Miscellaneous

The Truth About Adam&Eve

January 31, 2018 | By Erika | Tags: sex toy safety, sex toys

Why I can’t support them, and why I don’t think you should either.

I really didn’t want to make a video like this, but this is something that’s been bothering me for a long time now, so I have to talk about it.

If you watch a lot of creators on YouTube, chances are you’ve seen sponsored videos and unboxings for the sex toy retailer Adam&Eve. The company works with a lot of vloggers, and these videos have been everywhere over the past couple years.

Before we get into this I want to make it clear that this is not an attack on any YouTuber who has worked with Adam&Eve in the past — or, hell, anyone who continues to work with them. Many of those people are my friends and people I respect a lot, and they’ve gotta pay the rent.

Plus, I know a lot of them don’t know anything about sex toys or materials or the industry. They just want to make fun videos for their audiences. I get that.

This is just information that I want to put out into the world to help people make the safest decisions about where they want to shop and what they want to put inside of their bodies.

If you just stumbled upon this video and don’t know who I am, my name is Erika Lynae. I make sex ed videos with a focus on sex toys and sex toy safety. This is my realm, my industry.

And the biggest thing to know about the sex toy industry is that in the United States and the vast majority of the world it is completely unregulated. There are virtually no safety standards for sex toys or sex toy materials.

There are sex toys made with additives that are banned in children’s toys because we know they’re bad for the human body. There are toy materials known to cause chemical burns and infections, that eat through condoms, grow mold in their pores, and can’t be properly sanitized.

And these questionable products that sex toy educators and material experts warn are dangerous to put inside of your body unfortunately make up a large percentage of what Adam&Eve sells on their website.

When we talk about sex toy material safety, there are basically three different levels to be aware of.

At the bottom we have materials that are both highly porous and potentially toxic. Things like jelly, rubber, PVC, and a lot of “realistic” mystery meat materials like Cyberskin. These are the toys that have an unrelenting chemical smell. They melt into sludge over time, especially when in contact with toys of similar materials. And they’re the toys most likely to cause burning, pain, and other issues.

These are real reviews I’ve taken from different toys all over the Adam&Eve site. (Click to enlarge.)

The next level up of safety is toys that are likely non-toxic but still porous.

This includes materials like TPR (thermoplastic rubber) and TPE (thermoplastic elastomer). They’re not likely to give you a chemical burn, but they can still retain things like mold and bacteria in their pores, which can cause infections and other issues. They’re a little bit more stable than the materials I previously mentioned, but they will still break down over time.

Some people will say porous materials can be okay as long as you cover them with a condom, but what those people don’t realize is that these materials are softened with oils, which degrades latex. A polyurethane condom is better than nothing, but no barrier or antibacterial toy cleaner will make these toys 100% safe to use.

The top level of safety is toys that are body-safe (meaning non-toxic) and effectively non-porous. The most common of these materials are silicone, ABS hard plastic, borosilicate glass, and stainless steel. These are the materials that can be sanitized, that won’t harbor gross things or leach toxicants into your body.

And Adam&Eve does sell some toys made from these materials, but especially in their dildo and anal toy categories they are few and far between in an ocean of jelly and PVC.

Besides material issues, there is something else that makes me uncomfortable with Adam&Eve’s product selection, which is that they carry a lot of anal toys with no flared base to anchor them safely outside of the body.

When you put something in your butt, there’s no physical end point to stop it from traveling further up into your body beyond where you can reach. Couple that with the rectum’s amazing suction capabilities, and it can be very easy to lose something up your own butt and have to seek medical attention.

This is like Sex Toy 101 level stuff, and yet Adam&Eve’s anal selection includes a lot of toys with no flared base.

All of this would be enough to make me not want to recommend them as a company, but that’s not even everything.

On top of the safety issues with the toys they stock, there have also been allegations going back years of the company sending some customers indiscreet, unwanted catalogs and porn mailers via snail mail after they placed an order. Apparently there’s a box you have to uncheck. Some of these people say they did uncheck it. I don’t know. I just know that that’s super not cool.

And finally, as I’ve been working on this video and going through reviews on the Adam&Eve site I’ve come across a couple instances of people claiming to have gotten sex toys from the company that appear to have been previously used. I can’t confirm these allegations at all, I can only show you the reviews.

Obviously the idea of a company sending out used sex toys is horrific, and these two reviews were about toys that are made from materials that we know can’t even be sanitized. It’s too gross for me to even think about, and I really hope these allegations are not true.

So now I hope you understand why every time I see an Adam&Eve unboxing video in my sub box I get a little bit frustrated. Again, I’m not attacking anyone who’s worked with them. But I really hope this video raises some awareness about sex toy safety and helps you make the best decisions for your body.

If you do decide to shop at Adam&Eve, if you want to take advantage of some of those sweet YouTuber coupon codes, that’s your choice and I’m not gonna judge. I just encourage you to do your research, check the material listings, and try to buy body-safe toys.

And with that I think I’m going to end this video. You can give it a “like” if you’ve learned something. Subscribe if you want to learn more about sex toys, because that’s mostly what I do here.

Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time!