Sustainable Sex Toys: Just in Time for Valentine’s Day! : TreeHugger

sex paddle photo

For treehuggers, it can be hard to get through the day without guilty, pre-occupied micro-decisions. You might regretfully take a cab rather than the bus, or grab Styrofoam take-away instead of just sitting down and eating from a plate. In the bedroom, it can be an accomplishment to wade through all of the cultural pollutants and just enjoy ambivalence-free pleasures. So, once you’ve happily integrated one into your life, who wants to worry about a carcinogenic dildo? Or non-biodegradable paddles whose ultimate punishment will mean an eternity of landfill stink? Not sexy. We have assembled an array of toys and info for you and your partner(s) in crime! Be sure and let us know what we’ve missed.

Materials and Health
You can’t just walk into the novelty shop on the way out of town and grab the first thing that looks like it will do the job. Make sure that you pick a durable item that won’t cause long-term health damage. (If you want to learn about all of the icky stuff in toys, take a look at Emily Gertz’s recent Grist Article.) The most important thing to remember is to avoid PVC plastics and phthalates, agents added to plastics to make them squishy and jelly-like.

Since consumers aren’t receiving protection from these nasties in the form of regulation or labeling, we have to take matters into our own hands and choose items that we know are PVC- and phthalates-free. According to Good Vibrations’ sexologist Carol Queen, Ph.D., the most durable and safe materials for toys are silicone, annealed glass, metal, and Lucite. No matter what you like to do, or what your allergies, you should be able to find helpers made from at least one of these substances.

Materials and Biodegradability
Of course, the bummer with silicone and Lucite is that neither decomposes. This is a problem with latex condoms as well: agents are added to the natural rubber to make them generally 97% effective but 100% non-biodegradable. However, both silicone and latex are recyclable. Maybe some day adult stores will offer silicone recycling for over-the-hill toys? And safe disposal for the electronic parts? Latex gloves are recycled as medical waste. Perhaps we’ll find a system for recycling the millions of condoms that otherwise end up in landfills each day? I smell a thesis topic! (More info about condom choices is available here .)

Glass Goodies
Of all of the non-harmful options, glass toys seem like a great solution, since their production is relatively nontoxic, they clean easily (use non-abrasive cleaners, of course) and are thoroughly recyclable. They can be pricey, however, and you can’t carelessly toss one off the bed. You should not use them if they have been dropped, or knocked against anything hard (in the inanimate object sense of the word). According to Carol:

This can result in fractures you can't see, even in the pyrexed (aka annealed) glass toys, which are the only kind we would recommend using. The annealing process hardens the glass and makes it more resistant to changes in temperature, but one it is cracked, changes in temperature (like room temperature to inside-the-body warm) may make cracks worsen into breaks. They still make really sexy paperweights, though!

He, he. You can find a variety of glass items at Babeland and Good Vibrations. Of course, with all such toys read the instructions well so you know how to clean, store and use them safely.