I started my journey as an adult product tester in 2020. As a young woman, I was unaware of the wide range of products available in the market, so I was quite excited to try them out. Since then, I have tested and researched around 30 different adult products, ranging from vibrators and lubricants to lingerie and other accessories. Through this experience, I have gained a greater understanding of the adult industry and the variety of products available. My hope is to continue exploring these products and share my insights with others.
Work is not just about commuting from nine to five and cubicles in the office. What are some of the lesser-known jobs beyond our daily imagination?
Here is the special report on Ten O’Clock People: The Crazy Career.
Every issue of the story tells an unusual “crazy” career story, using the unique life adventures of niche professionals to show you different aspects of the world.
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Source: Ten-O’Clock Biography Original
Ten-O’Clock Biography Original is the source of this content.
The era of talking about sex and color has long passed.
Data shows that there are more than one thousand adult products and related production enterprises in our country, which is the largest producer of adult products in the world. The annual sales of adult products industry has exceeded 100 billion RMB.
Behind the massive consumer demand, there is a small but secretive profession that also plays a key role. As a communication bridge between consumers and manufacturers, they are responsible for quality control of products – adult product experience technicians.
Jingjing, a Guangdong girl of the post-95s generation, is also a member of this group. Seven years ago, Jingjing entered the industry under the influence of her mother. In these seven years, she has suffered countless misunderstandings, rumors, and also experienced freedom and pleasure.
For this occupation which even Baidu Baike has not yet included, Jingjing believes that it is unrelated to the “making money while lying down”, “vulgarity” and “enjoyment” imagined by many people in the outside world, but rather a job that requires precision and professionalism to do well.
Below is a narration by Jingjing:
Mom took me to open the door of a new world.
Many people would find it hard to believe that I became an adult toy tester, brought into the business by my mom.
My parents belong to the “new generation” of the 90s, trend of thought, like rock and roll and motorcycles. When they got married, they promised to stay single until old age, but my mom got pregnant unexpectedly, so I was born.
My parents have a very progressive and modern approach to my education. They help me take off from school for more than ten days when I want to travel, take me out to play, and leave me with my grandmother for some quality time alone. During my rebellious teenage years, I ran away from home; my mom followed me riding an electric scooter, humming a song before bringing me back home for some sugary treats after I had tired myself out.
Growing up with an open and equal education philosophy, I developed a free and unrestrained character. Whenever I talked with my friends about stories of my parents, they would exclaim “Your parents are so cool”, followed by the question of what their professions were. Actually, both of them are ordinary people – my dad sold pickles for decades and my mom was a typical housewife in my memory.
I discovered my mother’s true profession by chance. While in college, one day I skipped class and went home, when I opened the door I saw my mother wearing a sexy lingerie and sitting seriously in front of the computer in the living room. There were also several adult products of various shapes and pink ropes on the sofa.
My brain shut down on the spot. I knew my parents were unconventional, but I didn’t expect them to be so unconventional that it took them half a day to finally blush and ask me, “What are you doing?”
Mom had a look of surprise, but she wasn’t panicked. Wrapping herself with a blanket, she asked me if her clothes looked nice.
When I saw my mom’s attire for the first time, it was indeed stunning and so I nodded. My mom then said that the clothes were nice but not suitable to be worn close to the body, because it belonged to Category C fabric. According to national standards, textile products are divided into three categories, A being the highest which is commonly referred to as baby-grade fabric; B can directly touch skin such as underwear and pants; C are products that cannot directly touch skin such as coats, curtains and skirts.
My mother told me that some unscrupulous manufacturers would cut corners in order to reduce costs and use C-grade fabrics for lingerie in order to gain higher profits, but this knowledge is not widespread, so many people do not know.
I’m filled with the scene of my mother being tricked into taking sexy pictures and I nervously asked her, “Were you threatened by someone?”
My mother confided in me; she is an adult product tester, assessing products and ensuring their quality is her job. Later she will need to provide feedback to the storeowners on her experience with the product, suggest improvements and research new ways of using it. This was only known to my father in the family.
I just found out that ten years ago, my mother worked as an assembly line worker in an adult toy factory. Later, the factory needed a product experience officer and everyone avoided it, but my mother actively applied for it. This job not only paid more than the assembly line worker, but also didn’t have to work shifts. She just had to go to the factory to pick up goods and report her feelings of use to the office staff on time.
Whether it was then or now, this was a pretty bold move. Mom faced a lot of rumors and gossip from the factory, with people saying behind her back that she was a “bus driver”. Only Dad supported her and believed in her. The two of them worked hard and saved up diligently until three years later, when they had enough money to buy a house in downtown Dongguan and bring me back to be near them.
Famously known throughout the country, the Adult Products Wholesale Market in Guangdong was first established in 1997 in Liwan District, Guangzhou–the first and largest of its kind. Jokingly referred to by netizens as the “sexual blessing” source of the nation; its manufacturing factories are mainly from my hometown, Dongguan.
At that time, there were few people in Dongguan who were experience testers for adult products. This position was also in great demand. My mother established cooperative relationships with many factories and had her own fixed customers. Later, she quit her job from the factory and worked alone. In the past ten years, my mother has become a senior experience officer from an experience tester. Her job content has gradually shifted from simple evaluation to training new experience testers and teaching HR how to interview experience testers, etc.
This is the first time I know about a new career – an adult product experience specialist which is not even recorded in Baidu Encyclopedia.
Adult product testing is also a technical activity.
In my sophomore year, I had a boyfriend, but I found that when we were intimate with each other, I didn’t feel the same strong pleasure as in a movie. This made me doubt if I was “sick”.
After a long time, I was tired of pretending to be cheerful and started to reject a sexual life. My boyfriend didn’t understand and kept asking me what was wrong. Every time I was about to speak out, I was ashamed to open my mouth.
I searched for the term “causes” on an online consultation platform and surprisingly found out I was not alone– only less than 30% of women can achieve orgasm during sexual intercourse, and women from all age groups share the same problem. Most doctors advise, in the absence of any diseases, to communicate more with partners and use aids.
In my search for information, I found that people need sexual products just as they would normally need to eat when they are hungry. China is the world’s largest producer of adult products and its annual industrial sales have exceeded 100 billion yuan. Data shows that 84% of middle-aged men have purchased sexual items, and some large malls in the country have gradually set up “couples’ product” counters.
I confessed my troubles to my boyfriend, he expressed understanding and so I bought the most common vibrating ladies’ tool online. After using it, I was very satisfied and wrote a detailed review. Unsurprisingly, my review got a lot of likes and follow-up comments.
The store found me and asked if I could write an experience description for each of their products with a reward of 100 yuan for each. With the idea of making some pocket money, I happily agreed.
Soon, the store sent me 30 products. Since the delivery address was filled in at home, my mother also found out. She didn’t say much, but accompanied me to open the package and check it carefully. It was found that 18 of the 30 products were unqualified, including material problems, workmanship problems and packaging problems. The most terrible thing was that some of the products had obvious signs of use.
Mom told me seriously that, doing this job is like testing poison, if I rashly try without a solid foundation of knowledge, it’s like playing with my own body and health.
She gave me many dangerous examples, such as some female insertable toys that can quickly extend after being inserted into the vagina, like a telescoping pole. If used improperly, it can cause vaginal tears. There are also some electrical adult toys, which may even endanger life if used by people with cardiovascular disease or epilepsy.
I gradually realized that doing this line of work is actually not so simple, it requires a strong professionalism.
I started learning the theoretical knowledge of adult products and found that there are 12 categories of adult products alone, including vibrating eggs, electric simulation devices, delay rings, sexy lingerie and so on. The history of adult products can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period. There were various stone “male roots” and “stone ancestors” in history. The existing cultural relics include double-headed turtles made of copper in the Han Dynasty for concubines who did not have the opportunity to receive imperial favors from the emperor’s palace.
I also found that the instructions on some products are even wrong in terms of how to clean them. The most common alcohol disinfection and boiling water soak methods mentioned in the instructions are not suitable for some soft and fragile adult toys.
Alcohol can corrode the product, and boiling water scrubbing will make the product deform. The correct method is to wash with warm water, and use professional adult products disinfectant for sterilization. These quality issues need to be reported to the manufacturer in time by experience staff, and they should also follow up their improvement.
Risk and opportunity go hand in hand.
Under my mother’s introduction, I became a part-time adult product tester for a certain manufacturer.
The recruitment process was stricter than I expected. This job requires high literacy, as the product is special and the wording must be subtle but make customers feel the beauty of sensuality everywhere. If there is no writing experience, the resume will be eliminated.
HR mainly assesses the interviewee’s understanding of the industry in the interview stage. Some factories prepare independent rooms for the interviewees to experience the product and describe their feelings in words. Many people are unable to accept this and fail at this stage.
My workflow is clear. The manufacturers will send me the products that need to be evaluated, and after experiencing them, I not only need to feedback the user experience, but also write product copy in the form of PPT and modify it under the suggestion of the manufacturer. Usually it takes at least a week to complete one order. The average remuneration per order is around 1500 yuan.
After a while, I joined the factory’s part-time experience WeChat group, and found that not only male and female experience staffs, but also couples or lovers experience staffs were in the group. Everyone was responsible for different categories, and often communicated business together.
Aming, the youngest experience tester in the group, is a 21-year-old college student. He likes to take on many products at once and distribute them to his roommates for evaluation in the dormitory. According to Aming, males have higher acceptance for such things because of their closer relationships, and that makes it easier for him to make feedback with more real pros and cons.
The oldest experience technicians are a couple in their late forties who own an offline adult products store. They learned about this profession when they were looking for factories to select products, and thought that they would need such talents when they established their own brand in the future, so they entered the internal organization first.
There is also a 27-year-old couple, the girl is an adult product designer. At first, when she was designing, she took a job of testing and experience. She originally only planned to do a part-time job secretly, but the product sent home was seen by her boyfriend. Her boyfriend is a freelance writer and found that the text written by his girlfriend always failed to pass. He bravely joined and both of them made up for each other’s shortcomings.
Talking about this profession, most of the people in the group said they did not intend to stay in it for long. On the one hand, there was public opinion pressure. This profession has been filled with harassment, cyber violence, discrimination and prejudice for a long time. If one’s inner strength is not strong enough, working becomes a torture.
More importantly, the harm to the body caused by shoddy products is potentially very serious and difficult to heal. In the group, a mom said that as an adult product tester, she was most afraid of receiving fake and inferior products from small workshops. When she first entered this field, she got gynecological diseases because she couldn’t distinguish the material of the products and now she has retired from this line.
Even though the merchant was asked to provide various test reports and the product was carefully cleaned and disinfected when received, a tester still got infected with a sexually transmitted disease after using the product, perhaps because it had been used before. The tester is now taking medication for treatment.
The most severe case I have heard of was when a group member needed to try out a new plane cup from a Taobao store. The uniqueness of the product was that it could automatically shrink and heat up, and there was a slight current at the bottom.
However, during the use process, machine malfunction, electric shock overuse, experience master seriously injured, reproductive organs caused irreversible damage. Although the merchant subsequently compensated in place, for the experience master it is still an unhealable wound for his whole life.
Break down prejudices and go the extra mile.
After I started working as an adult products tester, I told my boyfriend right away and never thought of hiding it.
I was surprised that my boyfriend strongly opposed it, with a very tough attitude. I was perplexed, as he had supported my suggestion when I first proposed it. Why can’t he accept it as a side job now?
My boyfriend assured me that being together was a couples’ pleasure, but having it as a profession was another story and he stressed that as a girl, I should not indulge in such an “immoral” profession.
I retorted indignantly, “Are there any male experience testers? Do they also lead a dissolute life?”
He answered ambiguously, “That’s different! It is enjoyable for boys to do this; what is the difference between you, a girl, doing it and an AV female artist?”
I have increasingly come to realize how deeply misunderstanding and prejudice against this profession can be. People often joke about the rewards of being a male experience worker, disregarding their earnest attitude toward work. For female experience workers, however, the same old “whore shaming” remains unchanged for centuries.
For the following period of time, my boyfriend started to use emotional abuse on me. During WeChat conversations he would subtly demean me and try to pressure me into quitting my job. Even though I explained a million times that it was just an ordinary assessment job, he refused to listen. I knew that I could not convince him so I decided to break up with him right away.
As a result, my ex-boyfriend was so mad that he posted my part-time job on WeChat and gradually everyone in the school knew. I often received a lot of silly and vulgar messages, and even was maliciously put on the confession wall. At one point, I felt so bad that I wanted to drop out of school.
I went to my mom crying, but she was surprisingly calm. She told me to switch phone cards and that someone with a dirty heart will see everything as dirty, including those who stand on the so-called moral high ground and use “female virtue” to control a person’s friends.
Under my mother’s guidance, I gradually felt relieved. All the hustle and bustle in school eventually disappeared with my graduation.
In my later freelance jobs, I occasionally encounter lower-end merchants or receive private messages with sexual harassment from male buyers, but I have started to learn not to care and only focus on giving feedback in a professional way with my most authentic experience to reliable factories.
Sometimes, I also see messages from female users full of confusion and embarrassment, such as: “I’m a virgin but I like to masturbate. Am I getting dirty now?” “If I use a toy, will my hymen be broken?” “How do I talk to my boyfriend about it? Do I prefer using this little toy?”
This reminds me of when I was also once bound by sexual shame, feeling that sex was dirty and unspeakable. Yet, in the seven years as a part-time adult product tester, I learned to view sex with a professional and rational eye. Through continuously exploring and sensing my body, I discovered that pleasing my body in a healthy way is not shameful.
I am not only a factory experience master, but also a guide for consumers. Because what I write will be seen and remembered by many girls. I also hope that girls like me can learn to face their sexual needs after reading my words, respect their feelings and know that adult products and cosmetics are just ordinary items to make themselves happy and relaxed.
Perhaps the other meaning of my job is to be the tree planter in the desert wasteland.