Sex Toys on TV - Orange is the New Black gets it right
Orange Is the New Black certainly has its up and downs - I have loved so much of this show and I have hated so much of it. Having worked in prisons and worked with women in conflict with the law, I find I often have to suspend my disbelief while watching it. So much of what is shown would never happen in a prison - at least not in Canada. If you've been lucky enough never to have been in a prison, as a resident, visitor, or employee, trust me, this is not what it looks like.
BUT the sexuality in OITNB has been, in my opinion, really good. A lot of the sex scenes involve only women (makes sense) and they are fairly realistic. There is a lot less lesbian sex for the male gaze than most shows. A lot of the scenes are played for laughs, or develop characters and relationships.
There are also a lot of scenes of women having transactional sex - sex they don't really want to have except for the fact that they are getting something else out of it. This is reality - particularly for women who have very little power. There are also several scenes depicting sexual assault. These have been really hard for me to watch - probably even harder for many others to watch - but these also, I feel, have been mostly realistic. Those scenes are important parts of character and plot development and have been shown from the perspective of the victim. Victim's are not a simple plot point in someone else's story as so often happens in mainstream movies and tv (woman is assaulted, her male partner must get revenge).
The plot involving Doggett and her eventual romantic relationship with the man who sexually assaulted her is a whole other kettle of fish that I don't want to get into here. I could write several blog posts about that and how problematic it was.
So there has been a lot of sex on OITNB, but until the very last season, we haven't seen much about sex toys in OITNB. We have seen a few women use unconventional items as sex toys - Boo and the screwdriver, Doggett and the cell phone. I just rewatched the first episode of the last season and caught something that I somehow missed first time around. Aleida has a Satisfyer! In the scene, she was going to have sex with the man she's living with but he is called away to work. When he leaves, she opens her bedside drawer and pulls out a Satisfyer. The scene is quick so it's a little hard to tell, but from the shape of it, it looks like it actually is a Satisfyer Pro 2. As well, they got the sound correct, and when she turns it on and puts it underneath the sheet, you can see the round light. This is why I think it actually is a Satisfyer.
So, it's a very quick small scene, but they did get it right. Right noise, right use of toy, right light, good toy. Yay! Points to OITNB. They may not always get prison life right, but they got this toy right.