Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Sex Toy Safety

SEX TOY SAFETY
Kyle Norris
October 22, 2007

(Listeners should be aware of the adult nature of this report. It includes sexually explicit descriptions.)

Not everyone uses sex toys. But some people certainly do use them. The American sex toy industry took-in more than one-and-a-half billion dollars in revenue last year. But there are growing public health concerns about chemicals used to manufacture some of the adult toys. No government agency regulates sex toys because the adult toys are labeled as novelty items. "Novelty" means these toys are not intended to actually be used. Kyle Norris reports some retailers want the industry to stop using the potentially harmful materials in the toys:

(Readers should be aware of the adult nature of this report. It includes sexually explicit descriptions.)

A couple of years ago, Jennifer Pritchett and Jessica Giordani opened up The Smitten Kitten, a small sex-toy store. On the day that their first shipment of adult toys arrived they excitedly gathered around. As they ripped open the box, a noxious odor permeated the air. It was that new, vinyl shower-curtain smell:

"And we saw these oil spots. That's what it looked like oil seeping through the cardboard boxes. We were a little concerned, obviously, and we opened them up and each of the toys, almost down to every single one, was beading some oil-like substance up on the toys, through the product packaging, through the styrofoam peanuts, and then through the cardboard."

The entire shipment of adult toys was ruined. Pritchett started asking around to the folks she knew in the industry. Someone told her that the oils leaching from the toys are called phthalates.

Cheaper-end sex toys are made with polyvinylchloride, or PVC. PVC is a synthetic material used in tons of things like building materials, medical appliances, everyday household items and children's toys. And much like the children's toys, most of the cheaper adult toys are manufactured in China. There are no regulations on the manufacture of the adult toys in China, and no regulations on the imports of toys in the United States.

In order to make PVC softer and more flexible - which is a desired effect in certain adult toys - plasticizers called phthalates are added. And a lot of phthalates go into jelly toys to make them more jelly-like. In fact, the leaching toys Jennifer Pritchett had ordered are actually called jelly toys. But that very un-technical term did not sit well with Pritchett. She sent a few of the best-selling toys on the market to an independent chemist. To see what the adult toys were really made of.

For instance one of the most famous sex toys in the country is called "The Rabbit." Everybody knows about that. Sex and The City had a big episode about the rabbit habit. Oprah Winfrey gave away one to every person in her audience. They're everywhere. And I sent that particular toy to a lab, and it came back that 60% of the total weight of that toy, so 60% of the total volume of material is a chemical called dioctyl phthalatem, which is a known carcinogen and teratogen.

It turned out the rabbit toy was made with materials from a class of chemicals that's linked to cancer and birth defects. It's not known whether materials used in some adult toys are dangerous to human health or not. Because no one is testing them on humans.

In 2006, the Danish Technological Institute did study the health risks of chemicals in adult toys on lab animals. Researchers found that some phthalates are harmful to mice and rats in large amounts. Pritchett says that if the consumer public knew that the materials in their toys might be a risk, they probably would not use them. She says that the big picture here is about a lot of things. And one of those things is a culture's discomfort with sexuality:

"It's about a regulatory system that can't even say the words 'adult toys' let alone regulate it like they do children's toys. It's about a market structure where people can make thousands of percent profit on cheaply made toys and nobody's going to do anything about it."

There's a lot of money in sex toys. Carol Queen is the staff sexologist at Good Vibrations, a well-established California sex store. She says that people have worried about phthalates in the toys that children suck on, like pacifiers. In fact in Europe, children's toys with dioctyl phthalate and other kinds of phthalates have been banned. Once people started worrying about children's toys, they soon started to wonder about adult toys.

"In terms of the dildos and the insertable vibrators, at the very least, those things are going to and on the mucosa, and if somebody's having fun it's staying there for a little while. There's friction, there's the possibility of leaching. And all of those things are potentially correct. The problem with the discourse is that so far no one has had the opportunity to truly understand what the implications health wise and otherwise might be for these materials on human body. Because people don't test sex toys."

The big concern here is that sex toys directly touch mucous membranes. And this contact is not buffered by any layer of skin. So the materials used in an adult toy can potentially more easily be absorbed into the body.

For this report, I contacted more than twenty medical and health professionals. They were the heads of research universities that specialize in sexual studies. Or OB-GYN doctors, or the directors of sexual health clinics.

None of these health professionals were willing to be interviewed about what can happen to someone's body when they use adult toys made out of potentially hazardous materials. They just don't have the information about it. Although when I spoke with them, the majority of those health professionals were curious to hear this report.

We finally spoke with Dr. Susan Ernst. She's the director of the Gynecology Clinic at the University of Michigan's student health services. She confirmed that this topic is not on the radar for many health professionals:

"It hadn't come up as a topic with patients. It hadn't come up in any of the medical conferences that I had attended. It hadn't come up in the medical journals that I have read. So I am embarrassed to say it came up through the lay press bringing it up as an important issue."

Dr. Ernst says that if a patient is using an adult toy that is potentially dangerous, then health care professionals need to be knowledgeable about this topic.

Jennifer Pritchett of Smitten Kitten says friends sometimes mention rashes or burning they experience when using adult toys. They've been to the doctor. But physicians often wrongly assume that it's an STD or a toy that's not been cleaned properly. And the problem doesn't go away.

The doctors don't think about a connection between the chemicals used to make the toys and how they might affect the body.

Pritchett says when she mentions that possible connection to a friend, she can see a light-bulb go on over their head. Now that's speculation of course, but she thinks people need to put all of the pieces of the sex-toy puzzle together. That's why she stopped selling the jelly toys that were leaching phthalates:

"We have to say we know the chemicals in these toys are dangerous. We know they're dangerous in other respects. We know if children put these in their mouths, it's dangerous. I think we're going to have to extrapolate and say well if adults put these in mouths or other parts of their body it's also dangerous. We're just going to have to make a little leap there. But the industry who is invested in keeping toxic toys on the market hides behind that. They hide behind the novelty use only. The 'nobody's proven that this specific toy causes cancer.' I think it's a cheap argument and I hope it doesn't stand up for too long."

Pritchett says it's not as if people are only buying adult toys as gag gifts. But because the toys are so controversial, nobody expects the government to test the safety of them anytime soon. But people are starting to talk about the issue. A few months ago an adult toy trade magazine did a cover story called "Attack of the Phthalates." And one of the biggest adult toy retailers recently announced it was phasing-out products that contain phthalates. Because more people who use these toys are becoming concerned about whether they're putting themselves at risk.

For the Environment Report, I'm Kyle Norris.

? 2007 Environment Report

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