NEW YORK – I’m not one to leap to outrageous conclusions based on just a couple similar stories appearing in the press, but some recent news items have me concerned about the state of the market for a class of product which is central to the ongoing health of the adult industry.

Am I worried that we’re putting too many eggs in the adult VR basket? No, those eggs look quite impressive in immersive, 360-degree 3D – and what the hell else are we supposed to do with virtual eggs; make cyber-omelets?

Perhaps I’m losing sleep over sagging sales of adult website subscriptions and/or VOD purchases? Nope. Honestly, I don’t even have the foggiest idea what kind of numbers subscription or PPV sites are pulling these days, or what it’s reasonable to expect from those sectors at this point.

Surprisingly enough, my fretting this morning is over a segment of the adult market which I’ve hitherto thought to be very healthy and poised to grow further, year by year: Sex toys, or “adult novelties,” or “pleasure products,” or “marital aids,” or “happy fun pokey-strokey doohickeys” whatever your preferred term is for stuff like dildos, vibrators, Fleslights, cock rings and hyper-realistic sex dolls with beautiful, poetic names like “Aimee Config. 3.”

Specifically, I’m worried that modern sex toys are too expensive, to the point where they are pricing many consumers right out of the market, including some with reasonably high-paying jobs.

Now, to be candid, I’m not basing this notion on data, analysis, research, or even knowing the retail price of any individual sex toy. I’m basing it on the fact that in a period of three days, I read about a postal worker stealing gift cards to facilitate buying sex toys and a lawyer breaking into her former employer’s firm, stealing a one-time coworker’s credit cards, then using the pilfered credit cards to buy sex toys.

Normally, I don’t look at two random crimes with similar elements as a “trend,” but when you combine these two incidents with the Venus Berlin sex toy heist last October, it’s clear we’re facing an adult novelty crime wave of historic proportions.

Consider this: Nichole Collins, the now-suspended attorney, didn’t just steal a former colleague’s credit cards, she also allegedly embezzled $8,000 from the firm before committing the credit card theft. Other details uncovered in the investigation suggest the eight grand may not have gone too far, however, and provide clues as to why she came back for the cards.

“While investigating, police found that the law firms’ receptionist email account received an email on December 27 at 10:07 p.m. with a notification that a purchase for a $250 Seducer luxury rabbit vibrator and other sex toys were purchased with the stolen credit cards,” according to Fox43.com.

If my math is correct (and it may not be, because I suck at math and recently accidentally deleted the calculator app from my phone) at $250 per luxury rabbit vibrator, Collins could have purchased a mere 32 vibrators with the $8000 she allegedly stole from the law firm – even fewer if the reported price doesn’t include tax.

While this may sound like a lot of vibrators, you’ve got to consider how easy it is to misplace those things. One minute, you’re masturbating on the couch, the next your dog is burying your Bluetooth-enabled pleasure wand in the backyard. And unless you want to spend half your time cleaning your sex toys (which I hear is a very important thing to do), it makes sense to have a big enough supply to assure you have a different one for each day of the month – and backup or two, just in case Fido likes to dig in the front yard, too.

Evidently even more desperate to augment her sex toy supply than Collins, former postal worker Iesha Conley stooped to swiping a $100 American Express gift card from the mail – not even enough to cover the cost of a half-decent rose quartz Goddess Wand, much less a luxury rabbit device.

Most appear to assume the Venus Berlin heist was perpetrated for profit and the thieves planned to sell the proceeds of their audacious theft on the black market. What if, though, these thieves were less like Jimmy the Gent and more like Robin Hood? Could it be their crime was motivated not by greed, but by an earnest desire to spread sexual pleasure among the impoverished, horny, dildo-less masses?

I realize a lot of the nation’s prosecutorial and law enforcement resources are currently dedicated to investigating alleged election interference and securing all of Minneapolis in preparation for some sort of big-time sporting event (presumably an ice-dancing competition), but once they’re done with those trivial matters, maybe they could turn their attention to something important, like figuring out what the hell is going on with high-end pleasure product prices?

Who knows; by conducting such an investigation, the money the feds save could be their own. After all, in another sign of the rising cost of these products, to my knowledge nobody gave federal employees free sex toys during the most recent government shutdown.

Price Tag Image © Sarah Williams