The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has\u00a0recently published the development of a safety standard for the quality of sex toys to ensure higher safety when using sex toys.<\/p>\n
Sex toys are in touch with the most intimate and sensitive parts of the body,\u00a0and yet there hasn\u2019t been any official guideline for their\u00a0quality assurance so far. That\u2019s why experts from the erotic industry\u00a0and\u00a0standardization specialists from various countries have\u00a0connected with each other\u00a0to develop standardized guidelines.\u00a0The result is the international standard \u201cISO 3533:2021\u201d. Head of the German delegation was Stefan\u00a0Schr\u00f6der, Head of Quality and Conformity at ORION, who explained\u00a0the details of this new ISO standard for sex toys\u00a0in an interview.<\/p>\n
What is the exact name of the sex toy standard?<\/em> What does the standard \u201cISO 3533:2021\u201d\u00a0cover?<\/em> Who was the initiator of the standard? And why?<\/em> Who was significantly involved in the development process\u00a0of the standard?<\/em> How long did the development process\u00a0take?<\/em> In which way will the publication of this standard affect the erotic industry?<\/em> What was ORION\u2019s quality\u00a0assurance\u00a0based upon before this standard was published?<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has\u00a0recently published the development of a safety standard for the quality of sex toys to ensure higher safety when using sex toys. Sex toys are in touch with the most intimate and sensitive parts of the body,\u00a0and yet there hasn\u2019t been any official guideline for their\u00a0quality assurance so far. That\u2019s why experts from the erotic industry\u00a0and\u00a0standardization specialists from various countries have\u00a0connected with each other\u00a0to develop standardized guidelines.\u00a0The result is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":113057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113054,"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113050\/revisions\/113054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orion.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIt is an international standard, the \u201cISO 3533:2021\u201d. ISO stands for International Organization for Standardization. There are also the German national standards called \u201cDIN\u201d (Deutsches\u00a0Institut\u00a0f\u00fcr\u00a0Normung<\/em>\u00a0\/ German Institute for Standardization) and the European Standards \u201cEN\u201d (from the German name\u00a0Europ\u00e4ische\u00a0Norm<\/em>\u00a0\/ European Norm). Any standard that includes these terms is acknowledged all around the world.<\/p>\n
\nThe standard covers safety requirements for sex toys that are intended to come in direct contact with genitals and \/ or the anus. These requirements relate to the mechanics,\u00a0electrics and vibration, materials, general safety and user information. There are, for example, certain requirements for the design \u2013\u00a0e.g.\u00a0anal toys need to\u00a0have a stopper or any kind of retrieval mechanism.\u00a0Of course, chemical aspects are also important. Manufacturers are obligated to\u00a0look into the composition of a product, particularly its biocompatibility. But there are also requirements for the packaging and the instruction manuals.<\/p>\n
\nThe standard was initiated\u00a0by the Swedish Institute for Standards (SIS) in 2019 and has been\u00a0guided\u00a0through the development process. Doctors from a hospital in Stockholm had complained about the deficient safety of sex toys that they had\u00a0to operate out of patients on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
\nThe ISO\u00a0standards body consisted of\u00a0delegates from the countries that were involved in the process \u2013 most of them were European countries. There were delegates from Sweden, the UK, France, the Netherlands,\u00a0Switzerland, Germany and Japan.<\/p>\n
\nThe development process\u00a0usually takes at least three years, even longer most of the time. We had to deal with the Covid pandemic during\u00a0this process\u00a0which led to us being one of the first online-only commissions. However, thanks to our great co-operation we were able to get the standard through the entire development procedure in only 24 months.<\/p>\n
\nFirst of all, it\u2019s a standard that can be used voluntarily.\u00a0It gives clear information for the manufacturers on how to design a product so that it is \u201csafe\u201d. Over time this can develop into the \u201cstate of the art\u201d so public authorities can also rate the safety of a product based upon the requirements that are stated in the standard.<\/p>\n
\nAlready 15 years ago,\u00a0ORION\u00a0has\u00a0tackled the problem that there was\u00a0hardly any\u00a0framework\u00a0that would provide safety requirements for our products.\u00a0We were able to develop our own \u201cORION Standard\u201d in co-operation with very renowned laboratories. This standard is very common in Asia. We looked at chemical and physical aspects of\u00a0the EU\u00a0Toy\u00a0Safety\u00a0Directive\u00a0and the associated standard EN 71 and adapted these standards for our products.\u00a0The first stress tests for love balls or phthalate-free PVC were significantly defined\u00a0as\u00a0benchmarks\u00a0by ORION. These benchmarks were largely adopted into the new standard.<\/p>\n