It's an elite fraternity, not unlike the mile-high club or the Illuminati.
Cha Cha is a phone service you can text for answers to questions when you don't have internet. (I mostly ask it things like, "Is Richard Hell still alive?") But it's also a website boasting a number of soul-searching quizzes like, "Are You Addicted to Nicotine?" and "Are You A Bad First Dater?" The quiz I thought could give me the greatest sense of accomplishment and know-how was "Do You Have What It Takes to Be A Sex Toy Tester?" I own a vibrator, but it hasn't really won me over yet; my friend Dave says this is because I bought a shitty vibrator, and there's a good chance he's right. It's kind of short and hard and generally uninviting. But aside from a personal unfamiliarity with/apathy toward sex toys, I assumed I'd be pretty qualified because a) I'm capable of using them, and b) that's it. Join me as I find out whether or not I can make a living testing and reviewing sex toys.
1. "On A Scale Of 1 To 10 (10 Being Extremely Embarrassed), How Embarrassed Do You Get At The Thought Of Pleasuring Yourself?"
I initially chose "1," because why should I be at all embarrassed thinking about something I'm going to do to myself — something that myself and I both want? But then I thought about telling a bunch of faceless strangers this, and I got a little embarrassed, so I chose "2." Plus the phrase "pleasuring yourself" made me shrivel a little inside.
2. "How Willing Are You To Try Out Brand New Vibrators And Not-Yet-To-Market Sex Toys?"
I'm not sure whose idea it was to include this question in the quiz, because if the answer was "Not at all," I'm pretty sure you wouldn't need to take the quiz. Like, if you were totally opposed to masturbating with battery-powered objects, why would you want to know if you could turn it into a job? That said, I also briefly entertained a vision of some not-yet-to-market sex toy backfiring hilariously, sending me flying across the room, my goggles askew, as my screams echo throughout my apartment: "Winston! Disconnect the device! It'll kill us all! Winston!"
3. "Can You Coherently Express Your Thoughts In Paragraph Form?"
This question (presumably) doesn't so much determine your qualifications for testing sex toys, but rather your qualifications for writing about them. And obviously this is a subjective question to which most people will answer "yes," because the internet is full of people thinking they're good at things. I have a long history of being subjectively pro-me, so I'm also going to go with "yes."
4. "Do You Enjoy The Idea Of Working From Home?"
Well, yeah I guess "working" from home would be pretty much your only option. What would a sex-toy testing office look like anyway? A room with many couches? Various cubicles, each containing a plastic-sheathed mattress? A well-sterilized museum of dildos encased in glass? An autoclave? Maybe it would just look like every other office, but with reclining chairs and internet access that permits raunchy Google searches. And lube everywhere.
NEXT: "Two weeks to masturbate and then decide if it was good or not seems like a really long time."
5. "Can You Commit To Writing A Product Review If Given 14 Days' Time?"
Two weeks to masturbate (or have toy-supplemented sex) and then decide if it was good or not seems like a really long time. If you can't commit to that, you should probably re-evaluate how you're spending your weekends.
6. "Do You Currently Have A Mailing Address Or P.O. Box?"
At this point, the quiz started to feel like one of those health questionnaires you fill out at the doctor's office. I was just waiting for someone to start coughing into my mouth and the lights to suddenly morph into gross fluorescent pore-magnifiers. Where's the question about which Breakfast Club character I relate to most?
7. "Are You 18 Years Of Age Or Older?"
I doubt anyone younger than eighteen is taking this quiz, because people under eighteen have all those AOL Parental Control restrictions on their internet browsing, right?
8. "Which Of The Following Most Accurately Describes You?"
And my options — the possible descriptors of the sum total of my being — were:
a) sex addict
b) average man or woman
c) prude
d) prostitute
This made me half-collapse in laughter because the choices are obviously ridiculous, but presented as if they're completely practical representations of all members of the human race. According to Cha Cha, if I'm not precisely, mathematically average, then I'm either getting paid for sex, addicted to sex, or fairly consistently against having sex. Being that I didn't fall under either A, C, and D, I went with "average," but for the record, I'm not happy about it.
The Cha Cha bots took some time calculating what my answers meant, and decided I was an "Ideal Candidate" for sex-toy testing. Cha Cha also informed me that 98.5% of people who took the quiz got the same answer. I got the feeling that if I were to take a quiz to determine if I would be a qualified food tester, the mere fact that I have a mouth and a stomach would make me a shoo-in. Even though I'm not looking to change careers anytime soon, it's comforting to know that both I, and basically everyone else in the world, has something to fall back on.
