
Except when they're toxic. Nobody wants anaphylactic shock for Christmas, but the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates an average of 2,100 sex toy-related emergency room visits a year. Getting off just became pretty high stakes.On the whole, sex toys hang out in regulatory limbo. The FDA only pays attention to them if they fall under the category of medical devices, which means the tiny handful of vibrators that are presented as therapeutic massagers. It’s the manufacturer’s decision to classify their toys as therapeutic or not, so the majority of vibrators—not to mention all other sex toys—elude the FDA's gaze.When I called the FDA to better understand this process, Morgan Liscinsky from their Press Office confirmed that no, they do not regulate sex toys. She politely suggested I contact the CPSC to see if anal beads and such fall under their jurisdiction. As it turns out, they do. Kind of.The CPSC is a sort of regulatory catchall in this country, and according to their website, a watchdog for thousands of products from acetaminophen to xylene. These folks are everywhere, banning lead paint on toys and slapping the do-not-remove label on your mattress. However, whereas the FDA does pre-market testing before giving a product their stamp of approval, the CPSC does not. I spoke with Alex Filip, Deputy Director of the CPSC, to see what they do instead.Before explaining the CPSC's regulatory process, Filip confirmed that sex toys are indeed on their list of regulated products. Filip explained the regulatory process like this: "We look for a pattern of defect, a hazard out there that is, in fact, hurting people. If we see a pattern of defect, then we negotiate some sort of recall with a company." When asked what constitutes a pattern of defect, though, Filip said there's no hard and fast delineation. "Every situation is different—there is no 'number-of-reports' threshold. When a death is attributed to a product, an in-depth investigation is more likely. We have situations in which one report resulted in a recall and other situations in which there have been several reports, but no recall has taken place." In other words, the CPSC bases their regulations on aftermarket complaints, but that's where their formalized system ends. Filip told me that between 2010 and 2012 the CPSC estimated an average of 2,100 annual emergency room visits resultant from sex toy injuries. These toys are currently left to the industry to voluntarily regulate, and that industry hasn't exactly rallied around the cause.
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