February 13, 2008
My boyfriend and I have been dating for four
months, and we're crazy about each other. He's been slowly introducing me to
butt-play. Last night, we were verbally playing out an anal scenario. He asked
if I'd be okay using a strap-on with him, to which I replied, "Of course!" Then
he said that he had a harness and dildo in the closet. I balked. This brought
up two specific issues for me.
1) What is good sex-toy etiquette? Can you use
sex toys in one relationship and then in the next one? Also, when I've been
with women, it was NOT okay to reuse sex toys. They died with the relationship.
Is it different with heteros?
2) Can you recycle sex toys with your recycling
like you would other plastic products?
He said he'd be happy to buy new sex toys if it
bothers me so much. But we're both ecofriendly and don't want to cause a lot of
waste.
Willing To Bend Over Boyfriend
"Lesbian sex-toy etiquette is pretty clear," says
Claire Cavanah. "Dildos and harnesses don't survive the breakup."
Cavanah is the co-founder of Babeland
(babeland.com), a woman-owned, totally righteous, continent-spanning sex-toy
colossus, and a lesbian herself, and I typically defer to her on matters of
lesbian sex-toy etiquette. But when asked why sex toys have to be discarded
after a lesbian breakup, Claire could only offer this dyke-ass mumbo jumbo: "A
lesbian couple's dildos become suffused with the energy of the sex in the
relationship, and end up symbolizing the sexual connection the poor doomed
couple had. They belong to the relationship."
Like I said, I'm going to defer to Claire. But
it's interesting that lesbian dildos become fatally suffused with the energy of
failed lesbian relationships, and therefore must be discarded, but lesbian
hairstyles do not. Moving on…
"In the straight world," Claire continues,
"there's a whole lot less attachment to specific toys, so reusing a dildo and
harness is probably more common and acceptable."
So should you suck it up and use your boyfriend's
dirty ol' sex toys? Of course not—says the owner of a sex-toy shop.
"WTBOB, trained in the lesbian tradition, needs to
speak up and get new toys," says Claire. "You love this guy, and you want to
give him every inch of YOUR love," not the love someone else banged his ass
with, "so go get a new rig."
How best to dispose of the old rig?
"Treehugger.com says that silicone and latex are
recyclable," says Claire, "but that doesn't mean you can toss your old dildos
into your plastics bin and expect them to live again in the form of a park
bench. You'd have to summon all your courage and take them to a special
facility." Most people won't do that, says Claire, "so most toys end up as
landfill."
If you can't bring yourself to hand over those old
dildos at a special silicone-and-latex recycling facility, WTBOB, and the
thought of your boyfriend's used sex toys clogging your local landfill upsets
you, perhaps you should mail them to Kandiss Crone at WLBT 3 News in Jackson, Mississippi.
Crone is a teeveenewz
reporter in a state where it's agin the law to sell sex toys. Twice last year,
the Jackson Police Department busted a local sex shop, Adult Video And Books,
for the crime of selling "three-dimensional devices." But those busts didn't
put a stop to Jackson's three-dimensional-device crime wave, it seems, because
recently Ms. Crone got a hot tip: Adult Video And Books was back in the
three-dimensional-device business!
To protect the citizens of
Jackson from the imminent threat of three-dimensional devices (we wouldn't want
the smoking gun to take the form of a mushroom-headed dildo), Crone went
undercover for a very special "3 On Your Side" investigative report. Crone
slipped into Adult Video And Books—in disguise, lest she be
recognized—and purchased a purple vibrator. Then Crone went back in with
a camera crew and confronted the store's owner. And since no teeveenewz report
about crime is complete without a statement from the authorities, Crone asked
the Jackson Police Department for a comment. "The adult store is not a priority
for our vice and narcotics officers," the Jackson Police Department said in a
statement. "Citizens would rather see us using our resources to get drugs and
prostitutes off our streets and work to decrease violent crime." (No word from
the JPD on why it used to be a priority.)
Police negligence! The books
are full of deeply silly, sex-phobic laws that are rarely enforced, of course,
because cops have better things to do than bust people for the "crime" of
selling vibrators to teeveenewz reporters. But when an enterprising teeveenewz
reporter goes to all the trouble of conducting an undercover operation to get a
dangerous purple vibrator off the streets, why, the least the police can do is
arrest the culprits! And provide that enterprising teeveenewz reporter with
some B-roll footage of the cops hauling the store's owner away in handcuffs!
Now cynical readers might
assume that Ms. Crone, like so many other teeveenewz reporters, was using sex
to attract viewers and then exonerating herself and her viewers for their
salaciousness by persecuting the owner of the sex-toy shop. And some cynical
readers might argue that Ms. Crone is only pretending to
be scandalized because she's a sophisticated, professional, modern woman, and
like many sophisticated, professional, modern women, Ms. Crone is likely to
have owned and operated a sex toy or two. And if Ms. Crone hasn't, then
certainly other folks at WLBT—management, anchors, other reporters,
editors, cameramen, sound techs—have used three-dimensional devices.
They're all grown-ups, right?
Some will want to believe
all that about Ms. Crone and WLBT, because that would prove that Ms. Crone and
everyone else at WLBT are hypocrites for going on the teevee and playing to the
prejudices of small-minded, sex-negative assholes while at the same time making
folks who do use sex toys—or sell them, or work in places that
do—feel ashamed of themselves.
But I don't like to think
ill of people. I'm certain Ms. Crone and the whole gang at WLBT in Jackson,
Mississippi, sincerely believe that sex toys are a threat to the health,
safety, and morals of the general public. As that's the case, I'm certain Ms.
Crone would only be too delighted to receive your boyfriend's old sex toys in
the mail, WTBOB, as well as used sex toys belonging to other Savage
Love readers. Ms. Crone would,
no doubt, take great satisfaction in personally disposing of all the dangerous
three-dimensional devices she could get her hands on. So ship those old sex
toys to: Kandiss Crone, c/o WLBT 3 News, 715 South Jefferson Street, Jackson,
Mississippi, 39201. Don't have a sex toy to dispose of? E-mail Kandiss at
[email protected] and let her know what a great job she's doing for the community.
Where's the web extra you promised in your
January 10 column? I'm dying to find out more about tranny scrotums, female
pastors, selective semen allergies, clit Tabasco, lesbian tongue size, and gay
boobs!
WTF
Oh, it's coming. And so is that web extra I
promised of definitions of virginity. And so are those Huckabee definitions.
The problem is… there are so many of you, dear
readers, and so few of me. And the response is utterly overwhelming when I
invite you to weigh in on something. But I promise to slog through the
5,000-plus e-mails I got about tranny sacks, lady priests, and gay boobs by
next week.
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