I hate pink. Always have. Based on pure shudder-factor, my aversion to pink ranks somewhere below my trypophobia but above my distaste for whiskey and the word “panties.”
When I mention the color, I do little to conceal my disgust. I sigh about its inevitability and express mock-excitement over it. My hate is documented, understood. This color snobbery helps me curate my sex toy collection. By always mercilessly begging firmly asking for the color I want, I’ve managed to avoid a lot of pink stuff. But the pink toys I do own — I look at them and feel regret.
There are two big reasons why I hate pink: it’s aesthetically ugly, and I abhor its connotations. Perhaps I find it ugly because of its connotations, but nonetheless, I don’t enjoy looking at it. Hot pink, Pepto Bismol pink, magenta… all of it.
Much of my hatred stems from the societal assumption that because I am a woman, I must adore pink. That my one dream is for all of my possessions to be pink, including my car, my alcohol, and especially my electronics. That slapping pink on anything equals INSTANT GIRLY UPGRADE, and we all want to be girly — right, ladies?!
Pink is consistently used to represent incompetence, materialism, vapidity, punishment, and general obsession with frivolous things. It’s often used to brand things as “for women,” which inevitably means a dumbed-down, shittier version of the original product.1 Apparently, women are not half the population, but rather a one-dimensional sub-group with special pink needs for our silly little brains. I mean, thankfully they invented pens for us, otherwise I’d still be writing things in my menstrual blood.
So it’s no surprise that pink runs rampant in the sex toy industry. Pink and purple dominate, while blue and black trail behind, and green, yellow, and orange (some of the best colors ever, just quietly) are devastatingly underrepresented.
When I was a kid, I got annoyed when people bought me Barbies. A gift of anything Barbie just demonstrated that the gift-giver didn’t know much anything about me. I feel like that’s what the color pink represents to many sex toy manufacturers: the obvious choice. The safe choice. The default.
Maybe I shouldn’t feel patronized, exactly, by the existence of pink sex toys, but… I do. More thought should be put into a sex toy’s color than, “well, this is a toy for women, so pink is perfect. Right, guys?” I imagine a lot of mansplaining goes on in sex toy company boardrooms. And mansplaining does not make me horny.
Like, I really don’t give a fuck if your “sales numbers” tell you women like pink. Because I don’t trust your “sales numbers.” They are based on shitty selection in the first place — pinks and purples. Give us no real choices and you’ll only fulfill your own prophecy.
This epidemic just makes me want to throw up. It’s fucking everywhere and never seems to end.
It’s a sex toy shaped like a goddamn banana, yet someone decided that pink was more appropriate than yellow.
It’s leopard print tinted pink, like no actual animal.
It’s a toy with pink accents and the tagline “What Women Want.”
It’s entire sex toy product lines awash in pink.
It’s the “choice” between pink and purple, or toys that come in pink and pinker.
It’s a company hyping its product with the product tester quote “I can feel the pink!“
It’s constant infantilization.
It’s lube named Pink that looks like a perfume bottle, lube with pink packaging because it’s “for women.”
It’s identical nipple clamps that, when pink, are called “Nipplettes,” and when black, are called “Colt Grips.” It’s “For Him” and “For Her” vibrators. “Male” and “female” attachments.
It’s pink spilling further, into fairies, butterflies, cupcakes, and roses.
It’s reviewers reinforcing this shit again and again and again and again.
It’s visiting a sex toy shop and feeling like you’ve stepped into the little girls’ section of the department store.
To be clear, I will not refuse an otherwise delicious-looking toy just because it’s pink. However, if I’m on the fence about requesting a toy for review and it only comes in pink, I will probably shun it. If, instead, it comes in green (especially lime green!), yellow, white, black, turquoise, or orange, I’ll err on the side of yes.
But oh, heads will roll if you send me a pink sex toy when I have asked for whichever-other-color-is-available. Sometimes it doesn’t matter — the Better than Chocolate still sucked, after all, and oh yeah, so did the Form 6 — but I can’t exactly guarantee that my opinion of a toy won’t be influenced by its unfortunate color. I am not the queen of objectivity.
I know that some people out there actually like pink and find it aesthetically pleasing. I cannot fault them, but I’ll never understand them. The thought of liking pink is just incomprehensible to me. At night, alone with just my dildos and my thoughts, I comfort myself by remembering that pink doesn’t truly exist.