint of purple
• 45g/1.58 oz
• 65g/2.29 oz
• 85g/2.99 oz
• 115g/4.05 oz — the dark­est shade of purple

For com­par­i­son, if you insert all the birds except the light­est, it totals about the same weight as the njoy Pure Plug. And the B‑Vibe Snug Plug 3 is 160g, which is heav­ier than the dark­est pur­ple bird in this set (115g). If you were to use the sec­ond light­est bird and the heav­i­est bird, that would match the Snug Plug 3's weight.

Don't use the birds anal­ly, though, because they don't have a flared base and there­fore are not butt-​safe.

But Cy, did you stuff all five exercisers in your vagina?

Yeah, I know — nobody asked me that ques­tion. And it's anti­thet­i­cal to the sup­posed vagina-​tightening pur­pose of this toy. But I've test­ed toys big­ger than my arm, so I (right­ful­ly) expect­ed that I'd be able to insert all five of the bird Kegel exer­cis­ers. Combining their weights is where the fun real­ly is for me.

Once I did that, I showed my boyfriend the retrieval cords' forked tails hang­ing from my vagi­na. His response: "It looks like there are snakes in your vagi­na with their tongues stick­ing out."

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This post was spon­sored by Luvkis, and that doesn't change my opin­ion of the product.