Ask Doctor Erotic | Sex, Love and Relationship Guru

You’ve probably heard of them, seen them before, or possibly considered buying them. But you never quite brought yourself around to it.  What on earth am I talking about? Flavored sex lubes! Let’s face it, anyone who has ever been to an adult retailer has seen these brightly colored little bottles of flavored love, but most of us won’t really buy them.  Sure, they look tantalizing, but what about the horror stories about how bad they taste? Being a philanthropic soul, I decided that a taste test was in order. I wanted to know first hand if they were really as bad as their reputation. I conceived this idea a few months ago, but never worked up the courage.  I finally got my hands on some flavored lube, courtesy of the Broadway Youth Center, an excellent community resource.  I happened to notice the free flavored lube in the waiting area while at the BYC to get a sexual checkup. Surprisingly, they offer a variety of flavors as well as other, normally expensive, safe sex aids including dental dams, lube, and even finger gloves.  If you don’t know what these items are, take a little time to increase your sexual IQ and Google them.  It never hurts to learn more about sex and STD/STI prevention. I managed to find ten flavors of ID Juicy Lubes while digging around in their big ‘ol bucket of lube he packets at the BYC. I was quite surprised at the variety.  I was amped to get home and do a taste test.  A few hours later, I tried them back in my apartment with my friend Olivia Lust, a newbie to the adult entertainment industry, and my talented actress/comedian room mate Rachel. Also joining us, my ever-talented friend, photographer Alex Frost.  He adamantly refused to participate in our little experiment.  “It doesn’t matter what you do–your dick is always gonna taste kinda like sweaty gym socks,” he joked. We began by laying out all the flavors of lube and making a game plan.  We agreed to take turns choosing flavors and discuss the flavor profiles after tasting each lube.  We tasted each lube on a spoon and our hands to make sure we got a decent amount in our mouths and could account for skin chemistry.  We cleansed our palate between flavors with ginger ale.
		We started out with Tangerine flavor, which we figured was a fairly common flavor.  I was beaming with excitement at this point and eager to learn about the flavors.  We quickly realized that this particular flavor did not taste good at all.  The girls said flat out that it sucked.  That reminded me of Mary Poppins–just a spoon full of sugar and what not. The overall flavor of Tangerine was like glue; its scent was vaguely citrus, but not really tangerine.

After the disastrous first taste, we boldly decided to try another citrus flavor.  Olivia chose Lemon.  I was skeptical, but thought it wasn’t that hard a flavor to nail. After all, if Jolly Ranchers can get it right, why not a lube company?  My instincts were incorrect and Lemon was our second disaster–so horrible that it nearly triggered Olivia’s gag reflex. Remember, this is a porn star we’re talking about.

At this point, having tasted glue in my mouth twice, I had to remind myself that I was not in fact back in kindergarten eating glue paste.  Glue paste would have been an upgrade. However, since this test was part of my never-ending quest to gain knowledge, I mustered the courage to press forward.

We chose Piña Colada next, although by now, all three of us were skeptical if any of the lubes would taste even a little good.  We started to discuss why would a person actually want to really use a flavored lube.  Rachel made an excellent point on oral sex,  “Flavored lubes are for making going down on a guy like licking a lollipop.”  I added that I had used a cherry flavored lube once while going down on and fingering a girl–but didn’t really find the flavor all that pleasant. It only mildly tasted of cherry.

As it turned out, Pina Colada was actually a decent flavor.  It had a very fruity smell, an ok flavor, but still had the glue-like after taste like the others.  At this point that we started to realize the flavor agents in these lubes were fast acting and faded quickly, leading to the gluey aftertaste.  Gluey flavor was the base formula for the lube itself.  Personally, I advocate against using glycerol based lubes anyhow.  I find them sticky and messy.  Tasting them, however, was another story altogether. 

We were getting used to the lube aftertaste.  Next choice, Strawberry Kiwi:  it didn’t really smell like Kiwi or Strawberry, but the taste wasn’t quite so bad.  I actually commented that the flavor was rather like cum.   Both girls chimed in sharply and in unison, “Uh, no!”–stating that cum is a little different.  I conceded.  My experience in tasting semen is rather limited and both girls are seasoned veterans. In the end, the girls thought the flavor was all right.  I disagreed and thought the medicinal flavor left much to be improved.

Next, we tested Bubble Gum, which I feared from the start.  It was my pick for nastiest in flavor.  But, surprisingly, it turned out tasty to me. In fact, I commented that I’d rather enjoy giving head with this flavor.  The girls, however, did not share my enthusiasm.  Both thought very ill of it.  We all agreed that it did, in fact, actually taste exactly like bubble gum and didn’t have as strong of an aftertaste.  I have to say that the flavor was almost identical to Double Bubble, the hard little pink blocks, so typical at Halloween. 

We tasted Berrylicious next, but didn’t care for it.  In fact, we couldn’t make heads or tails of it–kinda just sugary, with a vague fruit-like taste.  We quickly moved on to Banana, though neither of the girls would taste it.  They’d had bad experiences with Banana flavor in the past.  I was forced to be sole tester, not looking forward to it after listening to the girls’ input.  I had to bite the bullet, load up the spoon with the gooey liquid and pucker up. 

It wasn’t really that bad. I actually kinda liked it.  The weird thing was I had to keep smacking my lips and just think about the flavor—strange, as it wasn’t bad or good.  I felt like a dog with peanut butter in its mouth. The flavor wasn’t bitter.  It did, in fact, taste a bit like bananas.  But I couldn’t make sense of it.  I chalked it up to just kinda iffy . . .  not really that bad . . . having no second or third opinions.

Coming down the home stretch, we were left with Passion Fruit, Peach, and Cherry.  We decided to save Cherry for last and picked Passion Fruit.  I immediately gagged at it and was surprised that the girls found it mildly pleasant. The flavor was decent enough for them, but I just didn’t see it–one of the nastiest things I had in my mouth, and remember, I ate military food for years.

Peach turned out tasting barely different from Tangerine.  In fact, we couldn’t taste the difference, so we moved on to our final flavor for the evening.  All three of us expected Cherry to have a strong flavor profile, but taste rather unpleasant.  We loaded up our trusty spoons and marched forward to our experiment’s finale. 

All three of us were caught off guard.  We hadn’t expected Cherry to deliver–it turned out very pleasant.  In fact, it tasted like Cherries.  While it tasted nicely like cherries, it didn’t really deliver in the strength of flavor. Rachel chimed in, “It’s kinda hard to mess up the Cherry, as mankind has had an eternal quest for getting it’s flavor right.”  It also had a very nice scent. 

We all agreed on three top picks for ID’s Juicy Lubes: 3rd place was Pina Colada, for its nice smell; second place was Strawberry Kiwi; taking the gold medal, by complete surprise, was Cherry. 

What can we conclude?  Lacking a comparison brand, it’s difficult to say if our conclusions are typical of all flavored lubes. It would seem that water-based lubricants with flavoring leave a bit of an aftertaste in your mouth and the flavor fades fast.

Our special thanks to the Broadway Youth Center for their service to Chicago and for providing lubes for us to taste.  For more information, visit their website:
http://www.howardbrown.org/hb_services.asp?id=50

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