Having written about sex toys for as long as I have, one of the most common complaints I hear from readers about toys is that they’re nervous their partner will react poorly to them. Either they already know their partner has a bad attitude about toys because of previous conversations they’ve had, or they just have a sinking feeling about it, and are therefore hesitant to incorporate their favorite pleasurable gizmo(s) into sex.

I also sometimes receive questions from the jealous partner themselves, wondering why they’re experiencing such irrational jealousy and resentment about their sweetheart’s Fleshlight or realistic dildo. After all, a lot of times, when we feel intense distress about someone else’s otherwise harmless choice, it has to do with underlying emotional issues that we may or may not be aware of – and when we’re not aware of them, it can seem like there’s nothing we can do about them.

With that in mind, here are 4 reasons you shouldn’t be jealous of your partner’s sex toy…

You bring so much more to the table than a dildo or stroker!

It might sound obvious, but it’s true: you are a human being, and so you are automatically capable of doing many, many, MANY things that sex toys alone cannot do! And I say this as someone who is, obviously, a huge fan of sex toys. They can’t whisper cute/hot things in my ear. They can’t remember what I like and do more of it (seriously, even the A.I.-influenced toys that claim to be able to do this are nowhere near human-level good at it). They can’t tap into the fantasies and archetypes that turn me on and play those out with me. They can’t replace the feeling of a warm, soft, touchable person in bed next to me. They can’t make me laugh, or hold me when I cry.

If you truly believe that a sex toy has the ability to replace you or upstage you, I would (lovingly) invite you to consider that you might have some self-esteem issues that are worth working on, so you can be happier in and out of the bedroom. (More on that in the last point on this list.)

You can use sex toys with/on your partner!

Toys are just tools. As the classic analogy goes: if you use a hammer to build a house, it wasn’t the hammer that built the house, it was you! And by the same token, if you give your partner pleasure and/or orgasms with toys, it was still you who did that. You just used a tool to do it – and using tools and technology is quite literally part of what makes us human, part of what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. You wouldn’t consider yourself a failure for needing to wear bifocals, or for cooking on a gas range instead of over an open fire, and for the same exact reason, you shouldn’t consider yourself inadequate for incorporating sex toys into sex.

Besides which, using sex toys together can be a really fun adventure, and a way to infuse some novelty and variety into your sex life.

Pleasure is a good thing!

You want your partner to experience pleasure, right? Because you like them (maybe even love them) and want them to be happy? And it’s very likely they want the same for you.

More pleasure is a good thing, period. Sex is (for most of us) primarily about pleasure and intimacy. Sex toys can help you in your pursuit of those goals.

If you find that maintaining a sense of yourself as sexually indispensable is more important to you than your partner’s pleasure, well… I think that’s worth examining.

Slapping a Band-Aid on your insecurities isn’t the same thing as addressing/healing them

I’ve learned this in so many different areas of life. Our fickle human brains like to come up with “logical” solutions to emotional problems. This is why, for example, some monogamous straight people will insist that their partner “can’t” have any friends of the “opposite sex,” because to do so is perceived as a threat to the relationship even when it’s obviously not. These people are trying to “legislate away their feelings” through rules and “boundaries,” in the same way that a person might “forbid” their partner to use sex toys in order to avoid facing the insecurities and anxieties that sex toy usage might bring up for them.

What I have learned is that you cannot outrun or “logic away” these issues. They will keep coming up, in various different forms, until and unless you face them and heal them. And when the issues in question are related to your partner’s rights and freedoms, oftentimes they will manifest in very problematic and perhaps even abusive ways.

The fact is, you don’t get to impose coercive rules on your partner just because you are insecure and anxious. Your partner may want to help you with your insecurities and anxieties, which would be very nice of them, but they are not obligated to, especially if the “help” you are requesting amounts to them making their life smaller, less joyful, and worse just to appease you.

But here’s the really important point – and I say this with love: you will be happier if you address your issues head-on, rather than trying to re-route your discomfort onto someone else. Whether through therapy, journaling, cognitive-behavioral exercises, Internal Family Systems exercises (which have helped me enormously with my insecurities and abandonment anxieties), or any other method of investigative self-reflection, it’s important to figure out what you’re so afraid of, why you’re afraid of it, and whether your fears have any basis in your current reality. More often than not, these types are fears are founded on false beliefs you’ve picked up from past experiences and/or cultural influences, and you don’t need that shit floating around in your brain – it’ll only cause you pain, and cause your partner(s) pain by proxy.

You deserve to live a life of happiness and pleasure, and so does your partner. And that’ll be much easier to achieve once you truly believe, in your very bones, that you are worthy, you are enough, and you have more to offer than a phallic piece of silicone.

This post contains sponsored links. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.