How sex toy habits changed in the pandemic (especially demand for quiet ones)

Sex toy companies, like Lovehoney, saw huge spikes in sales during the pandemic, especially for quiet vibrators.You’d be forgiven for thinking everyone was masturbating more during the pandemic.

Companies around the world have reported dramatic spikes in sex toy sales since almost the beginning of the pandemic; according to The New York Times, Wow Tech Group, the parent company of We-Vibe and Womanizer, saw a 200-per-cent increase in online sales between April, 2019, and April, 2020. Similarly, the Los Angeles Times reported Lelo, the Stockholm-based luxury sex toy brand, saw a 60-per-cent rise in internet sales in March, 2020. And a 2021 study published in the Journal of Psychosexual Health notes that sales of sex dolls, lingerie and sex toys increased during COVID-19 lockdowns in Australia, Britain, Denmark, Colombia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, France, India, North America and Ireland, possibly due to the same panic buying impulse that prompted toilet paper hoarding.

It’s not just that people are buying more sex toys – they’re after particular ones. Online sex toy seller Lovehoney says Canadians were particularly interested in quiet sex toys, which led to a 25-per-cent jump in sales of products such as the Whisper Quiet Classic Vibrator