Sex toys can be a great addition to your sex life, whether you use them on your own, or with a partner. Sex toys can be used just for fun, or, in some cases, they are recommended to help people who have difficulty reaching orgasm.
Sex toys are safe if they are used responsibly
If you share sex toys, make sure that you take the same precautions as you would for penetrative sex. You may even want to put a condom over penetrative sex toys, such as dildos. Condoms should also be changed when using the sex toy on different parts of the body.
If you are pregnant, it is safe to use sex toys, but you should take care when using penetrative sex toys if you are less than 12 weeks into your pregnancy. Over vigorous use could cause damage to your reproductive system. You should also take extra care to ensure that your sex toy is clean before using it, in order to avoid an infection which could be passed on to you, or your baby.
Some sex toys, or sex aids, such as whips, or chains, may be designed to cause mild pain or damage to the skin. If you use anything that may draw blood, it is important that you do not share them, and that you keep them only for personal use. Sex toys, while a lot of fun are by no means necessary to having a good (or great) sex life. But if you like them, hopefully the turn off will pass, and maybe some information on what we know, and don’t know, about the safety of sex toys will help.
Unfortunately there is very little scientific data on the safety of sex toys, and I have come across websites that, in my opinion, make too many generalizations about the potential danger of sex toys (sometimes for reasons that seem a little self-serving). For example, there is simply no data that can confirm that “most sex toys have cancer-causing ingredients”. Also, it is untrue to say that silicone is the only material that is “safe” to use. It’s possible that ten years from now we’ll discover something in the manufacturing of silicone that poses a health risk. Scientists are constantly learning more about how the chemicals we come in contact with impact our health and the best we can do is keep up to date on what the research can tell us. The bad news is that scientists often leave sex out of their research, with the obvious exception of sexually transmitted disease research. As such finding information on the safety of sex toys can be difficult.
We do know that many soft rubber toys are made using phthalates , which have been linked to several environmental and individual health issues, in a variety of other consumer products. The most common sex toys that are made with phthalates are called jelly rubber but many other kinds of soft rubber toys also contain phthalates.
As with any other safer sex issue the important thing is for you to understand and assess their own risk , which you can only do by getting as much information as you can, and making a thoughtful decision, preferably not in the heat of the moment.There is no doubt that higher quality, hypoallergenic, materials, such as silicone, and elastomers, are the better choice. But they are expensive and out of reach for many of us. Using a latex condom on an inexpensive toy will reduce the risk of reacting to it, but may not eliminate risk entirely.