TORONTO — Male sex toy designs are changing and sales are rising, says Sarah Forbes-Roberts, co-owner of Canadian adult store Come As You Are, who was recently interviewed by the Globe and Mail.
Come As You Are reported that they are moving more than 800 male-targeted products a month — giving wind to a trend corroborated by Fleshlight’s newly published figures that reveal an 18-percent increase in online sales and a 25-percent increase in overall sales (over the last five years).
Retail spike notwithstanding, Forbes-Roberts, in the Globe and Mail’s Q&A, says that a certain stigma still persists for men who seek sexual pleasure items.
“There’s still an element of shame around male sexuality,” she said. "Men didn’t have the feminist revolution or authors who told them that sex is healthy. They’re supposed to wake up as teenagers and figure it all out on their own ... The irony is we have this culture that puts a lot of money into satisfying male sexuality with porn, but we’re talking about commercialized images, not men exploring their own bodies in an individual way.”
Forbes-Roberts explains that new designs and a changing social climate are making sex toys more accessible for men. She offers Tenga’s “egg” masturbation sleeve and high-tech Flip Hole as examples of sleek new products that, interestingly, in no way resemble the human form — something she notes is a basis for their popularity.
“We sell very few realistic-looking toys to either men or women these days,” she said. “It’s a sex toy and there’s no fantasy of a person replacing anyone. It’s something in addition to their fantasy life and to their real relationships with people.”
To view the full article on the Globe and Mail, click here.
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