Melted Sex Toys
The other day I picked up my experimental Jar of Manky Sex Toy Bits and was surprised to finally see a discernible pool of liquid in the jar. I had been watching it for awhile ever since I made the jar back at the end of May, but the trickles and dribbles of liquid weren’t photogenic. I just had to share this with everyone. But first, let me start off with the back story.
In 2011 TruePleasures sent me a box of crappy sex toys. On purpose! I wanted to have demos of the bad shit to make my point when I would showcase the good stuff in a sex toy education workshop. The box of crap had been in her house for a year or so, and then it sat in my un-air-conditioned attic for a year or so before I got it out to take photos to share with Dildology. There’s a large, purple tentacle-shaped monstrosity that has the bubbly-champagne-looking base – it was supposed to be silicone but turned out to be more like PVC, the company admitted their oops, they weren’t trying to put one over on her. It’s the stinkiest. Reeks of “shower curtain” smell, something that indicates a high chance of phthalates. The rest of the sex toys were made of the mystery-material “TPR”, jelly, etc.
Then after I was done taking photos of the whole toys, I decided to make a Jar of Horrors, just to see what would happen when there was no paper to soak things up. I cut up some of the worst looking offenders in the bunch, including the purple tip of the PVC stinker, and put as many in there as the jar would fit. That’s right, the jar was filled to the brim when I first did this.
I’ve ranted about toxic sex toys for so long. I’ve explained the dangers of jelly sex toys. Yet I still hear from people who don’t know or don’t get it or just don’t think it’s “all that bad”. Tell me, how can you look at these images and still want to put sex toys made of materials that break down over time and possibly contain dangerous chemicals inside your body? How is this safe?
I didn’t subject the jar to heat or sunlight. It was in my office all summer, my airconditioned office. Cheap sex toys have the potential to be harmful to your health. If your sex toy stinks, if it feels oily or sticky or slimy? Get rid of it. Switch to silicone – which, by the way, will never break down over time like this. Want proof? Below is a photo from Jenna who works at Tantus, a reputable maker of pure silicone sex toys. The dildos in the photo below have been in the drawer for many months, with no disfigurement, no “melting”, no leaching of oils, no damage whatsoever. So when you hear that you cannot store your silicone sex toys like this, touching? Bullshit. That’s a holdover from when most “silicone” sex toys were not, in fact, pure silicone. No oils or mystery substance has leaked to the bottom of her drawer, either.
UPDATE: NOV 13th: I noticed some significant changes recently, and have decided to update the photos. I’ll do so occasionally to show the continued decline of material. I tried to angle the jar so that the comparison could be made as accurately as possible. For each of the two photos below, the photo on the left is the one shown above, taken in September and the one on the right was taken in November, just about exactly 2 months later.
EWW!!! Thanks a million for sharing this. I’ll be passing it on to certain friends that STILL think jelly is OK!
I knew I would regret looking at those images. Blech. My stomach feels icky just thinking of the fact that a million years ago, way before I started reviewing, I used jelly toys. However, I learned.
It’s almost insulting that manufacturers still make these low quality, possibly health damaging products. STOP buying this crap, people, and eventually they’ll have to stop producing it! PLEASE!
The only time jelly should be allowed near your body is when it’s on a sandwich.
So not what I wanted to wake up to seeing this morning while checking mail. I am glad I know now what I did not know before. For the people who still using these forms of toys they are just plain dumb. I hope that everyone sees this and changes their mind.
I’ve stored my sex toys in the same container ever since I started cutting down to only body-safe stuff (12/14 months ago), no melting, no ickyness, no disintegration. Then I see this jar of horrors and I just feel like barfing up my dinner.
Thank goodness I wisened up, like, four months after my first toy (which wasn’t an insertable)
I see a Cal Exotics Succulent Blossom. A friends mother is an independent sales rep for a sex toy home party company and that used to be a hot selling item. She liked to feature toys under $50.00 and all the wives would buy it for their husbands.
~ That baffles me, honestly. Was it because it was about as non-threatening as they could get? Blue, and looks like a flower, not a disembodied cunt. Those poor men. Ick. It can’t have felt very good. Gives me the creeps just thinking about it, if I were to have a cock and be trying to shove it in that limp noodle.
This really makes me wish I had taken pictures of my old toys. My ex bought me my first insertable toys and they were all jelly. I kept them in baggies, not knowing what would happen. They were more broken down than your jar. I mean the plastic bags were covered. Oh, and the smell. I had those toys in the baggies for YEARS. I had no idea, even afterward, I thought it was because of where we lived (hot). I feel like such an idiot. I bought more jelly toys b/c I didn’t know. THEY BURNED ME, and I thought it was me! I really wish the information was available RIGHT THEN, on the box, and not in small little print. I mean HUGE. I’m glad you shared this. It should be what’s flashing on Yahoo’s homepage, rather than “When women feel best, worst”. Yeah that’s a real thing. Thanks again.
Wait – isn’t it natural for silicone toys to “melt” when you put thrm against each other? Just like you are supposed to NOT use silicone-based lubr on them? Or whatever is it that happrns with silicone lube on silicone toys?
~ That’s the whole entire point for the photos from Jenna at Tantus…..to remind you that NO, that is a MYTH. I’ve already gotten into that in depth, also the silicone lube thing, here.
Wow. It’s a shame that it would be prohibitively difficult to get a successful operation going to collect unwanted sex toys from people for “recycling” when they were ready to get rid of them. I recon that probably is mostly mineral oil collecting in the bottom, and it’s crazy to see that much from just that volume material. That stuff is pretty expensive, and (somewhat unfortunately) there’s a big market for it in all kinds of manufacturing. Not to mention that it’s hardly doing landfills any good. Imagine the amount of this and other sellable material you could distill out of a few dumpsters full of these things. Somewhat dark humor, but when I think about it it actually is quite a waste (and pollution contributor).
Woah, this is horrifying!!! Ugh I already feel sick when I just see these cruddy quality toys in shops or when people talk about those “pleasure” parties but I’m literally nauseated.
I realized finally people have a number of weird misnomers about medical grade silicone and funny story to what my light bulb moment was- I’m disabled and I can’t eat food, at all. So I’m fed by IV into what’s basically a semi permanent IV line that’s threaded through a large vein and into my heart. A central line (which are not so uncommon in the medical world for a variety of uses like for administering chemo, for example). Anyway many central lines including my own are made of medical grade silicone. And while said lines are common most people don’t live with them for years at a time but I have to. So on a jokey side hey, I’m penetrated by medical grade silicone ALL THE TIME! :P But seriously with that said my lovely life saving silicone tube is in my 98 degree body at all times. Its split so I can infuse two things at once which means I have silicone on silicone alllll the dang time. In a very warm environment no less. And yeah, guess what? Definitely never melts or reacts! I once saw a sex toy blogger actually claim you can’t sterilize a silicone toy with alcohol because its silicone. And first I was like oops because frankly I live with endless medical supplies and alcohol wipes are my best friend and one of the best and easiest ways to kill bacteria and then I put two and two together… I have endless alcohol bottles and swabs and wipes because of my silicone lifeline. Alcohol is used on silicone in a medical context all the time. It’s a gold standard in central line care. I have no idea where this person got this into their head nor can I recall who said it but I wish I could correct them!
And sorry to totally geek out and get into all the medical stuff but pertinent info. Im literally alive because of silicone.
However I do have one thing to say (and oops you didn’t say this in this post but have referred to elsewhere on your blog like in the search terms post that lead me here)… If you have some sort of bacteria growing on your toy it does NOT automatically mean its not silicone. I can show you photographic proof should you be interested but sometimes these IV lines of mine get infected and they have to be pulled and replaced. I save my old lines in sealed specimen cups or baggies and in the case of a fungal infection (it was yeast, extremely extremely dangerous in the blood stream but also extremely common on skin and of course in the vagina) I found a old line months later still sealed growing some massive fuzzy nasty. So… Silicone isn’t a magic gaurd against bacterial or fungal growth. Just want to clarify. Theoretically if conditions are right (and obviously my IV lines are in my blood stream and running fluid through them and all bacteria and fungi thrive in moist places but again… Not so different then from sex toy usage…) So theoretically if say you used a silicone dildo and forgot to clean it and say maybe you had a bacteria imbalance or yeast infection brewing in your bag and perhaps didn’t even know and then you left your unwashed toy in a drawer or pouch or whatever for an extended period of time… You may very well see things visibly growing on it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t silicone. Silicone is body safe and non prous but it is not antibacterial. In fact my IV lines have a portion that actually IS antimicrobial coated and still… So just something I wanted to point out. Kind of my own experiment so to speak there.
Hope you don’t mind my rambling. Many thanks to you for your awesome site and for this experiment which should be on like public service announcements for the world to see so everyone finally gets just how dangerous these subpar materials are!
Seems like Jenna doesn’t exist anymore :/ Nor does TruePleasures
Crappy part about silicon is you can’t use Silicon lubricant, which beats all other types of lube by a mile in terms of quality. Especially for anything involving the butt…
Omg so glad I read this just now. I noticed a few of my toys had started doing this and wasn’t sure why, this article popped up when I searched and Holy sh*t! Throwing all my toys away now. Thanks.