Hey, this is Dan Savage.

Welcome to episode 4,612 of the Savage Love podcast.

Savage Love, of course, is my widely syndicated, widely mocked sex advice column.

And this is an oral version, oral version of that column for your listening pleasure.

Let's get to the calls.

Hey, I recently heard about toxic sex toys.

Now, I guess some sex toys have phalates in them, some chemical that causes cancer and the strange birth defect that will deform the penis of a fetus.

And I wanted to know if you could talk about what toys are safe and what toys should we avoid,

and why do sex toys melt when they touch each other?

Those kinds of questions, because if anyone would know, I figured to be it.

Yes, there's been some furious sort of reports written about toxic sex toys.

Apparently there's a chemical compound, an acid used to make sex toys, to produce sex toys,

that makes them softer and pliable and squishy, you know,

so that your dildo doesn't have a rough plastic feel and edge to it. The chemical is completely

unpronounceable, so I'll spell it. P-H-T-H-A-L-A-T-E-S. Plaitates or something.

Phallates. Phallates.

And apparently they cause cancer and they're not very good for you and they're in their sex toys.

There's an easy solution for this, which is not to become paranoid and toss out your sex toys in the trash.

It's to put your sex toys in a latex or polyurethane condom, although they probably have chemicals in them. We have to

sort of face facts and we live in a chemically saturated world. And, you know, you have to

balance risk against reward, whether you're talking about sex toys or skiing or dinner. I'd

worry more about dioxins and beef, which came out this week. A huge shipment of

...