How COVID-19 is fuelling a surge in sex toys

As more people are instructed to stay indoors, sales of designer lingerie and intimate products are thriving.

“Everything was either sex or death, so I chose sex,” says Lisa Hili, explaining the two industries that had the most start-up potential back in 2011. Working at Australian Vogue, Hili was exposed to a plethora of luxury brands, but what she really wanted to do was launch one of her own.

“Even through the GFC, sex was one of those markets that was still booming because people were nesting more,” she says. “I realised there was a gap in the market for this stuff, so I put together a business plan.”

The “stuff” Hili is talking about – exquisite lingerie, luxury fragrances, and top-of-the-range sex toys – would become the basis for her luxury boutique, Porte-à-Vie (French for “door to life”). All she needed was a financial backer. By chance, she met Melissa Karlson, managing director of the investment company Wyllie Group, and daughter of Rhonda and the late multi-millionaire business tycoon, Bill Wyllie. Karlson heard through a friend at a wedding about Hili’s ambitious plan, and a business was born.

Now we are in the midst of another global crisis and Hili has proven herself right. "We've seen a huge spike in pleasure items and lingerie sales over the past couple of weeks," she says. “We’ve actually sold out of a lot of toys.” Lubricant, massage oil and even erotic colouring books have been “more popular than ever”.
Elevating the idea of sex products from the dimly lit rooms of adult shops and naughty hens' nights to a level of self care on par with day spas was no easy feat. Hili enlisted former Vogue editor Kirstie Clements to help market the e-boutique as chic and stylish, similar to luxury online retailers like Net-A-Porter.

While Clements no longer works with the brand, there are shades of her influence everywhere: the pop-up store in Sydney’s Paddington resembles a designer fashion store, if a designer fashion store catered to the bedroom. With Coco de Mer silk slips hanging alongside Agent Provocateur lingerie, (their tailored corsets retail for about $649) as the scent of Dirty Rose perfume wafts through, it’s like a little slice of Eyes Wide Shut.

We don’t want to push anything on anyone. We understand that it’s not everyone’s thing.

— Melissa Karlson, Porte-a-Vie

Still, Australians are laid back, but they’re not that laid back – something Karlson, who specialised in corporate finance at the London School of Business, relates to. “Out of the 50, I’m about 10 shades of grey,” she laughs.

The launch, in 2017, was tricky. Hili held a party for 50 friends. There were canapes and champagne and scented candles. At first, the women gravitated towards the Agent Provocateur lingerie and luxe fragrances. “But a few drinks in,” says Karlson “and they were crowded around the toys, picking them up – just totally fascinated.”

They weren’t the only ones. As well as the pop-up shop in Paddington, Porte-à-Vie sends its range of lingerie and adult products overseas to places such as the US, Europe, Mexico and India. Its biggest seller? A pearl G-string, from Spanish fashion house Bracli, which Karlson says is a huge hit with men who buy them for their partners.

But customers are equally fascinated by the gold pendant necklace that doubles as a vibrator – another bestseller. “Businessmen are among our biggest spenders,” says Hili. But Hili and Karlson insist it’s not all about toys. “We don’t want to push anything on anyone,” says Karlson, who moved from Perth to Sydney as the business has grown. “We understand that it’s not everyone’s thing.”

At least, it didn’t used to be. But a few cultural shifts in the past decade changed that. The first was 50 Shades of Grey, the 2011 novel about sadomasochistic sex. The book set a record in the UK as the fastest-selling paperback of all time. By 2015, it had sold 125 million copies and been translated into 52 languages. Nobody could have predicted just how many women – many of them middle-aged – would be interested in reading erotic fiction.

Masturbation, too, became less of a taboo subject and was talked about more openly, especially among women, in pop culture and literature. And then the wellness industry co-opted pleasure: the final puzzle piece.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s website GOOP and Cassandra Grey – widow of Hollywood mogul Brad Grey, and founder of the ultra luxe lifestyle website Violet Grey – began to promote sex toys and accessories as if they were the latest upscale releases from a tech giant – which in a way, they are.

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The sex industry is on a swing from a male-centric vice industry to a female-centric wellness industry, and that's a pretty big change.

On goop.com, pleasure is presented in the context of wellness – a video on foam roller workouts for better sex sits alongside a list of three Paltrow-approved non-toxic lubricants. At Violet Grey, Luna Beads – for strengthening the pelvic floor – might well sit next to a Dr Barbara Sturm face mask or Augustinus Bader body cream. The emphasis is on luxury and treating yourself.

“The sex industry is on a swing from a male-centric vice industry to a female-centric wellness industry, and that's a pretty big change,” says Alexandra Fine, co-founder and CEO of Dame, a US company that produces adult toys designed by women for women. Fine’s business partner Janet Lieberman-Lu is an engineer and graduate of MIT.
“We're seeing it more openly discussed in pop culture, which helps validate and sanction products that were once shamed,” says Fine, who began her career as a sexologist. “Beyond that, the rise of technological advancements in the space have helped demonstrate that these products are just as intricate and thoughtfully made as those in any other category.”

Fine and Lieberman-Lu launched Dame in 2014, with their first product, Eva, which they were able to make through crowd-funding. “We raised $US575,000, making it the most successful sex toy crowd-funding campaign ever.”

The pair never looked back. “We sold over 10,000 vibrators, amounting to over $US1 million in revenue, within a year of meeting each other,” says Fine.

In fact, pleasure-as-wellness has become so popular that even mainstream cosmetic retailers, such as Adore Beauty, are now selling their vibrators on their websites.

“Sex products have always been a big industry – $US32 billion in the US in 2019 alone,” says Kate Morris, CEO of Adore and AFR Young Rich Lister. “The change we noticed was the rise of tasteful, luxe brands aimed at women; along with the mainstreaming of the category into beauty and wellness retailers like GOOP and Violet Grey.”

But as CEO of a website that has 2 million customers visit each month, the pivot from moisturisers to vibrators required careful planning. “We knew there was a risk of backlash if we didn’t approach this category with respect,” says Morris of the launch.
“We made very considered, conscious decisions around the types of words and imagery we would use. The principle of consent was absolutely key – customers on our website will not see any images of sex products without having first been asked if they are comfortable to proceed. And we also took a lot of time to communicate why we were doing this.”

Since the launch, late last year, Morris says there has been zero backlash. “Quite the opposite, actually. We’ve had a lot of feedback from women on how grateful they are to see a mainstream retailer normalising this category, and creating a space that is tasteful, safe and inclusive.” Since the COVID-19 restrictions were put in place in March, Adore has seen a 45.2 per cent increase in its sales in its sex category.

Which way the market expands in the next few years remains to be seen. However, one thing remains clear. “Female pleasure,” says Hili, “is now at the forefront.”While casual sex is not recommended in the era of COVID-19, sexual health physicians say since many people will likely seek it, guidance is needed on how to reduce its risks.

Associate Professor Edwina Wright, from the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine, says as casual sex breaches social distancing, several organisations have advised against it.

But as the weeks of COVID-19 containment turn to months, some will probably begin having casual sex.

“So, it would be wise for governments and jurisdictions to start preparing guidance on harm minimisation to help avoid COVID-19 transmission during casual sex,” she says.

In late March, the society created a national taskforce of experts to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on HIV, viral hepatitis and other blood-borne viruses in Australia.

It is chaired by Professor Wright, who says sex with a regular partner, providing the partner is well and not in quarantine, is the safest approach. But she says there is no data yet on which aspects of intimate sex are safest.
“It will be very hard to determine the differential risk of acquiring COVID-19 during intimate sex because of the nature of how COVID-19 spreads.

“Any sex that involves kissing would increase the risk of being exposed to infected airway secretions, and a person may touch a surface contaminated by the virus during sex and acquire the infection that way.

“We do know that in patients with severe COVID-19 illness, a proportion may have faecal samples that remain positive for the presence of the virus RNA for several weeks after the respiratory samples have become negative for the virus.”

But she says more data is needed to determine if it is possible to acquire this viral infection via faecal-oral transmission. It remains an unconfirmed possibility.

On negotiating sex between someone with COVID-19 and someone without it, the sex would have to be virtual, she says. The person with the illness would have to self-isolate until advised by a public health officer they are no longer infectious.
Virtual sex might include things such as love letters, erotic letters, phone calls, FaceTiming, texts and Zoom. There are many options and humans are never short on ideas about sex.

For the first time in almost four decades, Thorne Harbour Health has advised against casual sex. Formerly the Victorian AIDS Council, it now also serves the health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) communities.

Its website says while COV