Why is the Sex Toy Industry Booming?
Around the world, sex toy devices like these are more and more appear in our daily lives.
Sex toys have become a hot commodity In a growing market. In 2021, the world spent billion on them. This was twice as much as in 2016 and nearly as much as people spent on hair care products. So why is sex toys business suddenly booming? And will the good times last?
The Origins of Sex Toys
Using vibrator devices to enhance sexual pleasure is nothing new. Some say they may have predated the wheel. And in the written word they were touted in the Kama Sutra.
The Kama Sutra was the first to fully illustrate sexuality. It is a Hindu love classic. It is the most famous work on sex ever created. The Kama Sutra was written in almost 2,000 years ago. It covers all aspects of sex, including the principles and techniques of pleasure. It explains how to best achieve ecstatic union. It is a love-making guide. It covers everything from how to bathe to putting flowers in the bed, positions and ensuring your partner’s pleasure.
The first mechanized vibrator is thought to have been invented in Victorian times. It was made by Doctor Joseph Granville in the 1880s. But it wasn’t explicitly made for pleasure. It was invented as a medical device. The battery powered electricity was very rare at the time. Vibrators were seen as things that could stimulate the nerves. For the next century, vibrating cures were on pharmacy shelves and in pornography. Clearly, vibrators were being used for more than was recommended on the label. They know women enjoy this. But, companies could not advertise vibrators this way because of anti-obscenity laws. So, you had to sell them for a different reason. You couldn’t say these are for orgasms. You couldn’t do it legally. You couldn’t do it for the culture at the time.
How did the Sex Toys Industry Emerge?
By the 1970s, a bigger market for sex toys had emerged. But, it was mainly in red light districts and aimed at a different clientele.
Times Square was someone called a cesspool. Someone would call it a beautiful sexual playground. You have strip clubs, cameo theaters，peep shows, heat shows. Almost all of these stuffs are catered to the male gaze.
The industry was willfully ignoring some other eager potential customers. Let’s talk about Cecilia’s personal experience. She went shopping for a massager in her local department store. The clerk said to her: “What do you wanna use this vibrator for? Why do you need this vibrator? ” And Cecilia looks like, it is none of your business. It was such an awkward experience for Cecilia.
Developing the female sex-toy market
Eve’s Garden, which was the first women’s own sex toy shop in the US. It opened around the same time that a new wave of feminism was sweeping through America.
The Supreme Court at that time legalized abortions. Dell and others hoped that if women were now more liberated, they might buy more sex toys. But for the most part, they didn’t. To most women, devices to enhance sexual pleasure were still taboo.
It would be another 25 years until the 1990s before that changed. It changed thanks to a cable TV network and four fictional women from New York City.
The rabbit vibrator shows up on Sex and the City. Women and viewers took from this. Wow, that’s really a cool device. Where can I get one? A good question, because buying a sex toy still wasn’t easy for a woman. Shops like Eve’s Garden, where few and far between. More sex toys were now sold in catalogues or at home parties. But mostly they were still to be found in seedy stores, which many women just didn’t want to go into.
Hardly surprising. The people making, selling, and marketing sex toys were men. The product design was a proof to that. The products were designed to be realistic shape, but whether it can bring sex pleasure to women is not the first consideration.
How the Internet Helped the Sex Toys Market
But the Internet would prove to be a game changer for sex toys. Online shopping made it easier for more women to buy them, even when the world was out of pocket. After the financial crisis, sex toy sales rose. Fast forward a decade and things really took off. COVID-19 saw many people stuck at home. They were open a new ways to cheer themselves up, like buying a bicycle, crafts, or a sex toy.
But other products had a lockdown boom. Sex toy sales were forecast to keep growing at the same pace.
How are Women Shaping the Industry?
So why is the industry in such rude health? In part because some of the people now running it have a natural affinity with their customers. Sim, one of the Co-founders of the vibrator devices. She said this in our interview:
One of my big eye-opening moments was when a founder of a different sex toy company was a CIS male. And I was like, how do you know what you’re building works for people with vaginas.
He said “There’s an industry standard. We put the vibration on your nose. That’s what a climax feels like.”
I remember having a whole aha moment. I realized that I had the superpower of being an engineer. We could design and build better products that cater to our needs. 95% of the brands that we talked to they were all male. We actually have our doubts whether they know what pleasure means for women. We conducted research groups with girls and we asked them about what they like, what they don’t like. And girls actually don’t want anything to insert or to penetrate, and especially not as a beginner. So that’s why we came up with something very small, something that is not intimidating.
From Sex Toys to Sexual Wellness
Women are also helping rebrand sex toys. They are doing so in a way that could broaden sex toys’ appeal by embracing a cultural trend: wellness. This trend takes the seediness out of the industry.
What do you do to make yourself feel good? Sports is one, Meditation is one, Nutrition is one. And then sexual Wellness is also a pillar of it. It’s the main pillar of Wellness. If you feel sexually confident, you will be confident in whatever you do. For investors who want to get on board, the sex toy business was once seen as risky. But, the sexual wellness device market sounds broader, safer, and more appealing.
Some investors look at investment trends. Sex toy divices didn’t fit into the buckets at the start. This was because it was quite hard. Fortunately, that’s changed. It happened in the last few years. There’s more realization that people have sex. They are willing to buy different products and services for sex and sexual health. And with more money come more advanced products. Sex toys are going high tech. For example, the vibrator devices could contain sensors. They measure pelvic floor contractions, which happen during an orgasm. The device stores that information and sends it to an app which lets you see your orgasms. So when you’re squeezing , you can actually see that data in real time. We always say knowledge is pleasure. It’s so important to give people the space to understand their body in their own way. It’s their own journey and their own terms.
Sex toy manufacturers are rebranding their products as a tool to promote wellness. High Street shops can stock them without embarrassment.
Sex toys now sold even in one of the most traditional establishments. Now it’s out in the open and people are normalizing it. So I it’s a huge step for the sexual Wellness industry in general.
Challenges to the Growth of the Industry
Sex toys have come a long way, but their makers still face challenges that other industries don’t. Advertising, for example, is tricky. Sex tech is still seen as adult pornographic content. So, we can’t use the normal paths of growth, like Instagram or Facebook ads. The policies are very outdated. We’ve seen ads for erectile dysfunction and men’s grooming kits for their genitals. But, when it come to wellness devices even smart vibrators are still banned.
This industry’s fortunes are tied to society changes in views towards sex. There’s always likely to be resistance to it from somewhere. But one thing’s clear. The sex toy business is fast becoming as normal as the desire for sexual pleasure itself.