Looks a bit intimidating at first, not only to me but for my man, in which neither of us had ever tried ‘sounding.’ We researched a lot about it to not only find out what would feel best or enable an orgasm.. but for safety purposes. We found that most men writing about sounding rods preferred steel over silicone as it doesn’t require constant re-application of lube, which is SO true. I asked my man to inset it after I rolled it around in a plate of lube. He was comfortable doing so after my intricate research, and he Inserted FIRST time with ZERO pain, ZERO problems. Well, that was at first. He then said something like, “Hey, ready to watch gravity work its magic,” and he had me pull it in and put it a few times, then let go... he grabbed the end and said, “don’t let it go completely” as it slowly and sexily swirled into his penis. I was wet ;) I didn’t think it could go all the way in as when we began, and he couldn’t get past all the ridges, BUT... I’d suggest always holding on as later on we were playing with soft vs. hard cock, and whilst pretty flaccid, it disappeared... no worries, he rolled over and retrieved with no pain and no struggles. He felt the bottom and pushed up from external feels. The rod going in and out was by far a very sexy sight and felt, as you can both see and feel it externally. He said he didn’t feel it at all, and we are going to go bigger with the next order and play around more with external play while the rod is steady and in motion. This rod brings a lot of options into our sex life, and we have only just begun!! As intimidating as it looked from the get-go, I wouldn’t have ordered larger as we are beginners, and I think it would have been too scary to explore (for us both). Now we are both intrigued and impatiently waiting to choose other rods and penis plugs to explore some more!!!