Five Ways to Make Your Sex Life More Eco-Conscious

Your love life is smoking hot, but is it sufficiently green? Here are a few simple, fun, and innovative ways to embrace the earth while adoring your partner.

Save an Animal’s Life: Vegan Lube

If you feel strongly about not using animal products, and can’t stomach the idea of compromising, even when it comes time to add wetness to your love life, Self Serve Toys a women-owned sex shop operating out of Alburquerque, New Mexico, has the solution for you: Sliquid Sassy. Not only is this lube vegan, but it’s gluten-free, glycerin-free, and paraben-free. Its main ingredient? Plant cellulose.

How very 21st-century.

Worship the Sun: Solar-Powered Vibrators

Vibrators have been adding enjoyment to bedrooms for literally hundreds of years now: there’s even a museum dedicated to the history of the vibrator, the Antique Vibrator Museum, located inside of famed San Francisco sex shop Good Vibrations. But despite the many obvious advantages the vibrator brings to a sex life, this helpful appliance can also be an energy hog, not to mention a mild environmental hazard when powered by batteries. Those AAA’s generally end up in landfills when improperly disposed of – and while rechargeable vibrators are a distinct improvement, they’re still going to eat up their fair share of wattage while you get your rocks off.

So what’s the guilt-free solution? the Solar Bullet. After eight hours in the sun, this solar-powered wonder will whir away at dual speeds for a couple hours. It’s the vibrator you take to Burning Man; the vibrator you choose before your ten-day camping trip in Yosemite.

Think Resourceful: Next-Level Dildos

Dildos are beautiful things, but the ones made of jelly rubber and soft plastics contain phthalates, an ester used in emulsifying agents which can be toxic. Some of the associated effects of phthalates have been associated with breast cancer, endocrine disruption, and metabolic interference.

While not all flexible dildos contain phthalates, it can’t hurt to open your mind to other alternatives. Glass-blown dildos are popular, and elegant; while slightly cold to the touch, so are stainless-steel dildos. A truly inventive dildo, though, also comes from Babeland: the Laid Stone Dildo, a sex toy made from pieces of polished black Norwegian moonstone that would normally be discarded by a quarry. Waste not, want not!

Got Wood? 

Nob Essence, a woman-owned creator of organic hardwood “sex sculptures” raises the love-the-earth bar one step higher: their wooden dildos are all-natural, gorgeously crafted, and made from renewable raw materials.

And no, they promise, you will not get splinters.

Keep it Local

It’s fun to try to think of ways to make the smallest possible footprint on the earth as you make love. Jacq Jones’ shop, Sugar, located in (Baltimore, Md.,), sells floggers and other sex-sensation play toys that are made from locally up cycled bicycle tubes. That’s doubly impressive: repurposed and local.

But you can keep your love life local on a micro level, too. Take public transport to your love’s house once in a while, instead of driving. When you buy flowers, or a nice dinner, spend your money at independent businesses when possible, ones that can make your community bloom. Even when you’re looking into your partner’s eyes, try and see if you can take the opportunity to become completely present, completely situated in your environment. This is the true meaning of local: intimacy.

As you can see, saving the world through love and sex really is possible – in fact, is there any other way?