Beta 1.0
Many mainstream sex shops also sell mainstream sexist porn. You can boycott these if you want. They may not be at all honest about the fact that they do so, e.g. some innocent-looking toy sites will be owned by a company that also sells porn; do your research first. Feminist sites, such as Toys in Babeland, sell feminist or positive porn DVDs. If you are against all porn these will obviously be unacceptable; even if you do believe in feminist porn, there is some doubt as to whether these fit the brief: Womynsware, after some consideration, decided not to stock them.
Opinions as to the appropriateness of sex shops, or otherwise, of nudity differ; so too do manufacturers’ intentions in employing it. Cheap sex toys tend to have photographs of porn models on the box, in a pathetic attempt to convince the consumer that if they buy the product, THEY TOO can have (or, in the case of straight men, shag someone who has) huge breasts and sticky-out lips. Alternatively, in a standard toy/porn site it is quite clear why there is a naked blonde porn model sprawled across the top of the page: she is there to turn the shopper on, as are the product descriptions like “the Rotating Rat vibrator will make you throb, gasp and cry out for more!”. I presume most readers are aware that modern supermarkets deliberately pump appealing smells (fresh bread being the most common) through the air vents in order to make their shoppers hungry and therefore persuade them to buy more food. This is much the same ploy: a horny shopper, the sex toys magnates reason, will buy more sex toys. I have no real reservations in slamming this practice as cynical exploitation.
some innocent-looking toy sites will be owned by a company that also sells porn
Slightly more subtle is the use, on lesbian and feminist sex shops, of naked women for modelling harnesses. Policies on this issue differ, as no doubt will opinions. Sh! and Womynsware use no nudity whatsoever for harnesses, preferring mannequins and line drawings respectively. Babes-n-horny use slim naked women; Tickleberry have indescribable modern-art photos of their sex toys being used (nipple clamps on nipples, butt plugs in use, etc) which may alarm you, or make you laugh. The point of divergence here is that some people prefer to see how the harness looks on an actual human being; I can imagine many people feeling dissatisfied sex shops line drawing policy. On the other hand, there is no explanation as to why babes-n-horny’s harness models are topless, and I would assume they are trying to make the harness seem more glamorous by modelling it on an attractive naked woman.