The world in the recent months has been facing a situation that has no precedents. Being forced to stay home, in most cases far away from our loved ones, can be frustrating. That’s when technology comes in, helping us to shorten the distance, making us feel closer to each other, and enabling us to communicate by messaging, video call, etc.
With recent developments, technology doesn’t limit us to just being able to see and hear people anymore — we can also feel them.
Here we are, in 2020, with a huge selection of toys that can help us feel closer to anyone, anywhere.
If you think about it, it is unbelievable that only a decade ago we could not have imagined something like this that feels straight out of a sci-fi movie. But here we are, in 2020, with a huge selection of toys that can help us feel closer to anyone, anywhere. A person living in the U.S. can play, tease and stimulate their significant other who’s living on the other side of the planet. Incredibly enough, the usage of these products is not limited to just two users, offering the freedom to interact with as many people as you want at the same time.
A market often overlooked is the camming world. An incredibly big group of users that’s often forgotten by pleasure brands’ product development teams, which is ironic given that these sex workers are, without a doubt, the people that use sex toys the most at an average of six hours a day, every day. One interesting technology that has been totally tailored to cam performers is tipping to vibrate. After a cam model connects their toy either through a site or a browser extension, they can immediately start to interact with their audience, or even better, the viewers can start to interact with the model.
The process is simple, the higher you tip the stronger the vibrator is going to buzz. So simple, yet so remunerating, making these kinds of products a performer’s favorite.
It’s possible that within the last few weeks the cam industry has been one of the only few that has actually benefited from the mandatory lockdowns, registering an increase in viewership and with an exponential number of people signing up to become cam performers.
But this is not the only market that has has seen incredible growth. Online porn magnate Pornhub reportedly saw a worldwide increase of views, particularly in locked-down countries, with reported views growing well over a reported 60 percent.
Unfortunately this is not a fairy tale, and not everyone is having the “happy ending” they were wishing for. Brick-and-mortar stores are completely closed down, resulting in a big loss every day that they spend closed. But what is a tragedy for some, for others is like finding a gold mine.
Online shops are increasing their sales exponentially, starting from Europe with countries like Denmark that have reported doubling their usual sex toys sales and the U.K. that in the last week of March registered a 27 percent increase, as reported by Anne Summers in the article published in early April in The New York Times.
In Latin America like Colombia, Chile, Argentina or Brazil, online stores have reported growths ranging up to 140 percent. As we head up north we stumble upon the U.S. — what’s considered the biggest economy of the entire planet — and while by comparison, the U.S. hasn’t reached the same level of growth as has been reported in other parts of the world, it has registered some increase, which is impressive.
But why is this increase happening? Is it just due to the fact that physical stores are closed? Or is there another reason behind that?
Most experts believe that boredom is the key factor driving this increase. As Bali Sex Store’s (the biggest Colombian online website and distributor) marketing director Katty Gonzalez explained, “People before didn’t have the time to think about sex toys because of so many things going on in their daily lives; and because of what’s happening at the moment, it’s giving them the opportunity to explore all of their different fantasies and push the limits that they were used to.”
I believe that the situation has forced us to learn more about today’s generation and how they deal with a pandemic — instead of fighting it, let’s embrace it and explore our limits.
Alexandro Feynerol is the sales manager for Svakom, an international brand known for its unique pleasure product designs and technologies.
