Since the trailer for Wicker dropped in July, women have been looking at their wicker furniture in a whole new light. But one OB-GYN has a message for anyone tempted to take the fantasy further: please don't.
The film stars Olivia Colman as a fisherwoman who commissions a basketmaker to build her a husband out of wicker, played by Alexander Skarsgård. Per the Post, the wicker man ends up satisfying her . in . every . way.
Now, people online have been joking about hand-shaped wicker baskets and man-shaped wicker in home stores. Even Ikea joined in, calling its wicker lamps, ottomans, cabinets and headboards "husband material."
Dr. Amy Novatt, an OB-GYN at the sexual wellness brand Dame, told the New York Post the fantasy should stay a fantasy. "Wood can splinter, and plant material harbors bacteria and molds that can cause infection," she said.
"Many were simply seeking pleasure and never expected harm."
The vaginal lining is "tolerant, and quick to heal," Novatt told the Post, but that doesn't make it a test subject. It helps protect against infection only while its balance of healthy bacteria, pH and mucus layers stays intact, and a foreign object could disrupt all three. "What it was not designed for is receiving trees, shrubs or other plants," she said.
The pre-insertion checklist the Post cites from experts is four words long: Is it smooth, unbreakable, cleanable and retrievable? Most sex toys are designed with those features in mind, according to the Post. It adds that the recommended cleaning routine is soap and water, and that harsher cleaners such as antibacterial triclosan could disturb the vaginal microbiome.
The Post also cites a figure of 300,000 American adults a year landing in the emergency room for a "foreign object in body," with more than half the items sex toys.
Novatt isn't against the fantasy itself. "Fantasy is healthy and to be encouraged," she said. Her concern, she said, begins where fantasy tempts people to act it out literally "at the expense of our health."
Wicker, directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson and based on Ursula Wills-Jones' short story "The Wicker Husband," opens in limited US theaters Oct. 23 and expands Oct. 30, International Business Times UK reports. It debuted at Sundance in January.