A Sex Toy Reviewer's Ethical Code of Conduct

Friends don’t let friends buy sketchy sex toys from Wish. And friends don’t let friends rely on fab­ri­cat­ed sex toy reviews where the writer hasn’t actu­al­ly fucked the toy.

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My sex toy reviews are written for humans looking for detail and depth — not just robots wanting breadth.

We’ve all seen the extra AF, over-SEO’d titles in cookie-​cutter shops sell­ing white-​label AliExpress stuff. I know you know what I’m talk­ing about. Their titles are some keyword-​stuffed shit like:

Silicone Realistic Dildo Ultra-​Soft Huge Dildos for Women with Strong Suction Cup for Hands-​Free, Flexible Lifelike Dong Sex Toy with Curved Shaft and Balls for Vaginal G‑spot and Anal Play.

Hooh, I need a sip of water after read­ing that aloud.

What does the current landscape of search engine optimization and social media mean for the reader?

You’ve prob­a­bly seen the cookie-​cutter blogs “review­ing” sex toys that the writ­ers don’t actu­al­ly all own.

Just a few telltale signs of fabricated review blogs include:

• Primarily post­ing sum­ma­ry listicles
• Only post­ing pos­i­tive reviews or hid­ing drawbacks
• Odd rep­e­ti­tion of head­ers and click­baity keywords
• Using noth­ing but man­u­fac­tur­er stock images of the products 
  • Or worse, some steal small­er con­tent cre­ators’ work

These arti­cles often only skim the sur­face and don’t say much (if any­thing) about the writer’s first­hand expe­ri­ence. They lack detail. What’s the point of a “review” where some­one hasn’t used the product?

Or, for that mat­ter, rave reviews from paid influ­encers who don’t have a frame of ref­er­ence for what makes a sex toy stand out from the rest? (I’m look­ing at you, ioba­toys OhMyG…)

You know the answer, and I know the answer: money.

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Don’t get me wrong — I’m a hustler and dildo peddler, too. But...

There are prin­ci­ples I abide by in my mis­sion to enhance orgasms around the world. Here’s where I stand regard­ing the sex toy review landscape.

1. I will never recommend a toxic, shower curtain-​smelling jelly dong as one of the best huge dildos.

I care about bring­ing you qual­i­ty, body-​safe inserta­bles that can be ade­quate­ly san­i­tized and last a life­time with prop­er care. (Read more about why I rec­om­mend sil­i­cone over any oth­er soft mate­r­i­al for dil­dos.)

2. I mainly promote independent shops run by lovely people who:

• Care about their customers
• Work with inde­pen­dent arti­sans, too
• Give a fuck about inclu­sive sex education
• Give back to the community

3. There’s no unnecessary gendering of sex toys as “for men” or “for women” on my blog.

Ah yes, the three gen­ders: men, women, and cou­ples. I do dis­cuss the following:

• Gendered cul­tur­al per­cep­tions of sex toys
• Why a sex toy with­out a flared base isn't safe for anal use

… but you won’t find me say­ing that only men or only women could use a product.

4. I’m passionate about my writing and am not just here to make money.

5. I care about bringing you the best sex toys for you and your body — and that includes being honest and authentic in my reviews.

If a product:

• Doesn't work for me
• Is over­priced for the qual­i­ty you get
• Doesn't live up to the mar­ket­ing hype 

…then I’ll be blunt about it.

6. I own (or at least have owned or tried) the sex toys I rave-​review and recommend.

7. My sex toy knowledge comes from my experiences (or my partners' and collaborators' experiences) and not just regurgitated copypastas I found elsewhere on Google.

8. I don’t use black hat SEO or unethical advertising methods.

Let’s just say that there are ways that web­sites can gain unfair advan­tages against or out­right attack com­peti­tors behind the scenes.

Using aggres­sive SEO tech­niques to rank high­er on Google search results doesn’t mean that their mate­r­i­al offers more val­ue to read­ers. Remember that when you’re look­ing up reviews.

9. No hate speech. It sounds obvious but needed to be said.

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Members of the Alliance of Independent Sex Toy Testers abide by the above code of conduct

While sex blog­gers have dif­fer­ent spe­cial­ties (I fuck­ing love fist­ing and giant dil­dos), the over­ar­ch­ing ethics apply to all in the Alliance of Independent Sex Toy Testers.

Who is currently in the Alliance?

I’ve arranged this list in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order so that those of us near the end of the alpha­bet can get some extra love, too. <3

This list was last updat­ed on May 4th, 2024.

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How other bloggers can join the Alliance of Independent Sex Toy Testers

If you’d like to join the Alliance of Independent Sex Toy Testers, please com­plete this form.

Applications to join will be sub­mit­ted to an anony­mous group vote open to all oth­er mem­bers, and approval will only be grant­ed after a major­i­ty vote in your favor. Upon accep­tance, you will need to post the mem­ber­ship list on your own blog.

Here are the minimum standards again:

• All prod­ucts rec­om­mend­ed by the blog are body-safe.
• All shops rec­om­mend­ed by the blog are safe.
• All blogs respect the diver­si­ty of gen­der and don’t gen­der sex toys as “male” or “female.”
• All blogs are writ­ten by peo­ple who are pas­sion­ate about the sub­jects they cov­er, not by peo­ple who are only try­ing to make mon­ey. Many of us make some mon­ey, but it isn’t the main rea­son we write.
• All of the writ­ers in our alliance show hon­esty and authen­tic­i­ty in their reviews.
• All of the writ­ers of the blogs in our alliance can demon­strate that they gen­uine­ly own ALL the prod­ucts that they review and recommend.
• All writ­ers are gen­uine­ly knowl­edge­able in their sub­jects. They don’t copy their con­tent from else­where or “regur­gi­tate” exter­nal content.
• No blogs in the alliance con­tain dis­crim­i­na­tion, hate, or mate­r­i­al intend­ed to shame/​exclude.
• No blogs in the alliance use ques­tion­able, uneth­i­cal, or uncom­pet­i­tive meth­ods to build links and adver­tise their web­site. In short — we are gen­uine bloggers.
• There is a pref­er­ence that the blogs have been up for at least 1 year and have at least 16 reviews published.

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How can readers support Super Smash Cache?

• Buy sex toys via my links
• Share my posts on social media 
  • Main Instagram: @super­s­mash­cache + back­up: @smash​.click)
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And, of course, keep check­ing back on my sex toy review blog reg­u­lar­ly for updates!

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