It’s very frustrating for my customer support people sometimes. Probably the most frustrating thing they have to deal with is customers who disregard the agreements and policies before they purchase. 

For ninety percent of the stuff we sell…  that is probably ok, but we do sell some items that once used can be vectors for disease. I don’t know of any ethical larger adult toy store that will take a used dildo or butt plug back. All of have strict policies about toys that have been exposed to people’s body fluids and genitals. If we did accept such returns… who would want to work in our return and exchange department? Okay, okay, I admit maybe there are a few fetishists who would. But, they are really hard to find and I wouldn’t want to expose them to disease in my employment. I know I wouldn’t work in such a department and I own the company. There are some really skanky pussies out there, and a lot of unclean assholes.

The kicker is… often a few rare people try to bypass our customer support by contacting me or my partner directly. Sometimes they try phone extensions, sometimes they get sneaky and track us down. They sure waste a lot of effort… after all, we are the ones who setup those policies in the first place. If they are going to get leniency, they are better off talking to our customer support people than to us. (Though we would fire them if they bypassed our policies and have. The policies exist for a damn good reason).

I will not–let me say that again bolder–will not risk my employee’s health by knowingly asking them to handle an object that could carry hepatitis or a sexually transmitted disease. I would not want my employment to be the vector of disease for them. Part of the reason sex toys are wonderful is because you can still have fun and not have to have the intimate slop sharing dangerous disease transmission methods of physically intimate sex. But that only works if the toys are clean (as in germ free clean). There is no way to know if a toy is clean when it is returned. It might look clean, but it could have just been wiped off, or rinsed in a sink.

What really get’s me is once a person has been referred to our policies and then continues to threatens us with reporting us to some agency.. and to tell their friends. All I can say is… hey… go ahead. Please give them our contact info… I’ll be glad to tell them how you used the item intimately thus creating a disease risk, I’ll tell how our policies are public and how we are responsible store owners and protect our employees and customers. Please post to our forums too. I’ll be glad to restate everything I’ve mentioned above.

In fact, I think I will post to our forums about this issue anyway.

I was asked “I have been looking for an electro stimulation device, i am not sure what to get? I’ve seen a little black box thing that you can hold in your hand.”

I think the small boxes you refer too could be the TENS2000, The Rimba kit,or maybe the Eros Tek 302R. There are advantages and disadvantages for eachone. My favorite of all the units we sell including the big one is the 302R. It’s small and really versatile. It will run all the accessories we sell without any problems, plus it has audio input. The first time I tried it out was about 11 p.m. at night, my boyfriend called me and he didn’t know what I was doing. I held the unit up to the phone so the microphone would detect his voice. It was funny when he finally figured out what was up. AT&T never knew just how well someone could ‘reach out and touch someone’ over the telephone. Anyway, the medical type TENS units are great starters if you’ve never done estim before, but you (or your wife) like it, you’ll soon want something that is more versatile. The 302 also has a remote control so you can use it from across the house, or in public and no one will be the wiser. Also, it has more wave forms and settings that are all controllable. It can be anything from really erotic to used for training or punishment types of play. The TENS 2000 and Rimba only have one wave form. The prices are different too. You basically get what you pay for. If you are deciding between the TENS 2000 and the Rimba, I would suggest the RIMBA, you’ll get one toy to get you started (the sex clamps) and you’ll also get adapters so that you can do more with it than just use the pads. If you want to use non-Rimba brand accessories with the Rimba unit, you’ll also need the adapters that are about 2.50 each so that they will connect together. If you already know you like electro stim and want ‘more’ or if you’re techno toy geek like me… then defintely get the 312B or 302R. You won’t be bored!

I do play with the vibrating egg anally. To eliminate the ‘disappearing’ problem, I’ve done a few different things. I always put it inside a condom. Make sure you are using a really strong tough condom, the ultra light thin ones tend to break more easily. I roll the condom out to full length and knot the end of it. It helps with clean up and if the person isn’t going to be very active, just leaving the end of the condom handing out serves to retrieve it easily. When I use this simple arrange, I hang on to the knot on the condom.  I have also used the antennae on the egg to tie around a cock ring to ensure that it doesn’t get drawn up too far into the colon. But in this case I have to leave the condom untied. I do this by wrapping the wire around the cock ring several times and very loosely crossing it over in a kind of half hitch arrangement, like you would tie the reins of a horse over a hitching post. This works well too. The third thing I’ve done is also using the condom. I put the vibrating egg in first and follow it with a ping pong ball or a whiffle golf ball (the practice kind with holes in it) then tie off the condom. I insert the egg into the anus, but leave the ping pong ball outside of the body. This technique gives a really odd feel to the guy wearing it, and as long as he doesn’t sit down too hard and he hasn’t had a lot of anal training with large butt plugs, it also works well. Hope these ideas help give you some ideas.

There are three basic types of lubricants water-based, oil-based, and silicon-based. A good rule of thumb that my high school chemistry teacher taught me is that “like dissolves like”. What this means for us is that we can’t use oil-based lubes on oil-based products, nor can we use silicon-based lubes on silicone products. Using an oil-based lube on a latex condom will weaken and cause microscopic holes to form in the condom. The condom may even break and it certainly will not be good for protection from viruses like HIV and hepatitis, nor will it protect against pregnancy. In the case of silicon toys (including dildos and butt plugs), which are wonderful in my opinion, the silicone material holds body heat and can be sterilized by boiling. But, silicon lube will destroy a silicone toy (those realistic cyberskin toys too). How to know what kind of lube you have? Read the label. If it says water-based, there you go. If it has ingredients including cyclomethicone, simethicone, or dimethicone then it is silicon based. If it has petroleum jelly or petroleum by-products listed it is oil-based. You’ll always be safe going with a water based product, but the differences in sensation and advantages of the others mean you should at least check them out.

	Advantages	Disadvantages	Examples
silicon-based lube	last incredible long time, very slick, use very tiny amount, great in hot tub or water environments	can’t use with silicon toys	ID Millenium, Eros BodyGlide, Wet Platinum
oil-based lube	usually thicker feeling, or creamy	can’t use on latex toys or condoms	ID Cream, Elbow Grease, Wet Original Oil-based
water-based lube	can vary from slick to slippery, comes in flavors, can use with any type of toy	doesn’t last as long, requires reapplication or remoistening	KY, Astroglide, AstroGel (great for anal), ID Original, Wet