Lately, I’ve been ruminating on the concept of sex blogging and writing as feminism and social justice in practice. Bloggers advocate for ethical business standards, educate consumers about body-safe sex toys and lubricants, promote pleasure-and-consent-based sex education for all, and write without shame or stigma about our own bodies, pleasure, and desires, among so many other things. We write to make a difference, and the writing we do is feminist. The work we are doing is revolutionary justice work, and part of that work is health justice.

According to Health Justice Connecticut and the Office of Minority Health, “health justice is a term used to describe health equity: an attainment of the highest level of health for all people.” Part of achieving justice in any arena includes making sure that is is comprehensive and includes stigmatized things or topics – like sex toys, masturbation, or just talking openly about sex in general.

For me, health justice as it relates to sex toys means that comprehensive, non-biased sex education exists, that people are able to access that education no matter who they are or where they live, and that they can use that education to make informed decisions about their bodies. Without knowledge of the materials that are going on or inside of our bodies, we are unable to make informed, educated decisions about the toys and lubricants we use. We are unable to live healthy lives if we fear infections from toxic toys that contain phthalates and other unsafe materials, or worse, if we don’t know that those sex toy materials are toxic in the first place.

This is why writing about body-safe toys and lubricants and exposing unsafe, unethical companies is so important. The sex toy industry is unregulated, and outside of the blogosphere, a handful of ethical companies and retailers, and education-centric feminist sex shops, very little consumer education exists on sex toy materials and how unsafe materials could affect our bodies.

While individual bloggers’ writing about sex toy safety is vital, a main component of health justice for all is access. This means comprehensive education needs to be accessible to everyone: easy to find and available in a number of mediums. While the internet can be incredibly educational if you find the right blogs and websites, there’s also a huge amount of misinformation on the web. (Case in point: the “sexual health coach” who argues that women who need to use lube are unable to self-lubricate because they aren’t emotionally connected to their partner.) Furthermore, not everyone has access to a computer or other devices with internet connection.

I had no idea that some sex toys are made out of toxic materials until my senior year of college, when a feminist sex educator gave a presentation about toy materials and safe lubricants to my university’s queer student group. Her presentation changed the way I view sex toys, but it was also an optional, extracurricular event for a student organization: very different from a classroom setting, textbook, or required lecture. In order to truly attain health justice, sex toy safety needs to be an integral component of any sexual education curriculum in high schools and universities. Talking about pleasure and masturbation in sex ed classes is a radical idea for some, but it shouldn’t be: young people are having sex, masturbating, and exploring their bodies, and will continue to do so whether they’re given safety information or not.

For more opinions on where to shop for safe sex toys and which shops to avoid, check out the blogs I recommend in my blogroll. You are welcome to ask bloggers for clarification and advice if you have questions about a certain material, retailer, or company: I am always willing to advise my readers about toy safety and ethical companies, and the bloggers I trust are happy to do the same.

Sponsored by EdenFantasys. All writing here is my own.

Blogger disclosure: sponsors on Formidable Femme are simply paid advertisers and do not necessarily represent companies I would personally endorse, recommend, or work with past the terms of an advertising contract.