Vargrahl is poured in platinum-cured silicone, 18 cm long in S and 33.4 cm in XL, and the part people buy it for is one distinct step near the base: a knot you push against, then feel give. At the lower of its three tape points it measures 13.6 cm (5.4 in) around in S and 25.2 cm (9.9 in) in XL. That step is the knot pop, and when we draw one we are really setting two numbers.
The first is how much wider the knot is than the shaft in front of it. The second is where on the length the knot sits. Everything else is finish.
What the pop actually is
Our design notes on shape describe a knot as a sudden jump in width, wide enough that the body has to open further than it was resting. That makes a step in resistance instead of a smooth ramp. You push, the pressure builds, nothing moves, you relax, and then the widest part clears all at once. Behind the knot the shape narrows again into a neck, and the muscle closes back down onto it. That closing is the lock.
So the knot pop sensation is really two events stacked together: the give, and the settle straight after it.
People who post about these toys describe the second half more than the first. One thread title, from a forum where people share their stretching progress, is just: "Once the knot goes in, there's no pity". It had 595 upvotes.
The first number: how much wider the knot is than the shaft
A knot only reads as a knot if the shaft in front of it is noticeably narrower. If the width climbs gradually, you get a cone, and a cone lets you stop anywhere. The pop needs a step.
Here is Vargrahl across all four sizes. Our spec sheet takes three tape readings along the shaft. It does not label which one is the knot, so read the table as what it is: the middle reading and the lower reading. On this shape, with the knot low and nothing else that wide, we read the lower one as the knot.
| Size | Mid reading (around) | Lower reading (around) | Lower vs mid | Across at the lower reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | 11.4 cm | 13.6 cm | about 19% more | 4.33 cm |
| M | 15 cm | 17.8 cm | about 19% more | 5.67 cm |
| L | 18.2 cm | 21.9 cm | about 20% more | 6.97 cm |
| XL | 21.3 cm | 25.2 cm | about 18% more | 8.02 cm |
The "across" column is arithmetic, not a caliper: tape reading divided by pi. How we measure explains the tape method.
What the table shows is a ratio that holds. From the smallest size to the largest, the lower reading stays roughly a fifth bigger than the middle one. That is a design choice. We could have scaled the knot faster than the shaft on the big sizes, and made XL a much harder step than S. We didn't. The jump you feel on Vargrahl S is the same proportion as the jump on XL, and the absolute stretch grows with everything else.
One user put the width problem in a single line, 598 upvotes: "This knot is so damn thick, one day I'm gonna hilt it, one day". That is what a step reads like from the other side. The shaft goes in. The knot is a separate job.
The second number: where the knot sits
Position decides when the pop happens, and what is already inside you when it does.
Low on the shaft, as on Vargrahl, the pop comes last. Most of the usable length, from 14.2 cm in S to 27.6 cm in XL, is already in before the knot reaches you. A commenter on another maker's toy noticed the side effect: "just that knot snapping in has a good 8 inches of length coming along with it almost instantly." When the knot is low, clearing it and reaching full depth are nearly the same moment.
Put the knot at the tip and the order flips. Dual Sensation has a knot head at one end, four to five round lobes around the tip, and a flared horse head at the other. On the knot end the pop is the first thing that happens, and the rest of the length follows it. Its tape readings are 12 cm at each end and 15 cm at the middle, so the sheet does not give the knot end a number of its own.
Then there is the version with more than one. Nagaros has three to four nodes that get bigger as they go down, each with a narrower neck after it, and the widest reading sits low: 17.5 cm around in S against 15 cm at the middle. You get a series of smaller pops that build toward a larger one.
One place we never put a knot is at the depth where the body turns a corner. The depth guide explains why a knot at the bend is a bad combination. Where the knot sits is also why we sculpt fantasy shapes at all: copying anatomy would fix the knot where the animal has it, and a design can put it where the pop works.
The number our sheets don't have yet
The lock depends on the neck: how much narrower the shape gets straight after the knot. A deep neck holds firmly. A shallow one lets the knot slide back more easily.
We don't have that figure written down. Vargrahl's product record says the knot is followed by a narrower neck, and leaves the numbers for knot width and neck narrowing marked as still to be filled in. So we are not going to give you one. When it is on the sheet, it will go on the product page.
Until then, the two numbers above are the ones we can stand behind.
Questions we get
What is a knot pop dildo?
A knotted dildo with a knot wide enough, compared with the shaft in front of it, that it goes in as a separate step: resistance, then a sudden give. On Vargrahl the knot runs roughly a fifth wider around than the middle of the shaft in every size. More of them are in our wolf and dog shapes.
Are nodes or beads the same thing?
Same event, smaller and repeated. Each node on Nagaros has a neck after it, so each one is its own small pop. A single knot puts all of the step in one place.
What about taking it out?
The knot comes back through the same opening, so the step happens again in reverse. The neck that held it is the part that has to open first. Go at least as slowly as you did going in.
Does a tapered dildo have a pop?
No. A tapered shape widens steadily, so there is no step to clear. That is the point of a taper: you choose where to stop. Thick Conqueror is ours.
