Dick pills like Viagra and Cialis are so common these days that we often take them for granted as we pour them into our morning breakfast cereal. It sometimes feels like they’ve been around forever, but you don’t have to be a grandpa to remember when penis pumps were the be-all and end-all of home dick enhancement. The classic tech never went away, though, as evidenced by the longevity of sites like Bathmate Direct.

Bathmate was started in 2004, with BathmateDirect.com hitting the web a few years later. (I’m guessing somebody else was camping on the Bathmate.com domain, and they’re still there.) They’ve since sold over a million units and have grown into the world’s best-selling penis pump brand. I’ve been looking for a contraption to replace the penis mangler I accidentally bought on Wish, so let’s take a look.

Sleek Tubes for Bigger Shafts

The front page of Bathmate Direct is covered in sleek-looking tubes, shiny plastic and male models smiling, presumably about their improved girth. Before I explored the store, though, I wanted to find out a little more about the company. They’ve got a pretty in-depth interview with the Bathmate inventor, John Oakes.

Our dude Johnny is a mechanical engineer with decades of experience. He originally designed the dick pump for a friend of his who fucked up his spine and couldn’t keep it up anymore. It’s probably the noblest reason for inventing a penis pump, and what do you know? It actually worked.

“The human penis is, after all, a hydraulically operated organ,” Oakes says, “so why not surround the penis with warm water and generate a hydro-vacuum, thereby working in harmony with the penis?”

The Q&A is a must-read if you’re really considering typing your credit card number into BathmateDirect.com, and it’s also just interesting as hell. The About Us section of most sex device websites is written by some underpaid copywriter trying to sound boring and professional without necessarily understanding the material. John Oakes has plenty of real science to drop, having invented the fucking thing, and also provides a lot of firsthand info on the development and use of the Bathmate.

I keep saying “the Bathmate”, but the product line has grown over the years as they’ve improved the technology. Their entry-level penis pumps start at around $110, with higher-end models going for as much as $399. That’s cheaper than I was expecting, and certainly way less than a long-term prescription for dick pills. Hell, depending on your insurance, that Hydro7 might be cheaper than your copay.

They also offer free shipping and a 60-day money-back guarantee to sweeten the deal. Most users are happy within the first month, so that’s a good amount of time to figure out if it works for you. If not, well, I guess they might end up with a couple of your pubes in the mail.

Penis Pumps for All Cock Sizes

One of the biggest problems with that penis pump I bought off Wish was that they measured the goddamn thing in Chinese inches, so it didn’t fit like it was supposed to. BathmateDirect has dick pumps for all wiener sizes. Use their advanced size calculator to make sure you’re getting your girth and length ratios right, and then you can browse their different models by size.

The Hydro, which is their cheapest model, is currently only available in a 5-to-7-inch size. You get more size options stepping up to their mid-level Hydromax gadgets, which also deliver 35% more power. If you’ve got deep pockets or just demand more power, the Hydroxtreme models are their powerhouse luxury models.

The stats they give you BathmateDirect.com say that 92% of users are satisfied by the Hydromax series. The biggest difference those extra dollars afford you with the Hydroxtreme models is the addition of a handball to maximize pressure even more.

The Shop-by-Series page seems to recommend newbies start off the Bathmate Hydro before moving on to the more powerful models. The FAQ says all the models are completely safe, so I think the suggestion may be a matter of comfort. I wish the people who’d sold me my bidet had a similar sales model, because it would have saved me a lot of surprise enemas. Work your way up with that water pressure!

But How’s It Really Work?

I dug into the BathmateDirect FAQ a bit to find out more about actually using the Bathmate. They recommend using their products for 10-15 minutes a day in 5-minute intervals for the best results, slapping that puppy on your ding-dong and suctioning the fuck out of it with the power of hydraulics.

One of the biggest immediate downsides I saw to the Bathmate Hydro, Hydromax and Hydroxtreme series was that you really need to be in a shower or bath to use it. It needs to be full of water, so naturally, the process is going to be pretty wet. They say if a bath/shower ain’t possible, “you can get great results by using your Bathmate with water from a sink.” Sure, but you’d better get some towels ready.

They also recommend jelqing with your penis pump routine. For the uninformed, jelqing is a manual penis-enlargement exercise that involves slow stroking with moderate pressure. The idea is that it creates micro-tears in your cock meat, which ultimately makes that bad boy even bigger when inflated.

The science of jelqing is a little nebulous. There’s no really good research proving it works, but anecdotally, people have said it made their dicks bigger. Bathmate Direct at least puts some numbers behind their products, with an 88% satisfaction rate after a month of use. The question is, what does the Bathmate do, exactly?

Everybody’s Bragging About Huge Dicks

Given those high user ratings, you’d think Bathmate Direct has some really specific perks to offer, huh? Well, in the world of medical and semi-medical devices, they’ve often got to be vague as hell for legal reasons. They say they help users “make a very real improvement for power, confidence, stamina and more.”

Digging deeper, trying to find more specifics, the FAQ says I can “expect real changes,” but “results do vary” based on things like your current dick size, blood circulation, and Bathmate routine. All I was really looking forward was something saying my dick would get bigger and/or harder, but it either doesn’t do that or they can’t promise it for legal reasons.

That’s why I checked out the sub full of Bathmate users over at Reddit. The community has nearly 4,000 members, with dozens of new posts a day. The thriving community of enthusiastic Bathmate users is, itself, a pretty fucking solid endorsement of the products.

It goes without saying that you’re going to see a lot of dick photos if you check out the subreddit, but goddamn, holy fucking shit, some of the before and after pictures are fucking striking. Reddit seems like the place to go brag about it when you start seeing gains in your girth and length.

The Reddit community is great because it provides unofficial support, with users potentially more willing to discuss specifics than BathmateDirect. One of the things I noticed was that a lot of the users have been exercising with their Bathmates for a long time, sometimes years. The effects apparently go away if you don’t keep up with use. One guy posted that a year of very inconsistent use was pretty much a bust, but he’s outnumbered by the longterm users posting monster dick pics.

The reviews on BathmateDirect do talk about gaining girth and length, and the site even has videos, but those third-party photos at Reddit are what really sold me. These guys and their penis pumps seem legit!

One of the best things Bathmate Direct has going for themselves and their customers is that money-back guarantee. I admit, I tend to be skeptical as hell when it comes to sex-related products. If ads on porn sites were true, we’d all have 12-inch monster dicks and get swarmed by all the horny local Asian singles. With Bathmate’s guarantee, you’re not really risking much more than your time by trying out one of their machines.

BathMateDirect.com is easily one of the most popular and respected brands of dick pumps out there. The thriving community of satisfied users on sites like Reddit tells you a lot about the products they’re selling and the results people are getting. If you’re looking for some non-chemical dick enhancement, this is a great place to start.