The Big Oh! Box is a quarterly subscription box service run by two cool folks who believe “pleasure shouldn’t be reserved for any specific person” and have structured their site and their service around being gender and orientation inclusive. Their boxes ship out once a quarter and contain a number of toys and sexy accessories; the box’s focal toy is based on your chosen preference (clitoral, g-spot, anal, or stroker) so you’ll get a toy that’s actually suited for you and/or your partner(s) if you’re sharing!
This is a huge deal to me. I’ve peeked at a few other sex toy subscription boxes, but all of the ones I found were marketed to straight cis couples. One claimed it could cater to (cis) lesbian couples too, but when I looked at a recent box, it had condoms in it – and while condoms can be snipped into dental dams, I don’t think the box service had that in mind. The generous part of me recognized that varying the contents of a subscription box would require additional labor and financial investment for a small company – but the rest of me, which is no longer cowed by the same old excuses, was frustrated. And even when boxes only had items for anatomy like mine, the aggressive and unnecessary gendering of its products reminded me that while the box might be made for my body, it was not marketed for me. I like sex toys. I like surprises. Why didn’t anybody want my money?
But then, the Big Oh! Box.
It started when they followed me on Twitter. I flipped out a bit when I read their bio, and immediately clicked to peruse their site. I love to read FAQs (listen, y’all, I’m autistic, let me have my vices) so I actually clicked through theirs first – and noticed a few gendered words where there needn’t be. Since the site itself and their stated mission emphasized wanting to combat that type of unnecessary caging, I decided (after some stress pacing) to shoot them an email and suggest alternatives. They emailed me back and were incredibly kind about it. And not only did they change the phrasing in their FAQ, but they offered to send me a box!
The box arrived in just two days, even faster than the following Monday originally estimated by USPS. The design is pretty discreet: just a plain, sealed black box with a shipping label on it. The only indication of what may be inside is the inclusion of the company name – Passionate Ideas – on the shipping label in small, nondescript text as part of the return address. In my opinion “Passionate Ideas” could just as easily be the name of a bath bomb manufacturer or a book publisher etc, and a nosy neighbor would have to really be going out of their way to even notice it.
The inside of the box is printed with their Oh logo, and the products are loose and blanketed in tissue paper. Inside, I found a card detailing the box’s theme (“Welcome the New Year with exciting new sensations”), a bullet vibe, a bottle of lube, “vibration” arousal gel, a pair of aphrodisiac lollipops, a wrist bondage set, a flogger, and a heart-shaped plastic light. As an extra, there was a little plastic baggie with some batteries in it since the light didn’t come with any – a thoughtful addition!
SCREAMING O DOODLE VIBE
Because I chose clitoral/vibrator as my box’s type, the focal item of the box was the Screaming O Doodle Vibe. I have some not-so-happy feelings about Screaming O, but the Doodle looked interesting enough: a small, battery-operated, hard plastic bullet in a silicone sleeve. On the end of the sleeve, the Doodle has a little silicone ball that oscillates from the force of the bullet’s vibrations, serving as a tiny jackhammer for your clit, nipple, or wherever else you choose to tease. Unfortunately, despite promising “deep, rumbling vibrations,” the single speed vibe is just buzzy and uncomfortable on my junk, and the sleeve creates a weird seam so that it doesn’t sit on my clit the way I want it to. The silicone ball’s thudding is mostly lost in all the buzz (and pinchy when it’s not), though it’s more perceptible to the skin on my arms and thighs. I don’t hate having it drifted across my skin as a sensation tease, but it’s more of a novelty than a functioning toy. And it’s gonna be hell to clean it.
Value: The Doodle Vibe is listed as “out of stock and unavailable” on Screaming O’s site, with no mention of its price. Lovehoney straight up says it’s been discontinued; they sold it at $14 with a recommended retail price of $17. Good Vibrations has it for $9, down from $18. Pinkcherry has it on sale for $6.50, down from $20. If we consider the full retail price from these three shops, it’s worth about $18.
PADORA’S POPS 50 SHADES OF EARL GREY
I hate tea. It tastes like the air you breathe in a tunnel. And yet, as I type this, I’m sucking on a 50 Shades of Earl Grey lollipop and enjoying the hell out of it. I’m serious, this thing is tasty. I’m not a food critic so I’m not even going to pretend to identify/discern the subtle flavors etc etc, but I will say it’s yummy in a spiced way, with a slight tingle to its aftertaste. The lollipop itself is translucent amber and heart-shaped, and gets a little tacky the more you suck on it. According to the tag, which is cutely designed but unnecessarily gendered in its description, it’s made with herbs and essential oils, and it’s both gluten-free and vegan – awesomely inclusive! I haven’t noticed anything with my sex drive, but my lips feel a little extra pouty?
Value: Pandora’s Pops lists the lollipops as $5 each, with the ability to buy them for $2.50 each if you buy 100. If we consider the full price per pop, the inclusion of two lollipops is worth $10.
SLIPPERY STUFF PERSONAL LUBRICANT LIQUID
I can’t lie, I’m pretty much married to my Sliquid H20. But I don’t hate Slippery Stuff Liquid. Like H20, it’s water-based (safe for silicone toys!), clear, and drips as easily as water – but unlike Sliquid, this stuff tends to hold strands from the bottle to wherever you’re applying (no matter how far), and webs between your fingers if you spread them slowly enough. Which, if you’re just trying to get it on, might be annoying… but if you’re looking to up your aesthetic game, it’s weirdly sexy in a messy way. It has very little scent to it; if I had to draw a comparison, it very vaguely smells of bland hand soap. It does have a taste though, and while it’s been decades since I accidentally sucked in a mouthful of bubble liquid when blowing bubbles, I’m pretty sure it’s that exact same taste. In use, it does its job just fine, and doesn’t leave much residue. It’s also a lot easier to wash off my hands if I overuse it.
Value: On Wallace O’Farrell’s own website, Slippery Stuff Liquid is listed at $6.50 for the 4 ounce bottle. Tool Shed carries the 4 ounce bottle for $6. Lubezilla has it for just under $6. You can get it in larger quantities at regular retail stores (for example, $11 for 8 ounces at RiteAid.) I’m gonna call it as worth $6.
BUZZ LIQUID VIBRATOR AROUSAL GEL
I’ve never used an arousal/stimulant gel, so I was wary of BUZZ, which comes in a small 7 ml tube stored in a larger white and gold package. According to the hype, a few drops on your external erogenous zones will ignite nerves and produce a buzzing sensation. It smells like a gross, gingerbread-like cookie, but it was easy enough to apply with its arguably well-designed slanted nozzle. We tried it on Buster’s clit and nipple… and nothing happened, except a very, very vague burning sensation. We applied more. Still nothing. Liquid Buzz was a liquid bust!
Value: On Doc Johnson’s own website, BUZZ is listed at $25. Pinkcherry has discontinued it on its site; it had been on sale for $8.50, down from $30. I wanted another source for comparison and didn’t want to resort to Amazon (where it was discontinued anyway), so I was left with Adam & Eve (ughhh) which carries it for $20. If we consider only the full repair price from these sources, it’s worth $25.
SXY PERFECTLY BOUND CROSS CUFFS
I was so excited to see cross cuffs in this box, I’ve wanted this style of restraints for so long! Fastened with velcro, the foam-like material snugly grips your wrists one over the other, with a D-ring on top so you can get creative with attachments (a leash, ankle cuffs, a short chain on the headboard…) I put these on Buster with just a bit of finagling because this style is new to us, and they found them to be soft but firmly restraining. It did put one of their hands to sleep because they were holding a vibrator against themselves, so be aware of numbness if those bound hands are keeping busy. Releasing Buster was easy even in the dark since it’s velcro, so that was a nice bonus. And the red marks left behind from mild wriggling faded by the next morning.
Value: These cuffs were impossible to find on sites I’m familiar with, and their manufacturer, Creative Conceptions LLC, is a wholesale retailer that doesn’t list their prices upfront. I found them on Tanga and Rainbow Depot for $30, and Gear Isle and Amazon for $26. Taking those prices as is, it’s worth $28.
FETISH FANTASY SERIES DELUXE CAT-O-NINE
To be blunt, the flogger is pretty cheaply made. It’s very light-weight, and the tails are malleable enough that they have permanent kinks to them from being packed. The handle is actually quite long, so if I ever wanted to swing this sucker like a baseball bat, I’d have the grip room. The tails, being so thin, actually produce ouchy sting on impact – which is more than I can say of another cheap flogger I own that retails for twice as much (thanks for nothing, Fifty Shades collection.) For folks who have never indulged in impact play before – and I imagine plenty recipients of this box haven’t – it’s an alright start. It does seem like impact toys are always the ones skimped on in subscription boxes, I hope to see higher quality ones made a priority in future boxes!
Value: I didn’t see a price on the cat-o-nine’s manufacturer site, Pipedream. It was difficult to find them elsewhere, as there are several very similar incarnations of floggers from Pipedream, all in the same price range. Pinkcherry sells it for $6, down from $9. SheVibe also sells it for $6, down from $9. I’m gonna call it as worth $9.
LITTLE GENIE LOVE LIGHT
The last item in the palm-sized, heart-shaped Love Light, which can be fitted to the wall with a nail (there’s a wall mount hole on the back) or with the three little sticky pads stored in the battery compartment. When the heart is pressed, a red light pulses slowly in the center, and the white framing transitions through green, blue, purple, and red. The light is kinda cheap and flimsy feeling, and its inner workings (springs etc) show through the white plastic when it’s switched on. Despite this, I actually kinda love it. I can leave it on all night without it heating up, and while most of the colors are soothing, when the lights sync red, the entire room goes from being illuminated by fishtank-like soothing light to drowning in the angry glimmer of hell itself. Punk!
Value: This one stumped me, honestly. I found its wholesale site, Party Genie, but the price wasn’t listed. I found it on Sears, but the page was broken and wouldn’t produce a price. After regular googling didn’t help, I clicked the “shopping” tab, and found it on two unfamiliar sites for $8.50 and $7.50. I’m going to admit defeat and guess about $8.
Total Box Value: $104.
Overall, I wasn’t a big fan of this particular box. I loved the wrist bondage set and the lollipops, but I didn’t really enjoy anything else except maybe the light. Only one of the three most expensive items in the box (the cuffs, the vibrator, and the arousal gel) proved fully usable for me, which impacts my perception of its worth considerably. I received this box in exchange for a review, but I imagine if I’d paid $100 for it I’d be kinda disappointed, especially when I could buy all these items at various sites for $80ish. That being said, I’ve looked at the contents and reviews of previous boxes (such as Spring 2016 or Summer 2017) and I genuinely think this particular box is just a dud for me. The service itself is well worth giving a shot, especially if you’re looking to diversify your toy box while also supporting a business that’s acknowledging the diversity of its market.
I keep thinking about the theme of this box: new year, new sensations. And while they weren’t all sensational to me, none of them were sensations that precluded me. I joyously opened this box knowing that all of the experiences within would be experiences I could have. Even the outright fail, BUZZ, got Buster and I talking and fooling around in bed, intrigued by what might happen.
Curious what might happen for you? Big Oh! has a shop with all kinds of goodies, and a few boxes on discount… Or, you can throw caution to the wind and sign up for a subscription!
I received the Big Oh! Box in exchange for my honest feedback. A previous version of this post did not include affiliate links; affiliate links with Big Oh! Box are now in use.
