If you’re starting to dip your toes into the world of pelvic floor training, you’ve probably noticed that there are many different options out there. Ben wa balls are just one of many different pelvic training devices you might use.
But if you don’t know anything about them, it’s nearly impossible to make any informed decision about whether or not you should use them!
To help you with this, we’ve put together this beginner’s guide to ben wa balls, which should help you get up to speed on the basics.
What Are Ben Wa Balls?
Ben wa balls are sweeping the world, with many women trying them out to see if they too can feel the benefits of them. They are known by many different names. Pleasure balls, Geisha balls, Kegel balls, Orgasm balls, Love balls, the list goes on and on. These are all essentially different terms for the same thing though!
Most are simply small round spheres, which are inserted into a woman’s vagina, and held in place.
There are a lot of different types of ben wa balls available. Different sets are designed with different purposes in mind, with some being more aimed at sexual pleasure, while others are designed to help you with pelvic floor training.
You might even find a set that consists of multiple balls, joined together by string or a silicone sheath. If you’d like to learn more about the various different types of ben wa balls, check out our article here.
The History of Ben Wa Balls
These simple balls might seem like a new age health device, but their origins lie much further back in human history.
The earliest reported use of ben wa balls comes from Japan in around 500 AD. Legend has it that the original balls had a solid exterior, and were filled with mercury. These were intended to be worn by a Geisha in order to increase a man’s pleasure.
By training her pelvic floor, the Geisha’s vagina would appear much tighter, giving the man a much more enjoyable time. Sometimes they would even have sex while wearing the balls, as the men would enjoy the extra sensations during penetration.
Over time they spread across Asia, becoming particularly popular in China, before making their way to the rest of the world.
Throughout the last 1500 years though, ben wa balls have become something enjoyed mainly by women. Once researchers began to realise the health benefits offered by these little spheres, their use exploded, and now ben wa balls are enjoyed by millions of women worldwide.
Are Ben Wa Balls a Sex Toy?
One of the most common questions we see about ben wa balls is “are they a sex toy?”
This confusion is very common thanks to the fact that ben wa balls can be used both for pelvic floor training and as a sex toy.
Depending on which type of ball you choose, they can have features which improve their ability to perform their job.
A great example of this is a set of duotone ben wa balls, which contains a second, smaller ball inside the hollow casing of the first. As you move around, the inner ball moves too, which creates a pleasant vibrating sensation. Some women enjoy this so much, they can reach orgasm just from wearing them!
This type of ball would almost certainly be classified more as a sex toy than a health device.
Similarly, some sets of ben wa balls are actually linked to an app on your phone, and will record details as you perform your kegel exercises and pelvic floor training. This can help you to identify any areas that you aren’t exercising properly, or should be paying more attention to in order to improve your training.
This type of ball is much more a health device than a sex toy.
Ultimately though, all ben wa balls are able to perform both roles, so it's entirley up to you whether yours are a sex toy or not!
Benefits of Ben Wa Balls
Using ben wa balls for either sexual purposes, or pelvic floor training, can provide many different benefits to you.
The first kind of benefit comes from the strengthening of your pelvic floor, which is a set of muscles across the bottom of your body. Your pelvic floor is responsible for both keeping your lower internal organs in place, and controlling your urination and defecation.
At times, often just as a part of growing older, a person’s pelvic floor may weaken. This can lead to many health problems. These can be completely life changing, such as incontinence, or just mildly irritating, such as increased menstrual cramping.
Luckily using ben wa balls can help to improve many of these conditions, providing benefits such as:
- Improvements with any incontinence.
- Better blood circulation in and around the vagina.
- Reduced menstrual cramps.
- Strengthening the pelvic floor and vaginal muscles after childbirth.
- Increased vaginal lubrication.
When used sexually though, ben wa balls are able to provide a completely different set of benefits, including:
- Stronger orgasms.
- Improved sex drive.
- Finding it easier to reach orgasm.
- A tighter vagina.
- A better sex life.
- Increased lubrication in and around the vagina.
Are There Medical Reasons to Use Ben Wa Balls
While many of the benefits of various sexual devices tend to be slightly exaggerated, ben wa balls are something which is medically proven to improve your health!
Doctors usually recommend that everyone engage in some level of pelvic floor training, even if they don’t suffer from any pelvic floor dysfunction. When there are problems, they are even more likely to recommend this.
By holding ben wa balls inside your vagina, you are making the pelvic floor muscles contract and grip onto them. This means they are taking the weight of the balls. Just like any other muscle in your body, the more you use the pelvic floor muscles to hold ben wa balls, the stronger they’ll become!
The health benefits to this can be enormous, and many doctors have actually recommended ben wa balls specifically to deal with these problems.
Who Can Use Ben Wa Balls?
Ben wa balls are primarily aimed at women, but are they the only ones who can use them? For most ben wa balls, unfortunately they are only really suitable for women. Their primary use is to be inserted into the vagina and men, unfortunately, don’t have one!
If a man were to use a set of ben wa balls, he would have to use them anally, which can be very dangerous.
When an object is inserted into the vagina, it is enclosed in that area. The cervical wall prevents it from travelling any deeper into the body, so the only place it can go is back out.
The anus, unlike the vagina, is not a closed environment. Were an object to continue travelling up the anal canal, it would eventually reach the colon and move into the digestive system.
Your butt is also incredibly good at sucking things further in, even though you might not believe it. This means if a man was to use a standard set of ben wa balls, which he would have to use anally, there would be a large risk that the balls may travel deeper into his body and become stuck or lost.
Fortunately there are some manufacturers who design products similar to ben wa balls for men. These can include prostate massagers, and some ben wa balls with string to make it easier to remove them could be adapted for male use.
In general though, ben wa balls are a product primarily aimed at women.
What Do Ben Wa Balls Do?
The main purpose of ben wa balls is to train and strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.
These muscles form a hammock across your lower body, which is designed to hold all of your internal organs in place. Control of these muscles also gives you control over both urination, and defecation.
Ben wa balls provide some resistance training of these muscles, just like using any other kind of weight in the gym. While most pelvic floor training would require you to make active use of your muscles, such as kegel exercises, simply wearing ben wa balls can give these muscles a good work out.
As the balls are weighted, if you simply put them in your body and just relaxed, they’d probably just fall out. When you engage your muscles though, you can actually hold the balls inside your body, giving yourself a good workout!
This can be amplified even further by wearing ben wa balls while performing exercise. The most common example of this is the kegel exercise, which is one that strengthens the muscles of the pelvic floor by lifting and tensing them.
You can also wear ben wa balls while performing almost any kind of exercise though, engaging the pelvic floor muscles alongside the other muscles you are targeting.
Ultimately, ben wa balls are a simple device, and all you need to do is pop them in and wait! Over time, they’ll gradually help to improve the condition of the muscles in and around the vagina, leading to all kinds of health benefits!