A Day in the Life of a Sex Toy Reviewer:
Or, what to expect when you’re expecting (sex toys)
Curious what life is like in my shoes? Since I began blogging about sex toys, my days have been peppered with relatively unusual events…
The Morning
It’s Friday morning. Your hand flails towards the bedside table in search of your glasses, but your fingers curl around a bright red dildo instead. You jump at the touch, even though you should be used to this. After a few more blind grasps, your hand finds your glasses among the rubble of yesterday’s bullet vibes.
A few minutes later, you’re sitting at your computer with your morning toast and tea. You smile at the friendly emails from potential sex toy suppliers and spend a few moments browsing through their product pages to choose a toy to review for them. You wrinkle your nose when you come across jelly dildos.
Then you check your email from a company whose PR person talks in confusing non-committal language. Yes, I will get the review finished within a month. No, I will not pay for shipping. Yes, we agreed a month ago that you’d send me something. Are you still sending what you agreed to send? I need to know so I don’t accept one from another company. Hello? Is there a tracking number? A tracking number, the thing that tells me where the package is. Is there one? Hello? Hello..?
You hear a van pull up beside your apartment building. Your heart lurches and you run to the window. The mailman. In record speed time, you throw on pants and some shoes and race down the stairs to reach the mailman before he reaches the building. He narrows his eyes when he sees you. He thinks you’re running a mail scam.
“Nothing for you today,” he says, balancing boxes in his arms and trying to push past you.
“What about that one over there?” You point to the big box.
He sighs and twists his neck to read. “Nope, that’s for apartment #607.”
“That’s the building number,” you say. “Check again.”
He checks again and realizes his mistake. He hands you the box and you breathe a sigh of relief. SUCCESS! Once again, you’ve saved apartment #607 from getting your kinky toys from a dangerously lazy postman. You travel up the elevator, prize in hand.
This week’s toy arrivals will last my blog a couple of months, methinks. #sextoymadness pic.twitter.com/wdkbFGzFPV
— Miss Ruby (@MissRubyReviews) April 4, 2015
The Afternoon
After lunch, you take a look at your new box. You take careful notes of any signs of indiscreet shipping. You cringe when you see “SEX ADVENTURE GEAR” plastered on the side of the box alongside the company’s sexy-sounding name. You hope the mailman didn’t see that. When you open the box, though, this is forgotten, replaced by that lovely adrenaline thrill you get from seeing new, fresh, lovely goodies.
You hold the individual packages of dildos and vibrators for a few blissful seconds before a strand of floating cat hair sliding past your fingertip jolts you back to reality. You’re running out of time.
You race to your closet and pull out your makeshift photography lightbox. You scramble through heaps of colored satin to find a suitable backdrop. After plugging in your spot lights and setting up the lighbox on the couch, you’re ready to begin the race. Your cat stares up at you with its big yellow eyes as if to taunt you.
As if your life depended on it, you hurriedly snap those photos. Mid-way through, you realize that cat hair and dust has already begun to gather and cling to your new toys. You pick up the pace, but it’s too late. You’ve lost. Fine black strands of cat hair peppers your toy. Your pace slows down, your defeat inevitable. You’ll just have to spend an hour in photoshop cleaning it up. Your cat meows and tries to climb inside the photography lightbox, looking smug.
The Evening
After fighting dust specks and cat hair in Photoshop, you’re ready for a break. You wash your new toys and add them to the pile on your bedside table.
“I’ll be in the other room,” you say to your partner, waving your notebook in hand.
“Need any help?” your partner asks, looking a bit too innocent.
You shake your head. “I’ll call you if it gets fun.”
You open your notebook and jot down the names of your new toys. Under “Session 1”, you start to describe your experience. Generally speaking, during the better toys, your writing gets sloppy. Your focus wanes and you start to sprinkle your notebook with spelling errors and lopsided letters.
But not today. About halfway through, your army of cats mistakes your reviewing session for prime cuddling time and tries to take over your bed and curl up in the nook of your arm. You nudge them away, avoiding their disgruntled chattering.
Today, after twenty minutes, you’re yawning. This toy’s vibrations are nothing to get excited about. Your eyelids grow heavy and you realize that your cats are on your bed again, curled up and cute and sleepy. The vibe isn’t even in your hands anymore. It’s drifting somewhere under your legs beneath the blankets.
An hour later, you wake up from your impromptu nap with the need to pee. You’ve drank too much tea today.
“How’d it go?” Your partner asks.
“Horrible,” you say, starting up your computer. You hope the next four sessions with that vibe are miraculously amazing. It’s boring to write about boring toys.
You launch WordPress and open up a draft review of a toy you’ve had for weeks. Scandalous photos cover the post, making you paranoid about the neighbours seeing your screen through the windows. You write quickly, quicker than usual because it was a toy you enjoyed.
Halfway through writing, your mom calls to see what you’re up to. You lie and say you’re watching TV. She always phones when you’re writing a review. She thinks you watch a lot of TV. You agree, quietly grinding your teeth. She suggests coming over the next day. Your eyes drift around, noting all the boxes and packaging and dildos stacked across your living room. Cleaning. There will be lots.
Bedtime
Later, when it’s time to turn in for the night, you glance at the tools in your room. You grab the wedge and your tango and your partner smiles. You forget the bad PR people and the lazy mailman. You forget the cat hair and the Photoshop battles and the vibe that was so weak it put you to sleep. Those struggles can be for tomorrow. Tonight? Tonight you reap the benefits.
Last Updated on January 21, 2018 by Miss Ruby
