Adult product reviews...

I haven't done any new toy reviews lately. I was unemployed and putting the majority of my efforts into finding a job, going on interviews and finding odd jobs to put cash in my account until something worked out. Then, I finally got a job and find myself at work 6 days a week, often working 10 to 12 hour days, sometimes more.

Another thing was, I was just tired of doing it. Tired of all the bitching people were doing about things. Tired of certain people picking at me. One thing that amused me was when people bitched about unnecessary things others had in their reviews. Unnecessary to whom? To someone who reviews 2 or 3 or more toys per month and has for months or years? To someone who has been reading sex blogs and reading toy reviews for long enough to know the boring details? To someone who is familiar with sex toys and the proper ways to store and care for them?

Lets break from my point to look at something. These are some searches used to find reviews of mine.

"LELO toy product review"
"pink curvy silicone dildo"
"LELO GIGI vibe product review"
"bumpy glass dildo information"
"tantus dildo pink"

There are more but I didn't think to do this post long enough ago to start saving up terms out of search engines that landed people on my review of whatever toy their search landed them on. Do you think the people searching that stuff knows a lot about the toy their searching for? Maybe they do. Then again, maybe they don't know anything at all other than they heard about this one brand of vibrators and wanted to research them to see what they're all about. Maybe they went into a toy shop and looked around, then went home and decided to do research on them to see what would be good and what wouldn't. That's not hard to believe. If you go into a store and see a LELO vibrator that's over $100, you're not likely going to buy that on a whim without knowing anything about the toy or brand.

The thing I think a lot of reviewers forget or just don't think about is that not everyone who reads the review is someone who has read several reviews before. It's not always someone has reviewed half a dozen, a dozen, three dozen or more toys before and knows the drill of the boring details. It's not always going to be someone who's even involved in sex blogging in any way at all be it reviewing, having their own blog or reading them. It's not always someone who has any knowledge about sex toys at all. I think with a lot of reviewers, they're so immersed into it and their online community is people who are immersed into it as well; that's what they're used to dealing with.

Things like proper ways to clean the toys, store them, what kind of lube you should use, etc might seem like boring and unnecessary details to you. They'll probably seem that way to a lot of the people who comment on your reviews, too. People who aren't unfamiliar with toys and people who also review or are part of the sex blogging community.

I've gotten plenty of e-mails in the passed with people asking me questions that they apologized for asking because they were "stupid" questions but they didn't know.

"Is any soap okay or does it need to be something specific?"

"When you say 10% bleach solution, what does that mean exactly?"

"What's the best way to boil a dildo? Do you need to clean it before or after or does boiling it cover it?"

"Can I use a latex condom with a silicone dildo?"

Sure, they seem like stupid questions to someone that knows the answer already. To someone who doesn't, they're legitimate questions that deserve real answers.

Now, I've mentioned this to several people before and their response is usually along the lines of, "Well, it's common sense how you clean a toy."

Yeah, to someone who already knows how to do it and already knows what will and won't damage a toy.

Not everyone who stumbles on your review is going to know all that you know. What does it hurt to add in a few boring details? Especially people who say they work so hard on their reviews so their readers can get as much information out of it as they can? Especially if you claim a big part of you doing reviews is to educate people on a product and try to help them make an informed decision? What's the harm in a few extra minutes typing out a few boring details that you already know but that a handful of people reading along might now know?

I know before I started doing reviews, I didn't know everything I do now. Another argument I have gotten with this is a couple reviewers saying, "Well, I learned by researching it so they can, too. Not like it's hard." True... but, if they read your review looking for a certain product they are researching it in a way, especially if they found the review through a search engine. If you're putting up a review of a product and claim to do such a thorough job of giving as much helpful information about the toy as you can, does that not include the "boring details" you're tired of typing out?

And yes, I know most reviewers have enabled comments and most have e-mail addresses listed so if someone had questions they could always just ask. I can also see how someone might be too intimidated to do such a thing for fear of seeming like an idiot.

I'm not saying everyone should change how they write reviews. Do your thing and include whatever the fuck you want. It's silly to pick at other people for what they choose to include in their reviews, especially when you're picking at things just because they seem unnecessary to you. I'm not picking on anyone. I just don't get why people make such a fuss about it. Certainly, if you're immersed into toy reviewing to any extent you're going to get sick of reading those boring details. You're going to get tired of typing those boring details. I just think it's silly to bitch about other people having those boring details in all of their reviews just because you, most of your commenting readers and other sex toy reviewers/sex bloggers you know/associate with already know all of those things. Outside of the community, not everyone else is so immersed and educated in these types of things. I'm not saying people who aren't reviewers/sex bloggers don't know shit because that's not true either by any stretch. There are going to be people who know what they need to know and people who know more than the person that wrote the review they're reading. There will also be people that don't know anything, though. People who know certain things but not other things. People that will appreciate that "unnecessary information" because they didn't know already or were uncertain and didn't want to ask. Just keep in mind that just because something seems "unnecessary" to you doesn't mean it's going to be so for every other person who reads the review you're slamming for having "extra information" in it. I'd rather know more than I need to know than walk away with things unanswered, in most cases.

And I'm done now. Thanks for reading. :)