Saturday, December 10, 2005

Nothing's safe any more...

From AlterNet:

Many of our favorite sex toys are made with decidedly unhealthy chemicals. Is it time to kick the toxins out of the sack?

So you're an Enlightened Green Consumer. You buy organic food and carry it home from the local market in string bags. Your coffee is shade-grown and fair-trade, your water's solar-heated, and your car is a hybrid. But what about the playthings you're using for grown-up fun between those organic cotton sheets -- how healthy and environmentally sensitive are they?

Queen thinks the lack of agreed-upon standards is a major problem. She and the staff at Good Vibrations have often had to fall back on marginally relevant regulations. "I remember trying in the early '90s to track down information on an oil used on beautiful hand-carved wooden dildos -- was it safe to put into the body?" she says. "The closest comparison we could find was the regulation governing wooden salad utensils!"

Choosing the most eco-correct erotic toy can seem fraught with compromises -- more akin to picking the most fuel-efficient automobile than buying a bunch of organic kale. With no government assessment or regulation on the immediate horizon, it's up to you, the consumer, to shop carefully and select a tool that's health-safe, fits your budget, and gets your rocks off. Meanwhile, pack up that old mystery-material toy and send it back to the manufacturer with a note that they can stick it where the sun don't shine.

I must be getting old. I remember when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous!

No comments: