‘I only masturbate for work’: How sex toys are tested before they go on sale
How many sex toys can a tester have at home? How many people test a toy before it is marketed? We talked to Venus O’Hara, an orgasm activist and well-known educator, about the use of these devices
The data say that sex toys are experiencing a great moment. During the Covid pandemic, the sex toy sector turned a profit of over €29 billion ($30,945,030,000) worldwide, according to the consulting firm Grand View Research, which expects the sector to grow by 8% to nearly €50 billion ($53,347,500,000) by 2028. Venus O’Hara, an orgasm activist and well-known educator on the use of sex toys, tests these devices to review their properties and performance. She started receiving a large number of them thanks to her participation in Eros, an erotic El País blog, where her reviews were widely followed. “Now I have 800 erotic toys at home. I keep them in the guest room, where they are arranged and divided by categories. It’s impossible to say which one is my favorite: if you always use the same one, your body gets used to it, and that’s what happened to me with the very famous Rabbit (which became well-known thanks to Sex and the City). One day it broke, and it was a blessing, because it forced me to rediscover other toys and to make a mind-body connection thanks to which I can now reach orgasm with any toy. I think it’s essential to have variety. I would say that you have to have five different ones, and among them, you can’t miss the clitoris sucker, the Wand and the Rabbit,” she tells S Moda.
Experts in the field usually recommend trying a sex toy several times to find out if there is a learning curve, and they agree that there is no optimal state of arousal for trying them. “It is true that there are aspects to evaluate while in a more neutral state, but it depends on what we want to find out. If, for example, we want the tester to check if the different vibration modes of a toy work well, as well as those of suction, we are not interested in her arousal, but rather in evaluating how they merge, analyzing the stimuli and letting us know if it bothers her or not. In any case, I think both states are interesting. When a woman is aroused, she allows a greater intensity than when she is cold,” says Lucía Jiménez, psychologist and sexologist at Diversual.
“I only masturbate for work, and I can’t afford to repeat toys, because there is always something new to try. Sex toys now have many functions and can be used in various ways, and that’s why I try to test them up to four times before reviewing them. I practice sex magic and write down my orgasms: I have about 20 a month [by] masturbating,” O’Hara says. She confesses that, just like an office worker doesn’t always feel like going to a meeting, she doesn’t always feel like masturbating, but, as she says, “you have to pay the bills.” After ten years of professionally testing sex toys, she knows which products to say no to: “I don’t usually use toys as a couple, because I want to enjoy the sensation of skin on skin. I don’t try anal toys and I don’t like realistic dildos at all. Among the 800 sex toys I have, I would say that I only have one like that, because I think they are somewhat vulgar and to top it off, they are difficult to upload to social media, because they can cause problems. I also don’t accept things that take up a lot of space. Right now, there are many companies trying to send me dolls or torsos, but where do I put them? I don’t have the space, and I’m not too interested in them. I don’t accept sex toys with batteries either,” she says.
Finally, are testers paid? Elisabeth Neumann, head of user experience at Womanizer and Lovehoney Group, explains that “we conduct various types of tests and in all cases, the testers get to keep the toy they are testing, but sometimes they are also given vouchers if they have had to expend an extraordinary amount of effort to conduct the test. We are always very transparent about the reward we offer for participating. We also have a small number of testing processes where testers have to do quite a lot of testing and where we need [to do] face-to-face interviews with them. These tests are compensated with money,” she says.
How a tester panel works
The National Sex Study: Female Masturbation by the sex toy brand Easytoys shows that 35% of women in the sample masturbate at least every week, a striking gap compared to the 65% of men who admit to doing so in the same time frame. Another difference is that 39% of women claim to use sex toys when masturbating, while men prefer to do it without them. But who tests sex toys before they are launched on the market? How does a brand decide to incorporate certain changes in a particular model? How much time does a tester have to rate a product?
The most important factor for the size of the product test is not actually the type of product, but the product’s stage of development, because the more advanced it is in its development, the larger the sample of testers the design is sent to. Meanwhile, early-stage products or prototypes are sent to smaller groups of testers. “Typically, the testers have 2 to 3 weeks to test the toy and then they fill out a questionnaire that we send them. Sometimes testers receive more than one toy, or they receive a toy that is relatively complex, in which case we can extend the testing period. It is important to us that the testers end up testing the product a couple of times so that the results are reliable,” explains Elisabeth Neumann. She also notes that if it is a completely new toy, the testing process can take months or even years, during which time the tester repeatedly receives new versions of the toy and evaluates the progress.
Their human panel consists of 17,000 international testers, and they call it the MasturbaTEAM. “We focus on testing toys with real users, because we want our products to be easy and intuitive for everyone. We want to test our products in the most realistic conditions we can get before we release them on the market. That’s why the panel of testers is made up of a diverse mix of people of different ages and backgrounds. The professional profile is not important, although it is a requirement that the testers be open to sex toys and willing to share their experience with us in the form of questionnaires that we evaluate anonymously,” she adds.
For its part, Diversual has an internal team, most of whom are sexologists or experts in sexual health and have a more technical approach, and another external team, made up of a more heterogeneous group of people. “Having both samples, we evaluate, depending on the product. We do not manufacture from scratch but work on existing patents and make slight modifications. For example, when someone makes a purchase at Diversual, they have a product survey, and of course, our system receives feedback from customers and the customer service team also collects their opinions,” says Lucía Jiménez.
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