Sex Toy Testing: Can You Actually Turn It Into A Career?

Around once a week, AOL Jobs receives the same email in its inbox. Someone stumbled on an AOL Jobs story about a woman who claims to earn $39,000-a-year as a sex toy tester, and she (or he, but usually she) would like to know how to go about scoring such a gig. AOL Jobs didn't know exactly how people became sex toy testers, how many sex toy testers were even out there, or how its article became the No. 1 search result when you Google "sex toy tester."

But an editor thought we should try to solve at least two of these mysteries.


First the bad news: It's not a full-time job.

Being a professional sex toy tester who sits at home all day with soft music, scented candles and 50 varieties of vibrating egg is not really a job that exists. Most sex toy companies simply rely on staff to sample new devices -- for fun, in their spare time.

Michael Kain, the executive vice president of sex toy brand Liberator, says they use a handful of female workers in the customer service department. XR Brands and California Exotic Novelties, the largest global sex toy manufacturer, also use in-house employees.