Last week, while sitting at my kitchen table chatting with a friend about sex toys, she casually dropped into the conversation that freezing glass dildos makes the sensation even better. This idea blew my mind. Glass dildos are my favorite because I like the sensation of the cold, hard material before it heats to my body temperature. The idea of this contrast being even sharper sounded amazing and I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t ever considered doing this.
While I couldn’t remember to put my glass dildos in the freezer to try it myself, I did remember to tell my Twitter followers about it. Not surprisingly, Twitter did what it does and I was soon inundated with conflicting opinions that ranged from people who love doing this to warnings against it.
Jordan Kay says, “[It] makes the experience 10 times better.” Kactus Kutie agrees. “I can confirm it feels amazing,” she says. “I love experimenting with cold/hot. You can also bring it into the shower/bath.”
Others who have tried it are less impressed by the results. Alyx laments, “Sadly, this has never appealed to me. It just makes me numb.” Elle Love suggests that the opposite effect is better. She says, “I actually love it after keeping it in a bowl of hot water as opposed to the cold!”
Beyond the pleasure of the experience, some also warned against doing this for health reasons. Pittsburgh-based writer Adrie Rose heeds this warning, “I really wouldn’t recommend this. Frozen glass can stick to and damage the tissue inside you if it's damp enough.” Wulfruna Widdershins recounts a conversation in a sex toy shop about this. “The lady at the sex toy shop told me the same thing and I wondered about it sticking,” she says. “Apparently it doesn’t, but she couldn’t explain how. I’m skeptical.”
Beyond sticking, some folks also mentioned that only some kinds of glass can withstand temperature change without shattering. Ramenslurperr says, “Be careful with which toys you do this with as ones made from the wrong kind of glass can shatter from the temperature change.” Owl Bowl shared her concern. “I was wondering about this — going from heat to room temperature or colder quickly can do this to glass but I was unsure if the transition from frozen to body temperature was enough to shatter it.”
A cursory Google search did not settle this debate (save to learn that borosilicate glass is less likely to shatter with temperature change than soda lime glass), so I turned to an expert on vaginal health, Pittsburgh-based gynecologist Dr. Colleen Krajewski, who was nice enough to talk to me about glass dildos on the phone while she drove home from an overnight camping trip.
While Dr. Krajewski admits that she’s never had a patient come in with injuries that are the result of a shattered glass dildo, she believes that the risk of failure outweighs the possible pleasure you can get from this form of temperature play.
She points to an experience that most of us have probably had to demonstrate the problem. “Glass is a material that, when it is repeatedly stressed from temperature changes, can fracture,” she says. “I’m sure that many of us have had the experience of taking a glass out of the dishwasher and putting cold liquid in it and having it break.”
This doesn’t tend to happen the first time you do this, but eventually, the glass will buckle under the pressure of temperature change. Glass, in other words, is the kind of material that, when repeatedly stressed, will ultimately break. “Will it be okay a few times or several times?” she asks. “Probably, but eventually you will reach the tolerance of that material and it will break.”
The problem here, according to Dr. Krajewski, is that sex toys are most likely not tested with this use in mind, so we do not know how many times it is safe to do this. Perhaps, for example, it will hold up 500 times and break on use 501 (more times than any individual user is likely to do it), but the consequences of the 501st time would be dire. “Unless a device has been specifically tested, we have no way of knowing exactly how safe or unsafe it is,” she comments. “And I think that the risk would be pretty serious.”
Though she has never seen this, it’s not hard to think through the consequences. She says, “You can imagine how damaging it would be if it fractured at the neck, especially because the outer part of your vagina would flex around it.” She goes on, “As a surgeon, I shudder to think what it would be like to get that removed safely.”
While she thinks the threat of glass breaking is reason enough to stay away from freezing glass dildos, she doesn’t think that the other concerns are that great. “I’d rather have someone use something like an ice cube for this type of sensation,” she says. “I can’t imagine the temperature itself causing permanent damage if an ice cube itself doesn’t cause permanent damage to the skin.”
For those of us who seek intense sensation, she offers other alternatives that could have the same effect. “There are other options, right? Like, you could take a silicone dildo and put it in the freezer.” As a reminder though, she says, “I do urge anyone who does this to use lubrication.”
She also borrowed another idea of pelvic floor physical therapists who fill condoms with lube and freeze them. Having never done pelvic floor physical therapy, this is a technique I’d also never considered, but seems worth trying out for the fun of it. Lastly, she says that if you really want something that is penis shaped in the way that dildos are, there isn’t any reason that you couldn’t find a way to freeze ice in that shape. Not surprisingly, it isn’t hard to find ice cube trays online that do just this.
Certainly, there is risk in all forms of sex (including solo sex) that people decide is worth it. Admittedly, most times that someone freezes a glass dildo, nothing bad will happen. That being said, it is possible to achieve the same sensation in myriad other ways that don’t run the risk of vaginal devastation.
Dr. Krajewski says at the end of our conversation, “Gynecologists take all the fun out of things.” Perhaps it was a little disappointing to find out that this isn’t the best idea. On the other hand, she gave us so many more ideas that I hadn’t even considered.
Have fun and be safe!
You can find Jessie on her website or her socials: X: @sapiotextual & Instagram: @curvaceous_sage.
