The phrase "an empty receptacle" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a container or object that is void of contents, often metaphorically to indicate a lack of ideas or substance.
Example: "In her speech, she referred to the uninspired project as merely an empty receptacle for unoriginal thoughts."
Alternatives: "a vacant container" or "a hollow vessel."
Because when you take that condom off, you don't want her to get an accidental glimpse of the empty receptacle.
This is the opposite dynamic to the "banking model" of education which we find in most institutions of higher education, where education is simply a commodity and students are treated as empty receptacles to be filled with information by teachers.
Within the limits of 16S-TRFLP profiling, this study suggests that young Z. mays plants are not primarily empty receptacles waiting to be colonized by soil microbes, but rather they appear to transmit a majority of their bacterial endophytes from generation to generation through their seed, and further regulate the entry and/or establishment of select and widespread soil bacteria.
For instance, never leave an empty bleach container in your kitchen's waste receptacle, be sure to rinse it thoroughly and then remove it from your home.
Over on the west cost (and note: I'm using that term in its laziest sense to cover all Internet companies including those who, by accident of birth, have offices back east), "content" means the precise dictionary definition of the term: "something contained, as in a receptacle"; generic filler to pack inside an empty box to make it attractive to advertisers.
Things I saw on the beach one morning: an empty vodka bottle, four blackened cigar stubs, numerous cigarette butts, two different broken flip-flops, a large jagged piece of broken glass (this I picked up and carried to the nearest trash receptacle), an abandoned striped beach towel - soaked now by the high tide - and a fresh pile of dog feces.
The observer weighed each stall's faeces container and cover material receptacle at the beginning and end of each observation day, and each time a full faeces container was replaced with an empty one.
