The Chemistry of Pleasure

Pay attention to what you’re actually putting in your body. Not as a wellness principle—as a material fact. Germany’s consumer testing organization Stiftung Warentest, roughly the German equivalent of Consumer Reports, recently put 18 sex toys through a full chemical analysis, and what they found is the kind of thing that should probably be on the packaging.

Five of the 18 products—vibrators, love eggs, cock rings—received a "deficient" rating. The problems varied: DEHP, a plasticizer linked to fertility damage; phenol, suspected of causing genetic defects; nickel, a reliable allergen; and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are carcinogenic. Four products scored "very good," which means the industry knows how to do this properly when it bothers. The rest landed somewhere in between.

Most of these toys are made from silicone and various plastics. The point of contact is mucous membrane—tissue that’s well-vascularized and not particularly forgiving about what it absorbs. Harmful substances have no place in sex toys, said project director Dr. Sara Wagner-Leifhelm—a statement that’s obvious in theory and apparently news to several manufacturers. There are currently no specific safety regulations for sex toys despite the intimacy of their use. No one has made this a priority. Make of that what you will.

The practical answer is either to verify your specific product has been tested and cleared, or put a condom over it—which introduces a certain conceptual irony, where you’re protecting yourself from the object that was supposed to be the uncomplicated part of the evening. Somewhere in that recursion is everything wrong with the consumer landscape, but honestly I’m just glad someone ran the tests.