A review by thingslucyreads
Oh Joy Sex Toy Vol. 3, Volume 3 by Erika Moen

5.0

I downloaded a copy of this book when it was made available as a Read Now title on NetGalley. This is an honest review.

Ok so this was always going to be a 5-star read for me. Oh Joy Sex Toy was first recommended to me a couple of years ago by my best friend, and I used to read it religiously. But it's been a while now since I read Oh Joy Sex Toy online, and it had fallen into the back of my mind, unremembered, until I saw it listed on Netgalley.

This is an amazing comic that is so much more than just reviews of sex toys. It also reviews books about sex and provides infinitely better sex education than any school ever has and talks about different kinds of relationships as well as sexual activity in general.

Almost every comic is accompanied by a "masturbateer" - a fictional person whose only function is to illustrate the use of a particular toy or to be taught about a condition or infection, with Erika and sometimes Matt hanging around to narrate the comic and educate the masturbateer, and the reader, about whatever subject is on the cards. I think the purpose of this is to make it more relatable than it would be if each comic was just Erika and Matt acting it out themselves.

This is a very effective technique. The masturbateers come in all shapes, sizes and races and two of the ones in this volume are disabled. They are also, as it says in the introduction, collectively genderless, so that they represent the reader no matter what the reader's gender is. All people are welcomed and included in Oh Joy Sex Toy, no matter what. Erika also mentioned intersex people in a discussion about genitals, which was awesome. This is a comic for literally everyone.

Some of the stand out comics in this issue provided information on how to make good homemade porn, foreskins, HPV, vaginismus, swinger's parties, how porn is made and a review of the book [b:Girl Sex 101|24819402|Girl Sex 101|Allison Moon|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1422990475s/24819402.jpg|44460201], which is the only comic that I remember from when I used to read OJST online, and directly influenced my purchase of that book. I still haven't read it yet, but re-reading the review reminded me that I own it and I'm hopefully going to get to that soon. There are also a bunch of guest comics in the back which were really cool and diverse as well. Some were about informative, like OJST, some were about two people getting down, and some were about things that had nothing to do with sex. I loved all of them, but my favourites were Dragon Age by Molly Ostertag, which was a review of the Dragon Age games (and oh boy am I glad I own Origins because I definitely have to play that soon), Honey by Ghostgreen, Ace by Kiku H and What's The Buzz by Benjamin.

This is a really fun, enjoyable comic that everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality or sexual experience or sexual desire (or lack thereof) should read. It's honest and real and welcoming and so incredibly important, and I'm honestly just so thankful to Erika and Matt for creating this comic and putting it online so that people can have it in their lives.