For nearly 10 years, I have been receiving the same type of feedback when I tell people that part of my job entails testing and reviewing sex toys. “Must be nice!” people will say, or “So you get paid to masturbate?!” or “How can I get that job?!” That last one particularly annoys me, because this is not really a job you get, it’s a job you make, a job you choose and chase and work toward (and it is, itself, a privilege to have the time and money to do that). No one taps you on the shoulder with a dildo-shaped sceptre and says “I now pronounce you a sex toy reviewer.”
I am well aware how whiny and spoiled it makes me sound to shout “Putting pleasurable objects on my genitals for a living isn’t all fun and games, you know!!” but I really feel that most people don’t know what they are actually talking about when they say it sounds like a desirable job. It is a desirable job, but for me, the desirability is moreso about the flexible schedule, the largely self-directed workflow, the ability to be my own boss. The actual testing-sex-toys part is not always pleasant or fun, in the same way that it’s not always pleasant or fun for a book critic to slog through the latest schlocky tome, knowing they’re on deadline to write a polished, thoughtful essay about it. People tend to get into literary criticism because they love books – and, likewise, I got into sex toy criticism because I love sex toys – but that doesn’t mean the work isn’t work, and sometimes work is annoying and boring.
There are times when sex toy reviewing thrills me to my very core. These tend to be times when a toy genuinely surprises me with how good or interesting it is, or when a company I love releases a new toy and I get to try it before almost anyone else.
However, there are many, many times when it feels more like being a book critic who has to review the latest Fifty Shades novel. “Again? Another one? And it’s as bad as all the previous ones? What can I even say about this? Will the publisher get angry if I describe the book (accurately) as terrible? What if it’s actually just mediocre and dull? What can I say that hasn’t been said before? What can I say that is true, and also interesting to read, and also won’t piss off the author, and also won’t make me fall asleep at my keyboard as I’m writing it?”