Guide to Caring for your Sex Toys

How To Care For Your Sex Toys

I love sex toys, I could spend all day in sex shops and buying online. I even love that they’re called ‘toys’ - the things that adults play with! It makes me laugh that they used to be called ‘marital aids’.

I have drawers full of dildos, plugs, things that vibrate and many many kink things. Some of them I use for a while then forget. Others I just keep returning to with passion. In my sex therapy and sex education sessions I often recommend toys for people and couples. Although I get annoyed at the magazine advice of buying toys to ‘spice up your life’, sometimes something new can really be fun. Also the technology keeps changing and improving. At the moment lots of people are having a buzz with remote controlled vibrators. It’s true that adults need play also.

Sex toys - One google search will show you that people have a lot of questions around how to clean sexy toys. … How do I clean my sex toys? What toys can I safely share with partners? How do I sterilise my sex toys? The search results are endless and overwhelming.

It is really important to clean all your sex toys. This can be both to clean off the body fluids and to disinfect. For most toys cleaning with soap and water is enough to remove poop, all gender ejaculate, spit, blood etc. The materials of different toys might need different methods of cleaning. Glass, stainless steel and silicone can withstand high temperature and vigorous scrubbing. These materials are best because they are non-porous, nothing can get stuck in the toy.

Disinfecting toys is important to stop the transmission of STI’s between people or between your own offices. It’s a general rule not to cross-pollinate from ass to vagina because rectal microbes are bad for vaginal health. I use Viraclear for all my toys, you can get it from medical supply shops or sex shops. Viraclean should be left on the surface for 15 minutes for full effect. Most sex shops will have a sufficient toy disinfectant for sale. There are variations to these suggestions depending on the toy and the body fluids it comes into contact with. Bloodborne STIs like HIV and Hep C are really dangerous and often keepers for life. If there is blood from kinky play or similar then the toy can be cleaned thoroughly and exposed to sunlight, most STI’s deteriorate off the body after some time.

There is no one rule for them all. Some people have ‘monogamous’ toys, this means that they are labeled with a persons name and only that can can use it. Depending on the toy and the context you will need to use different protocols. This guide will help you determine different cleaning strategies for different materials.