These toys aren’t for children

Have you ever had questions about sex toys? Don’t know who to talk to? Maybe you don’t know anyone who will fess up to owning one? If this is information you need, perhaps Concordia students can help you out.

Last Friday the buzz about campus was Sex Toys 101, a joint venture sponsored by Food for Thought, the People’s Potato and The Frigo Vert. Displays and workshops were set up in the 2110 Centre to inform students about the use, care and growing popularity of sex toys.

The response was varied as some students lingered in, others hovered around the display table, while a number of students just went right for it.

“You know, of course, that you want it,” teased Ted Allen, contributing editor at Esquire and co-author of Esquire’s Things a Man Should Know About Sex, the most recent addition to a new sex toy site called mypleasure.com.

“HBO can’t get enough of sex toys, can they?” Allen said in an online interview. “There’s a great episode of ‘Real Sex,’ in which HBO visits the Doc Johnson factory and you get to see all those nice ladies painting veins and attaching hair. It seems to be fairly acceptable for modern, sophisticated, urban women to openly discuss their plastic friends.”

If you couldn’t face being seen at the display table on Friday, then mypleasure.com may be a more discrete way of seeking some information.

Mypleasure.com offers expert advice on a range of sexual topics, along with the very best in sensual products, all in a friendly environment. Part of the web site’s goal is to increase consumer awareness of adult toys as a safe, clean and exciting way for adults to enjoy and enhance their sex lives.

“I think most people probably just need a little education,” said a Concordia student who asked to remain anonymous. The student claimed that although he doesn’t use sex toys, he wouldn’t be against trying one.

For the most part, students already involved in relationships find it difficult to ask their partners if they would be interested to use a sex toy.

“You ask questions of your partner before you show up with the 14-incher,” Allen stressed. “You might say something like, ‘Sweetie, I’m sort of curious about this and that and the other, and I wonder how you might feel about giving it a try.'”

The answer might come as a surprise.

A recent survey by sextoys.ca.uk, a British company that wants to get you buzzing, shows that over a third of men and women surveyed would like to receive a sex toy from their partners. The results will come as a shock since chocolates, perfume and underwear are often seen as the traditional gift favorites.

The rising popularity of sex toys seems to have come from the alarming statistic that only 25 per cent of women and 20 per cent of men are happy with their sex lives and 40 per cent believe that a sex toy could spice things up a bit.

The taboo of using sex toys has well passed with 91 per cent of those surveyed saying that they think sex toys are completely acceptable, with 45 per cent having already purchased one. The survey also showed that 15 per cent of people use their sex toys more than they have sex with a partner and eight per cent haven’t even told their partner they have one.

Still, some people would be shocked to learn that a popular pastime among women is to gather for sex-toy parties. In some areas, women get together to examine plastic phalluses, battery-operated devices, flavored unguents, scented creams, and all sorts of erotic toys. Tupperware parties they are not.

In the end, nothing at the SGW campus bounced, buzzed, jumped or slipped off the display table. Now that’s food for thought.

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