Page 30 - AVN Intimate Winter 2017

FEATURE
By Paul J. Maginn
Welcome to the Pleasure Zone
A study of sex toy sales in Australia
products. Sex toys and adult retailing are BIG business!
The ongoing growth and diversification of adult stores—brick-and-mortar and online—is a clear sign of a strong market demand for pleasure
Just how big? In an article published by Forbes, CalExotics CEO Susan Colvin said that the global adult retail market is worth about $15
billion and by the end of this decade it will have more than tripled to $50 billion—and that’s U.S. dollars.
From Sexual Revolution to Sextech
Revolution
It seems clear that we have become
increasingly sexually curious, liberated and
experimental. The counter-cultural sexual
revolution of the late 1960s, which many see as
the last great sexual revolution, has arguably
been overtaken by the sextech revolution of the
noughties—or should that be the naughties?
Casual dating or hook-ups apps such as
Tinder, Blendr and Tingle, websites such as
Ashley Madison and SeekingArrangement, and
online BDSM, fetish and kinkster communities
such as Fetlife allow people to explore their
sexuality. And of course it is impossible to
overlook the impact of E.L James’ Fifty Shades
of Grey trilogy. Whilst Fifty Shades has been
criticized for its portrayal of BDSM practices,
the books have sold more than 100 million
copies worldwide. Invariably, the Fifty Shades
franchise—both books and movies—has been
cited as a key factor in surging sales of fetish-
related products starting in 2011 and 2012,
when the books were published.
And pornography is now much more easily
accessible thanks to the internet. Pornhub, for
example, lays claim to 23 billion visits to its
sites in 2016. As with the growth of the craft
beer industry, there are burgeoning indie-, alt-
and feminist adult entertainment industries.
Mass Appeal Despite the apparent mainstreaming of adult retailing and sex toys, there is little hard and fast data on trends in consumption of sex toys.
Most recently, rock & roll bands Motörhead and Mötley Crüe have gotten their own brand of
pleasure tools. I wonder who might be next: Sex Pistols? Coldplay? Suggestions on a postcard,
please!
Despite the apparent social, cultural and economic mainstreaming of adult retailing and sex
toys, there is little hard and fast data on trends—temporal, geographical and preferences—in the
consumption of sex toys.
As part of my ongoing research into the geographies of the sex industry I was granted access to
an anonymized sales dataset from two co-owned online adult retailers—SexToys247 and Frisky—
Celebritization of Sex Toys
based in Melbourne, Australia.
In terms of the wider cultural and
The sales dataset covered a total 66,500 orders over a 38-month period from March 2012 through
commercial mainstreaming of sex toys,
to May 2015 and provided basic information on volume, value and type of products ordered as
women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan,
well as the date of purchase and destination of orders.
Women’s Health and Marie Claire play a regular
It is important to note that no information whatsoever about the specific identity or addresses of
role in “educating” their readers about sex toys.
individual consumers was provided.
And, then there has been the celebritization of
This data allowed insight into where Australia’s pleasure zones are located, what types of adult
sex toys. This process arguably commenced
products Australians like, and which seasons are biggest for sex toy consumption.
with the now infamous 1998 episode—“The
Turtle and the Hare”—in the U.S. show Sex and
the City where the rabbit vibrator had its “going
August and May proved to be the two most popular months to buy sex toys. Why might this be? One possible reason is that these months coincide
in–coming out–going in–coming out party,” so
to speak.
Since then a gaggle of female Hollywood
with winter and autumn in Australia.
celebrities have come out proclaiming their
favorite sex toys. Pop star Rhianna has
extolled the joys of BDSM in her song “S&M,”
proclaiming that “whips and chains” excite
her. Rapper Missy Elliot penned a whole song,
“Toyz,” about pleasure products: “I gotta bag
full of toys and I don’t need none of your
boys.” Oprah Winfrey and Gywneth Paltrow
have reviewed or endorsed high-end sex toys
on their websites.
Australia’s Pleasure Zones
The data show that online retailers such as SexToys247 and Frisky have a large market reach.
Customers were spread across all states and territories and based in inner-city, suburban and rural
areas.
The two biggest markets in terms of volume and value of sales were New South Wales (largest
state in Australia by population) and Queensland (third largest state in Australia by population).
Victoria, despite being home to Melbourne, only ranked as the third largest market despite being
the second most populous state. The volume and value of sales were significantly less than in NSW
and Queensland.
30 | INTIMATE | WINTER 2018