Germany’s Green Party is worried about the health risks of sex toys. Dildos and vibrators contain dangerously high levels of phthalates and other plasticizers, which can cause infertility and hormone imbalances, they claim. Now the party wants the government to take action to protect the 20 percent of Germans who use sex toys.
Because dildos and other sex toys are widely used in Germany, the Greens see the issue as a problem for society as a whole. While children’s toys are subject to strict regulations that allow only the smallest percentage of plasticizers, a 2006 study by the Öko-Test consumer magazine found that sex toys contain high quantities of the chemicals. Plasticizers comprised up to 58 percent of materials used in such products, the magazine wrote. More than half of the vibrators examined by Öko-Test contained so many toxic substances that they failed the test entirely, it said.
Not that anyone asked me, but I’m a bit alarmed that only 20% of the population uses them. I keep hearing about these degenerate European welfare states, but I would at least expect to find that each household contains government-issued sex toys for each person living there; otherwise, what is socialism for?