I'll admit it right off the bat—I've never used a pump before nor even felt the need to. Penis pumps are used primarily for the purpose of enlarging your hard-on, and (whether naively or not) I haven't ever had any anxiety over the size of my equipment. Pumps are also used in the treatment of erectile dysfunction, and I thankfully haven't had to deal with that (yet?) either. I'm sure they are used in a purely recreational fashion as well; it's simply never been a particular fascination of mine. But in the name of science and Eden Community reviews, I gave this one a try.

Using this particular pump is a straightforward affair, though a few subtle tricks can make life easier. Place the open end of the pump over your cock, preferably with a little lube both on the base of the pump and on your crotch where the pump will make contact. Press the pump down and squeeze the pump bulb. The bulb has a one-way valve that allows air to be expelled from the pump cylinder but not to get back in (creating the desired vacuum effect). Pump until you can feel the vacuum pulling on the flesh of your dick and the machine is doing its job. I found that sitting with your legs close together helps create a better seal on the pump. With your legs far apart, your skin, muscle, and fat are stretched farther and the pubic bone is more prominent, making a good seal harder to achieve. Having your legs close together bunches up the skin and fat, creating an easier base to form a seal.

The pump cylinder itself is made of a clear rigid plastic (available in varying color shades if you so desire). The cylinder also comes with a rubber (TPE) insert sleeve that gives the inside of the pump a set of large (1/4" or so) spherical bumps. The rubber sleeve attaches to the outside of the cylinder and gives the base of the pump a welcome bit of padding and soft material that can help form the vacuum seal you need. The air-bulb pump and hose are made of a flexible rubber material and are attached to the top of the cylinder with a simple push-down connection. The rubber material forms a good seal, and I had no problem with leakage from the bulb/air-hose assembly. The rigid plastic material of the cylinder had no smell, while the insert had a faint rubber/plastic odor.

The design of the pump and cylinder itself is solid and functional, if a bit uninspired. It's not going to win any awards for innovation, but it's up to the task of creating a vacuum in the pump cylinder. The bulb pump is easy to use, and it's no problem reattaching the bulb and air line if they come loose.

The real head-scratcher for me on the design was the interior sleeve. Those 1/4" texture nodes just should not be there. For one thing, a textured inside to a penis pump makes no sense. Pumps (as I understand them) are meant to be used as erection aids/enhancers, not as masturbation devices. You use the pump to get your enhanced hard-on, "tie it off" with a cock ring, and THEN go do your masturbation/fucking. The pump itself isn't supposed to be a part of the "good stuff." Even if the pump was supposed to be a masturbation device, the diameter on this one is large enough that, unless you've got some SERIOUS girth (as in Ron Jeremy looks at your dick and gets jealous), you're only going to be feeling the ridges on one side of the pump at any given time.

The one-way valve on the air bulb that you squeeze to create the vacuum was on the cheap side. I found that once I go past a certain pressure in the pump, the bulb would not inflate enough to pump out any more air. While part of this is simple physics (you can't pump out air that isn't there), I didn't feel as though I had a very strong vacuum when it happened. With this design, you simply can't get a strong pressure differential—mild is the only setting.

Maintaining a seal between the base of the pump and my skin was very challenging. I've got my fair share of hair on the crotch, but even matted down with lube and with lube on the base of the pump, I wasn't able to maintain a seal. I figured out a trick of keeping my legs together to provide a softer surface for the pump to form contact with, but I still found myself having to continually push the pump down and repump about every 15 seconds to get the vacuum effect back. This may be a problem with pumps on hairy guys in general (as I said, my experience is limited to this pump), but I still feel as though a different design on the base of the pump might have been able to solve this problem.

The cylinder itself is a snap to clean. It is straight up hard plastic: just rinse, dry, and done. The air hose and bulb assembly can (and should) be removed during cleanup to prevent any water from getting in the line. Cleaning the rubber interior sleeve presents a bit of a challenge. While the sleeve can be removed from the cylinder and cleaned by itself, good luck getting it back in. The rubber material goes the entire length of the cylinder and is tacky when dry, wanting to stick to the plastic. You can clean the unit with the rubber sleeve still inside, but water and other fluids could get trapped between the rubber and the plastic of the cylinder and then mold. And no one wants moldy sex toys.

The pump comes in a standard "clam shell"-style plastic packaging. There are no instructions included with the device, which comes as a serious drawback if this is someone's first experience with a pump. I had to read up myself on penis pumps to learn that it's helpful to use lube both on yourself and on the base of the pump or that a penis pump should be used in conjunction with a cock ring to retain the enhanced erection. This sort of basic-use instruction really should come with any sex toy. A selection of "helpful hints" would also be useful—I had to discover the trick of sitting with my legs together myself, which leaves me wondering if there are any other tricks for more effective use that I am missing.

As mentioned above, this was my first exposure to the exciting world of penis pumps. I have never even thought about using them before and was curious to give it a try. After using this pump, I can say that I have a good feel for what it's all about, and I doubt I'll be using it much in the future. This pump does the basics of what penis pumps are supposed to do (create a vacuum to give you a bigger, better erection), but the sleeve's textured lining is annoying and borderline painful. While the sleeve can be removed, the rubber base it gives to the pump cylinder is crucial to forming a seal, making the sleeve almost necessary. I was also very turned off by the amount of maintenance it took to maintain a proper seal. Again, this may be a standard part of using a pump, but having to constantly repump and reposition the unit to maintain a seal made the experience feel as though it were more work than it needed to be.