#boycotttoxictoys

I first wrote about the dangers of jelly sex toys back in 2010. It was a big problem in 2010; lots of truly toxic sex toys were on the market. Plenty of manufacturers started claiming “phthalates-free” but as I reported in 2013, the sex toy industry is unregulated and they can make whatever claims they want on the label - whether they say it’s phthalates-free or made from unicorn farts, no one is stopping them. Last fall, smittenkittenmn, a progressive sex toy store in Minneapolis founded by Jennifer Pritchett who I kinda consider one of the godmothers of the Boycott Toxic Toys movement, sent off sex toys to be lab tested again. They first did this back in 2006, with results showing high levels of phthalates in most of the sex toys, if not all of them. But the September 2014 test surprised us. In my possibly-long-winded post I break down what the test results mean, what was found, and what I think we should be concerned about from here on out. I talk about my opinions on porous sex toys and whether or not a condom cover is really going to keep you safe. In the end, we need to educate about the bad stuff while emphasizing the good stuff in this industry. We need to “vote with our dollars” to show the bigger companies that they need to continue to produce lower-cost non-porous toys. The more we share this information outside our sex-toy-industry / sex-positive circles, the more people we’ll reach so that small sex toy shop workers stop giving out misinformation that is potentially harmful. If we can inform the public, we have a better chance at changing the industry so that silicone is the norm, not PVC.