I quit my boring 9-to-5 to become a professional sex toy tester

For this New Yorker, business is pleasure.

Sarah Riccio ditched her traditional 9-to-5 to become a professional sex toy tester, a little-known odd job that remedied the 34-year-old’s dissatisfaction with a normal office workplace.

Sex, she told Southwest News Service, is “the only thing I love more than sleep.”

The Gothamite formerly worked as a nanny before discovering product testing in 2018, starting with mattresses and bedding before finding her true passion.

While she was reviewing beds at Sleepopolis, Riccio met her future business partner, Rose, who would later work with Riccio in 2021 to found Delicto, a one-stop shop for all things adult pleasure, including product reviews, listings and articles relating to sex.

“I thought the only thing I loved more than sleep was sex — so that’s where we headed,” said Riccio, who has tested more than 150 different toys in her career and is particularly fond of the “grinding” toys she has recently reviewed.

“When the business first launched, we had our ups and downs, and one point we thought should we just go back to work for the man?”

Now, however, they are “bigger than ever.”

A typical day in her life involves writing articles about sex education, testing toys, filming reviews and offering tips and tutorials for different techniques in the bedroom. Additionally, she provides “shame-free education” about sex on social media.

“Sex positivity gets a little warped on the internet — but it doesn’t mean that you should be game to try anything — it just means you’re erasing shame from the situation,” she said.

“Whatever you want to do with your sexuality is exactly what you should do — no more, no less, that’s ultimately the message that we are trying to spread.”

Riccio especially highlights the importance of education about sex toys, specifically “body safe materials,” such as silicone, glasses or hard plastic.

“You get a lot of very large sex toy retailers which will sell insertable sex toys that are toxic for your body,” she explained. “They are very cheap, so the average person doesn’t know what is and is not safe to put inside their body.”

Customers will come to her, then, and ask why a product might be $30 from their company, but on Amazon they could find it for $10 — “it’s because we’re using body safe materials,” Riccio noted.

In the world of adult pleasure, “there’s something for everyone,” she continued, from silent toys to products that can be controlled from around the world by remote.

“I was a little more private about it in the beginning, now I’m like no this is my business and I’m proud of it,” she said.