If you can invent something nobody really needs but a lot of people think they want, you can make some money. High on the list of useless but desirable objects is the aid to masturbation.

We need help to wank? It’s not difficult. All you need is a penis and a hand. Despite this, wanking toys have been around for a long time and one relative newcomer, the Fleshlight, is becoming a must have item.

Or perhaps it’s more a must give item. That’s what happens in “Fleshlight birthday present”, a YouTube video in which a Norwegian birthday boy unwraps the tool for his tool.

The video’s had around 600 comments and nearly half a million hits. Never seen a Fleshlight before? I don’t believe it. It now turns up in porn a lot. One site, www.gaymaletube.com, has 119 clips showing Fleshlight users. You’ll recognise some of them.

There’s Bo Dean and Justin Ryder, Seth Roberts and Tyler Saint, plus Tim Tales’ Tim Kruger doing a solo. What’s the story behind this weird-looking object, a disembodied arse crack or mouth in a can? How did that ever catch on?

Former Los Angeles cop Steve Shubin is proud to take the credit. He claims the Fleshlight took six years and $2 million to develop. But the investment paid off.

He’s done very nicely out of jerking off. He’s sold more than 4 million of his gadgets. He now lives in a nice little shack, with its own private nightclub and basketball court, in 300 acres in Austin, Texas.

He owns 17 cars. The grandson of an inventor, Steve was inspired to re-invent the hand job when his second wife became pregnant with twins. She’d had several miscarriages and was over 40 and so doctors warned that the pregnancy could be difficult.

There was to be no sex between Steve and his wife for the entire nine month period. Steve didn’t relish this prospect, nor the artificial vaginas that were already on the market. In 1995 he developed a fancier version of the blow-up doll. But it was too expensive to produce. He decided to concentrate on replicating just the bits of a woman that most interested blokes. Holes.

The Fleshlight was patented in 1998 as “a device for discreet sperm collection” and, if you go online, you can find the patent. Steve has invented other things as well, e.g. a car seat for small dogs!

The Fleshlight concept is kind of funny and that was intentional too. Steve designed it to look like a torch so that casual acquaintances picking it up from the back seat of your car would think that that’s what it was.

The magic element of the Fleshlight is the removable inner sleeve, which consists of SuperSkin®, supposedly “a closely guarded company secret” but actually an easily replicable gel.

This is why Steve is always suing competitors. Steve’s son from his first marriage, Steve Shubin Jr, helped make the moulds from strippers’ naughty bits. Nowadays he does special effects for Hollywood movies!

Go to www.fleshlightuk.com and you’ll find the various types of Fleshlight demonstrated only by women.

The inner sleeves are supposedly modelled from the twats and butts of female porn stars like Tera Patrick, Teagan Presley and Jenna Haze.

Steve’s company, Interactive Life Forms, doesn’t make a big thing of the fact that since 2007 there’s been a gay version of Fleshlight called Fleshjack. The two toys are almost identical. But you know how it is with some straight blokes.

They probably don’t want to be reminded that they’re using the same wanking toy as us, quite a gay toy actually, especially the see-through version that allows you to see your cock pumping “discreetly.”  We gayers have no compunction about attaching ourselves and our partners to Fleshjacks.

Gay porn models do it all the time and we think they’re really sexy. But if you’re straight, wanking is something you’re supposed to grow out of. If you’re still playing with yourself over the age of 20, it’s something to be ashamed of. Oh, that thing on the back seat? It’s just a torch.

“The Fleshlight was designed to look like a torch so that casual acquaintances picking it up from the back seat of your car would think that that’s what it was.”

In the shameless world of gay wanking the butts and mouths are apparently those of Brent Corrigan, Brent Everett, Pierre Fitch and Jimmy Visconti (one of the Visconti triplets). You can find these boys with their toys by adding /fleshjack to the above URL.

At another site, www.fleshjack-international.eu, there’s also some free porn, 25 clips (mostly different from those on the Gay Male Tube site) of Fleshjack users, some well-known.

Footage from the 2009 Hustlaball (Fleshlight is a sponsor) has Tommy DeFendi and Bobby Rail on stage having Fleshjack fun.

Pretending you’re fucking a porn god doesn’t come cheap. One site, www.manonman.co.uk, offers cut-price Fleshjacks. But the recommended retail price is £62.99.

The new Fleshjack Sword, which is the SuperSkin sleeve inside a soft casing you can manipulate, is £47.79. If the phoney organs are inside a can of “cherry pop” or “gape soda” (geddit?) they’re £36.99.

Then again, claims the advertising, the Fleshlight will last you a lifetime: “If only it were that easy with real sexual partners.”

This brings us to the question of whether masturbation toys are worth the money. Forget what I think. (No, they’re not. A good wank depends on the mood you’re in.

With the right fantasy, your hand’s good enough). Let’s move to the Fleshlight forums. Yes, a lot of guys seem to think Fleshlights are great.

No, we don’t know if they’re Fleshlight employees. But for a good overall view of the wacky world of wanking, try one of my fave Australian sites, www.samesame.com.au.

Here are some of the best – and funniest – contributions to a thread headed, “Has anyone used a Fleshjack?”

Brolga Blue: I have seen ads and pics of these. They look like fun, but I don’t want to fork out the cash if they’re not what they are cracked up to be. Any testimonials?

Dsquare: And you’ve got a snack for after. Win win.

Ernesto_1: What some gays will do to save a buck! Cheap tricks= cheap fuck!

Light-Bearer: I refuse to have sex with Tupperware.

Sneakos: Shopping list: Pringles, jelly.

Grumpy: Just get a bowl of jelly, put some Gladwrap [Clingfilm] over the top and poke that. I’m sure if feels just the same and cheaper.

Flounder: A mate who owned an adult shop had one of the first Fleshlights brought back from the States. I had a go. Must say pretty awesome feeling.

Chad_74: I watched Weeds and the guy mentioned jacking off into a banana skin….

Cain9ine: I’ve got one. Best birthday present ever! In fact, I may use it now. Although bear in mind, my Fleshjack is the ‘Jackass’ version, which tends to push your dick towards the edge of the ‘torch’. The occasional scraping is a little distracting. But, meh, it’s the least of its cons.

Lukehuggett: Moreover, if you want that cylindrical feeling, make your jelly in an empty tube of Pringles…

Markdavidharvey: Why not buy a dildo as well as a Fleshjack? You can simply introduce the two to each other and then go out for a beer.

Grumpy: Yu like, me so horny – I cum back your place and we have happy ending?