How To Have Safer Sex With Sex Toys
Practicing safer sex with sex toys used to mean using lots of condoms and cleaning with bleach. These days, sex toys are being made with materials that are safer and easier to clean. Since many so-called "sex toy cleaners" contain harsh and abrasive chemicals, we generally caution our customers not to use anything harsher than the soap they use on their skin to clean the sex toys they can't boil (like Dr Bronner's Unscented Soap). So, save your bleach for cleaning the bathroom, and learn how to have safer sex with your sex toys.
Safer Sex With Silicone Toys
With the advent of nonporous silicone sex toys, safer sex with sex toys became much easier. While we always recommend using condoms with everything that travels from person to person and anus to vagina, when you're done having fun with your silicone toy, you can just pop it in a pot of boiling water for a five minutes and presto! you've got a clean sex toy. If you're someone who tosses your silicone toy off the bed after use, you might want to clean with soap and water before boiling, just to get the cat hair (eww!) and dirt off. Please note boiling does not sterilize any toy - you'll need to invest in an autoclave for that!
If you have a silicone toy that vibrates and has a removable vibe, remove this vibe before boiling.
Safer Sex With Porous Toys
If you're sharing toys with another person, or using the same toy anally and vaginally, using condoms will reduce the risk of infecting yourself or a partner. Since rubber and elastomer sex toys can't be boiled in water and because they are porous, you can't thoroughly clean them. Bleach and alcohol will clean, but not sterilize your toys, and the harshness of the bleach will, over time, damage your rubber and plastic toys (and most likely, your body too!). Using condoms on toys is also a great way to make your sex toys last longer, as cleaning them is as easy as taking off the condom.
Learn more about sex toy materials and how to choose your first sex toy.