We may have been leading the erotic shopping revolution since 1992, when we opened the first women’s sex shop in the UK, but unfortunately there is one area our competitors refuse to follow and that’s the snubbing of shelf space (and the internet equivalent) to old-school ‘adult aids’.
When we first started out it was beyond tricky to find any decent sex toy treats, but times and erotic designers have evolved. Nowadays there’s an abundance of empowering and impressive pleasure products, so when (oh! when?) will these scary sex toys die?
Night of the Living Dong – Scary dildos that don't deliver realistic pleasures
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Huge Monsters just keep coming...[/caption]Scream! Scream louder! The amputated ‘realistic’ dildo simply won’t lie down and die.
There are literally hundreds of these monster dildos around and frankly dears, we don’t understand. Fine, if you want to explore gender-play, but do you really need a whopping choice of over 150, as offered by the big-boy retailers?
The fact is that most women don’t orgasm from penetration alone, so who exactly are these churned-out dildos designed to satisfy?
Interestingly, we once caught a webinar on customer tracking analysis, which had revealed that cam-girls were the biggest customers of man-tackle style ‘dongs’.
Again fine, but of course this screws the results, and confuses reality, for women looking for a real-pleasure, rather than a voyeuristic-pleasure toy.
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Woa! Scary double penetration dildo...[/caption]‘Realistic’ dildos are something of a prickly issue for us. We’ve never stocked them.
Apart from the fact that we’ve lost count of the number of women who’ve told us that the one their partner bought for them ended up under the sink (ie in the bin!) and the fact that the majority are distinctly unaesthetic to behold, the main issue is what are they are saying about female sexuality?
Perhaps that all women’s pleasure is at the end of a dick? We’ve established the fact that it clearly isn’t. If there’s a dick involved, the pleasure also comes from the person attached to it!
However we do recognise that some peeps want gender-play toys and we’d love to add a trans section to our store, so we’re thinking hard about how we can square this dilemma. We’d love to know you thoughts on the subject…
Bride of Chuckie – Scary sex toys that reduce male sexuality to a single entity.
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Sex on legs? We don't think so![/caption]Guys, aren’t you horrified by the male sex toys on offer?
We know we would be, if we were men.
An avalanche of asunder pussies, detached derrieres, truncated torsos, and the like, all waiting passively for a good seeing-to by your unimaginative selves.
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What have we here? THe stuff of your dreams ... or nightmares?[/caption]We think these toys are simply offensive and only because, like a lot of the porn industry, they reduce women to a series of holes.
But, as importantly, what do they say about male sexuality?
That it is as single-mindedly driven as a zombie, seeking out a replica (or even a mash-up) of ‘the real thing’.
If we had the requisite equipment we could thing of lots of pleasurable places to put a penis; the juicy centre of a melon; between sensual folds of velvet and yes, even the syrupy interior of a warm apple pie…
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A million versions of the same scary thing...[/caption]But what the standard sex industry gives men is a lot of weird apertures in a can!
Male sex toys do have a lot of catching up to do to meet women’s sex toys, in terms of their aesthetic appeal and imaginative design, but they are making strives. with the help of cool designers such as Tenga.
The Blob – The scary sex toy material that should be in its grave
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Jelly sex toys are all around, like a rash...[/caption]We’ve been talking about Phthalates in sex toys for years. Phthalates are a series of chemicals that make plastics soft and pliable.
In the EEC they’ve been banned from children’s toys since 1999, after when research suggested Phthalates could effect sexual development and pose fertility risks.
Sex toys made with Jelly/PVC often contain Phthalates. Many full moons ago, the vast majority of sex toys were jelly, so there was very little choice.
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A hugely selling rabbit vibe - no mention of Phthaltes thou![/caption]But over the last few years there has been a new dawn, with the vast majority of toys now available in body safe materials such as silicone and TPR, so why are these Freddie Krugers of the sex toy world still stealing their way into sex toy sites?
To be forewarned is to be empowered, so the really worrying thing is often there is no info about or even mention of Phthalates, denying shoppers of even making an informed choice.
We say the standard sex industry and sex toy retailers have go a long way before they put these horror stories to bed!
