I need to write a proper blog post about this, because I have A Lot Of Controversial Feels and Thoughts.
But here’s the long and short of it: Regulation would have to come from the FDA. The FDA is pricey. I mean like you could buy a house or you could get one single sex toy certified. For a company with a large array of sex toys (let’s take Tantus, for example) it could cost something like mid-8 figures to certify their existing catalog. Not only money, but time – a year, two years. Small companies would never exist; we’d be stuck with the Big 5 (Pipedream, Topco, Doc J, CalExotics, etc) types. Variety? Forget about it.
So not only would it limit the offerings from companies and eliminate smaller companies…what would it actually do for us? Consider the long list of, for example, food additives or cosmetic ingredients that the US says is safe but plenty of folks react very negatively to. There are a number of lube brands that are FDA-certified that I’d never recommend. Consider this quote from Sarah Mueller, lube-guru of Smitten Kitten whose seminar birthed my Lube Guide:
“ “I think it’s bullshit,” Mueller told me. “There are lubes that have
FDA approval as medical devices that have been proven to increase STI
transmission rates, kill skin cells, dehydrate mucus, and a few that
even increase viral activity.“ “ (from this article)The best we can do is spread the education about the better sex toy materials (silicone, medical-grade TPE, annealed glass, surgical/marine grade stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, gold, properly sealed wood, ABS plastic, glazed ceramic, certain stones, etc). Reviewers can keep reviewing the under-$50 body-safe material sex toys. Every year there are more and more affordable silicone dildo options on the market, even under-$35. The more these affordable options are purchased and praised and talked about, the more the industry will create. That’s my belief, anyhow. Compare the availability now to 5 years ago? We’ve come a long way.
The Dicktionary 