Toxic Intimacies

There’s been plenty of talk and post about the chemicals inside tampons.

And I’m grateful to see it! We need to talk about the otherwise taken for granted poisons sold to us to put inside our most absorbent body parts.

Now what I’d like folks to express more concerned about is sex products.

As I detailed in my dissertation (turned newest) book, and in my memoirs, it is no surprise that in our colonial capitalist society that the cismen we fuck are as toxic and their ancestors who made dildos out of noxious shit.

Even the more allegedly environmentally sustainable companies that sell us recycled plastic toys seem to ignore that they release microplastics and nanoplastics in our most intimate times. In fact, their process of being recycled releases more into our ecologies, which makes them worse. This is why beyond profit incentive to build with cheap trash, I argue we need to understand sexual violence as the environmental contaminants that it is.

Those of us who can afford to or are willing to use the credit can still afford sex tech made of glass, crystal, or metal. Since even silicone releases micro and nano-plastics, and depending on how it’s made, who knows what else.

Anyway, the same billionaires well-known to fetishize our manufactured financial insecurities (overpriced rent being due, racist immigration law enforcement, sugar daddy / babies, etc.) are the ones who make even more money selling us tight and toxic plastic (polyester / nylon / latex / acrylic) fabrics they pay designers to make cheaply for us to wear and get them off.

Then, they profit, again, when we go to the corporatized medical facilities that they own, where we’re prescribed pharmaceuticals to fix our increasing (developmental, reproductive, and metabolic) endocrine disorders their products incline, hidden behind our walls of sex shame.

As I documented in my dissertation, sex device brands have been co-opting Gen Z slang like “bestie” as well as queer verbiage in attempts to sell their products, so it’s no surprise to me that they take part in greenwashing too.

Unfortunately, we can just add these sexy toxins to the list of ways green-washing fucks us all, inside and outside our bedrooms and boardrooms.