How celebrity endorsements and a global pandemic kickstarted a feminist sex toy revolution
Everyone from Lily Allen to Dakota Johnson have put their names to sexual wellness products during the pandemic.
It was late October when singer Lily Allen, a mother of two, posted her latest brand partnership to Instagram, where she holds the attention of 1.4 million followers. Wearing fuchsia lipstick and standing against a beige backdrop, Allen looked like she had come from the chemist, holding what appeared to be a small cleansing brush. It was not a cleansing brush. “I’m really excited to reveal … My very own sex toy! Womanizer changed my life, and I wanted to share,” she wrote.
The last time a celebrity said a product changed their life it was Oprah Winfrey talking about her Breville Panini Maker. And yet Allen’s new venture, in which she extolled us to “own our own pleasure” somehow felt normal: a natural extension for the singer who is beloved for her candour about not just sex but mental health, too.
Allen isn’t the only celebrity jumping on the sexual wellness wagon though. In November, actor Dakota Johnson, star of the Fifty Shades of Grey movie franchise, announced via her Instagram that she was the new co-creative director of Maude, a “modern intimacy” start-up, specialising in body oils, milk baths and sex toys, resembling a holistic spa. It was 2015 when Gwyneth Paltrow announced on Goop that a particular vibrator was her favourite. Fast-forward five years and Paltrow is now promoting candles with titles like ‘This Smells Like My Vagina’ (with scents of damask rose and bergamot) and ‘This Smells Like My Orgasm’ (which, for reasons only Paltrow knows, is heavy on the citrus.)
“I was kidding,” Paltrow explained later in an interview, but added: “I think it’s the idea that women have been taught to have a certain degree of shame or embarrassment about their body and so if you just light a candle, ‘This Smells Like My Vagina’, and put it on the coffee table, it’s a little bit of a punk rock statement.” Both scents have been hugely successful.
It seems “owning our pleasure” as Allen put it – a euphemism once considered about as appealing as the word “panties” – is a booming industry, with the global sex toy market valued at around $35.7 billion, and expected to reach $71 billion by 2026. Female sex toys are the fastest growing segment, with single women the leading contributors to the market. Female pleasure, no longer found between the ‘naughty’ pages of Judy Bloom books, sealed sections and bootleg porn, is having a moment.
Part of it has to do with feminist attitudes around sex – we went from trying to close the pay gap to closing the orgasm gap – the rate at which women have orgasms during sex compared to their male partners. Research undertaken in 2017 indicated that less than 65 per cent of heterosexual women orgasmed during sex, compared to 95 per cent of heterosexual men. But according to the Kinsey Institute, women reach orgasm on their own in about the same time as men, averaging just under four minutes. The issue, says Peggy Orenstein, author of Girls & Sex, is about gender: women simply don’t feel as entitled to pleasure as men.
It’s something feminist author Clementine Ford, who has 132,000 followers on Instagram, is passionate about. Ford began collaborating with sex toy company Wild Secrets in February this year, explaining: “I was particularly keen to promote [sex toys] because I think being in control of our pleasure is essential to our empowerment. Sex toys are not a product of patriarchal influence. They exist to make money for companies, sure, but the purpose of their use is entirely feminist.” And embracing the feminist messaging is Generation Z. Already known as the ‘sex positive’ generation, women in their 20s have greater access to information about their bodies, their desires – and access to products – online.
Aside from Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop, there are plenty of beauty and lifestyle sites jumping on the sexual wellness wagon. Beauty Bay and Priceline each have an entire section devoted to it, and there are rumblings other major Australian beauty brands will join the ranks in 2021.
In the US, Lioness – a smart vibrator that displays users’ personal sessions on an app – is readily available in healthcare clinics. Meanwhile, e-commerce juggernaut Adore Beauty launched its Adore You section last year, stocking not just sex toys but condoms and lubricants as well.
“We’ve always believed that beauty is more about self-care than it is about appearance,” notes Kate Morris, the founder and director of Adore Beauty. “Over the years we’ve extended our range to include things that make you feel good about yourself in other ways: candles, supplements, silk pillowcases, herbal teas and the like. We decided to add the sex category to Adore You so that our customers could incorporate these products into their own self-care routines – just as they might enjoy a bath with a scented candle.”
As Lisa Hili, the CEO of Porte-à-Vie, a female-focused company selling everything from lingerie to sensual fragrance and sex toys, says: “This new generation are a lot more comfortable with their own sexuality. They are not afraid to ask for what they want in most areas of their lives and the bedroom isn’t any different. I once had a 21-year-old working for me and when her first pay came through she immediately bought a $320 vibrator. She was so excited she went straight into the stockroom to get it and put it on her desk. Then she called her boyfriend and said: ‘Don’t worry about me tonight, I’m going to be busy.’ She was so light about it and didn’t even think to feel embarrassed.”
Another factor? Marketing. Once confined to sweaty sex shops and the bowels of the internet, sex toys are now more widely available and come in an array of pastel colours, with many resembling cosmetics. Morris says she wanted to change the experience of shopping for sex-related products so that it’s neither secretive nor a male-dominated space. “When we started researching this category at Adore, we discovered some really amazing new brands created by women, for women. They looked like the sort of product you’d want to see on your bedside table or in a bathroom ‘shelfie’.”
But it’s not all hype. Hili says the term ‘sexual wellness’ is appropriate because sex in itself is intrinsic to good health. “As women, we’ve realised that not only is our pleasure just as important as men’s, it’s also good for you – the brain releases serotonin after an orgasm, the hormone known to promote good mood and relaxation. This is often called an afterglow, a post-sex rush of happiness and dopamine that can linger for hours or even days after a sexual encounter.”
Sex toy supplier, Smile Makers, whose mission has been to “normalise the perception of female sexuality”, has promoted sexual wellness as self-care since 2012, when it decided that its products for women would only be sold in mainstream retailers and never in sex shops. But Hili believes the term ‘sexual wellness’ hit the mainstream in 2018, when articles online described face masks in the same context as vibrators.
“From there,” says Hili, “advances in design, technology, packaging and marketing have all worked to create an elevated segment of the market offering luxury pleasure items.”
Another undeniable factor: Covid. Self-pleasure became a running joke for singles during lockdown, while couples, suddenly working from home and staring at each other all day, needed to add a new dimension to their sex lives. “My husband and I are practically on top of each other all day,” says Sasha, a mother and marketing executive. “So we had better make it interesting. Lockdown with kids meant we had to find something that worked fast and wasn’t noisy!” Sasha explains, detailing the hundreds of dollars she spent on two vibrators. “Worth every penny,” she adds, laughing.
A survey undertaken by global sexual wellness brand Lovehoney, found that 30 per cent of Australians bought a sex toy during the lockdown period and 50 per cent felt they had become more sexually adventurous during lockdown. “We saw a huge spike in pleasure items and lingerie sales when the pandemic started,” says Hili. “Recently, we saw a spike in sales from Melbourne, with a lot of people from other states sending care packages to those in lockdown.”
And while there is still some social stigma, sex therapist Chantelle Otten is hopeful for the future. “Attitudes are continuing to move in a positive direction. People are realising that pleasure is for everyone, regardless of gender, sexuality, ability and background, whether you’re single or in a relationship,” she says. “It’s important to remember that pleasure is different for everyone, there’s no one size fits all.”
This story appears in Vogue’s December issue, on stands Monday December 14.