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For your Pleasure: the Sex Toy
Industry
You could call it the climax of the sex toy industry. Thanks to the
Internet—which allows customers to privately and conveniently
order whatever “pleases” them—sales have
reached an astounding $8 billion and $12 billion each year in the U.S.
alone.
The overwhelming success has led to an even wider array of sex toys and
lingerie, with intriguing names like “honey
dippers” and “rabbit fur thudders”,
“jack-the-grippers” and “jelly anal bloop
sticks”. Even the good old-fashioned vibrator comes packed
with more features and accessories than a PC: graduated orbs, dual-play
dildos, clip-on “shag rags”, buzz clamps
and jelly vibrotubes. Choose from a wide range of sizes,
colors (some glow in the dark) and the convenience of a clip-on-ring
(in case you want to buy a set).
And if you’re not quite into wearing a French
maid’s uniform, the lingerie department’s got
everything from leather to lace, in all possible colors and varying
degrees of undress. Fun to put on, even more fun to take off.
Consumers aren’t, as people may think, the stereotypical
swingers and mistresses of seduction. In fact, one of the fastest
growing segments of the market is white, upper-middle-class couples
with strong religious backgrounds. They view sex
toys and lingerie as a way of maintaining intimacy. Others are
perfectly prim and proper young ladies who, thanks to the post
60’s feminist movement, no longer think orgasm is a bad word,
whether enjoyed with someone or alone.
And the sex toy industry has found an unlikely ally in the medical
field, whose research have proven that orgasms are actually
“good” for the heart (like aerobic exercise, it
regulates blood flow, with the bonus of improving hormone production).
Psychologists have also invented catch phrases like “sexual
health”, and marriage counselors write columns on the
importance of “experimenting”,
“respecting each other’s pleasure”, and
“body communication”. Their opinions have gradually
made the search for sexual excitement into a valid and respectable
investment in one’s well-being—like having an
annual check up, only more interesting.
These
developments in the way people think have elevated sex toys from
novelty items for the very adventurous to a mainstream must-have
featured in magazines like Harper’s and Cosmopolitan, as well
as thousands of websites on relationships and well-being. As attitudes
shift, and products become more readily available, the already gigantic
billion-dollar industry will only get bigger.
The next step is regulations and quality control, which is already
starting with Britain’s efforts to create a standard seal of
approval. Already being processed by the British Standards Institution,
this could be one of many movements to build consumer confidence and
protection—and prove that sex toys have been freed of the
last remnants of shame.
Sex toy conventions, where thousands of suppliers converge to present
their products to wholesale buyers, are also being held in
“conservative” countries like China, which once
deported a foreign resident for possessing a vibrator. Outside, stalls
sell locally made lingerie, the wisps of lace hanging proudly like a
flag for the new cause: the right to fun, great sex. |
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