When we first saw pictures of PicoBong’s vibrating Koa ring, we literally thought it was something to loop on your finger during foreplay. Then we did a little reading on their website and found: “Carefully position the flexible ring into place on him to ensure that her evening is not without once the heat is on.” We both became victims of curiosity then, because neither of us could figure out how the side-ring design could work as a cock ring. The bottom line is: it doesn’t.
Let’s back up a bit and explore how Koa works as a handheld teaser, like we originally thought it was. The whole male sex machine measures just under 4" long and is about 1" wide, made of firm matte silicone with a glossy plastic base/clip. The silicone feels silky against the skin and glides easily without too much drag. That whole plastic section unscrews from the silicone part so you can insert an AAA battery, and once you put the toy back together it’s waterproof. As in, we had it fully submerged in the bath for quite a while with no problems. Overall it gives the impression of decent quality.
The controls weren’t so great, because they’re hidden in the PicoBong logo that’s embossed on the side of the silicone. It took us quite a bit of time, a pair of reading glasses, and the bathroom light to make out the “-” symbol in the P and the “+” symbol in the B. They aren’t easy to distinguish from the rest of the logo just by running your finger over them, and they’re a bit hard to push once you do.
Once we figured out the controls, the Koa ring offered a nice variety of vibration options. Twelve by our count, without trying to distinguish the steady vibration levels. For those, you hold the + button and it starts rumbling at low speed, then keep holding until it zooms up to the level you want. You can hold the – button to lower it too. Once it’s as high as it will go, you hold the + button for 3 seconds and it goes into patterns mode. There are 11 different patterns of pulses and escalations to choose from, but you can’t just hold down the button to zoom through them; Everything is one click at a time there. If you pass the pattern you like you have to cycle back around to it. Holding down the minus button takes it back to the steady vibrations and will eventually turn the toy off.
Badly-located controls aside, we did have some fun with it before we tried to use it as a cock ring. The vibrations aren’t all that strong, but they are nice and rumbly and capable of being deemed “arousing” by either of us when used on certain erogenous zones. It’s also extremely quiet, so this is a good toy to play around with in public if you want.
But when we tried it as a cock ring? Sex toy FAIL.
Ladies you know I love you, so this isn’t a bash toward your gender, but whoever decided that it was a good idea to attach a plastic clip to a penis obviously doesn’t have one. It pinched if I wasn’t very very careful putting it on, and we bumped it to either side once it’s on, it pinched again. It was ok once it was in place, provided we didn’t bump it, but we didn’t have a lot of luck with that. Since it doesn’t encircle the whole penis, it does nothing to increase sensitivity (unless you count the soreness from having your dick pinched a few times) and it’s not going to help anyone who uses rings to help delay ejaculation. To me it’s just a fancy dick-biting clip designed to hold on a vibrator that doesn’t hit the right spots on my lady anyway.