Steel metal sounding rods, electrodes and TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) units for electrostimulation, chastity penis cages and the like aren’t typically where one would start exploring for pleasure. Torture isn’t something that most people will openly say they enjoy sexually. Nevertheless, with its dedicated customer base, the extreme fetish category is blossoming and maturing along with more curious consumers all over the world that are demanding for top quality and more options.
The path to extreme fetish play isn’t always linear — where people begin their sexual journey varies, as well as which products they start with.
Like most hobbies or sports, having better equipment and the right tools for the job can make it more fulfilling and enjoyable as time goes by.
“Some people stay very much in the ‘beginner’ realm, if that’s what we want to call it, and do not move into other kinds of play or gear,” Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen said. “Others are avid explorers and want to try it all, or almost all. Having said that, no matter where someone is on this spectrum of experience, it’s always worth getting the best-made gear you can afford. It may last longer. It may be more aesthetically pleasing, and that’s a not-unimportant factor in many peoples’ sex lives — in particular, fetishists. It may even be safer. I would advise this even for a first-time shopper, if they are enough into the fantasy to want to try it out.”
Joel Tucker, the founder and CEO of Stockroom, says that beginners should approach their experimentation consciously, safely and consensually — “which requires some reflection and communication, and probably accepting some educational opportunities,” he said.
“I see a lot of inexpensive, almost disposable beginner gear on the market, and I guess that type of product can be appropriate for light, experimental play. But like most hobbies or sports, having better equipment and the right tools for the job can make it more fulfilling and enjoyable as time goes by.”
Tucker also points out another negative effect of poorly constructed BDSM gear — a bad experience that can bring one’s exploration to a halt.
“You don’t want to inflict unintentional and distracting discomfort on a partner in a scene; that’s the point both of explicit negotiation and of getting good gear,” he said. “Just as you want the dominant to know where the limits of play are, you don’t want, for example, your bondage cuffs or collar to chafe the skin or be so tight that they cut off circulation. If you gag someone, you want to make sure that they can still breathe and don’t hurt their jaw or teeth. Things like this are why the materials and construction are very important to consider.
“We’ve spent 30-plus years endeavoring to be worthy of doing business with the more serious fetishists as well as those who are value-conscious — and perhaps most of all, those who fit into both groups,” Tucker continued. “Some beginner-oriented gear tends to be so cheap that it compromises a novice’s session, which then in turn, might deter a newcomer from further exploring the world of kink. But a bit of research and perseverance will pay off.”
The kink craze isn’t new; it’s just finally burst forth from the depths of candle-lit dungeons after decades of being shoved into gothic dive bars and underground gay clubs.
“I’d say that more people in general, especially vanilla people, have a much more open mind now, and are more willing to try new stuff and don’t see BDSM as something so dangerous and weird anymore,” says Tottis Crossler, store manager at Stockholm’s Chambers of Love boutique. “This is definitely positive for sales, as people want to try more stuff outside the box, and their open attitude also seems to make them understand that you usually get a better experience with better quality toys.”
Ask any pleasure business, from the light-hearted Lovehoney to kink specialty shops like Chambers of Love, and they’ll all agree in unison: kink is the new black, and people are willing to spend a pretty penny on their fetishes.
“I think 2018 has seen a trend continue that set in a few years ago after ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ where the interest in fetish products has gotten bigger overall,” recalls Nelson Sousa da Cunha-Pochet, co-owner of gay kink shop Mister B. “I have not seen much innovation, mostly new versions of existing products. Many companies have decided to jump on the fetish bandwagon and have come out with their own take on fetish products.”
So You’ve Decided to Be a Fetishist…
To become better acquainted with how to use the products, sex education is necessary.
“The more knowledge you have about whatever fetish you’re curious about, the better prepared you will be to begin exploring, the safer the session will be, and the more fun you and your partner or partners will ultimately have,” Tucker said.
Tucker suggests starting slow with it comes to more “extreme” fetish play.
“If you’re curious about medical play, start off with Wartenburg pinwheels, rubber forceps and speculums,” he said. “For CBT: cock toys like parachutes, advanced cock rings and ball-splitters. For electro play, you might try the Neon Wand Electrosex Kit, which is easy to control and comes with an assortment of attachments. Again, it’s all about education, taking it slow and cautiously to begin with — and of course, having fun.”
As orgasms are brought out from under the covers across the world, sex toy businesses are encountering fewer roadblocks to reaching their customers, including greater access to mainstream marketing channels.
“Sex education has a large influence on the whole industry and sales. The topic of sex and sex toys has become socially accepted thanks to more education in this area,” says Orion’s Bjorn Radcke. “The consumers are now much more open-minded and used to seeing this kind of content. Thanks to this change, it has become much easier to advertise our products and show them on TV or in magazines.”
Finding the right source for a shopper is achieved much like shopping for other products. Consumers rely on referrals, reviews, in addition to personal experience to discover their favorite fetish gear suppliers.
Softer stores like M Shop aim to bring more kinky newbies over to the dark side with a staff of well-educated sex geeks that bring BDSM down to earth.
“We believe that knowledge, service and a welcoming environment are key factors in our industry, so we will put a lot of effort into improving ourselves even more in the years to come,” says M Shop’s resident pleasure product expert and sales rep Evelina Odile. “It does demand more knowledge and nerdiness from our staff to be able to provide the proper instructions to the more niched products, but of course we’re happy to oblige.”
And for Stockholm’s most famous chamber of dark desires, it’s all about demystifying the line between pain and pleasure.
“By giving people the knowledge to see that kinksters aren’t outcasts and freaks, they become even more open-minded, and I think that makes the world a better place,” concludes Crossler. “One small step for kinskters — one huge step for humankind!”
'Fifty Shades' of Forever
More than half a decade ago, “Fifty Shades of Grey” opened the floodgates to a new wave of shoppers. And while many in the industry saw this as just a fad, soft bondage continues to serve as the gateway to more advanced play — and interestingly enough, “Fifty Shades” isn’t the first time that literature has boosted the interest in certain BDSM activities.
“Usually it starts with so-called bondage sets from hand and foot cuffs, whereby in the first step, mainly handcuffs are used,” Black Swan DesignZ CEO Zoran Kostic said. “After that, a collar with a ring on the front, based on the [BDSM novel] ‘Story of ‘O,’ is often bought as the next part. This basic equipment is then successively extended, for example, with hogties, thigh cuffs, ropes, etc.”
CalExotics has developed a vast selection of beginner bondage gear, however the company’s most elaborate collection is Scandal, which has increasingly dove into more extreme niches — while keeping it fun and pretty for first-timers.
“Interest has grown, and we’ve seen continued popularity with our Scandal collection,” said Nichole Grossman, the director of marketing for CalExotics. “This category is evolving in that it’s more accessible to beginners. With the introduction of softer products like handcuffs with Velcro-style closures or simple spreader bars, anyone can get into bondage in a way that’s comfortable for them.”
Laura Wood, a sales executive at Lovehoney says that the “Fifty Shades Effect” opened up conversations about bondage while creating a demand for a wider variety of fetish products.
Lovehoney’s Fifty Shades Freed collection, decked out in plum purple and rose gold accents, re-imagines classic vibrators and bondage gear with a luxurious look — and a recognizable little brand stamp, of course.
While pleasing to the eyes and pleasure parts, the Freed line isn’t pushing any serious boundaries or re-inventing the wheel, though it doesn’t want or even need to. Instead, Lovehoney met consumers at their own level, offering them a chance to dive into the fantasies they’ve desperately wanted to try, but hadn’t quite gotten the guts to indulge.
According to Wood, BDSM has been the naughty little devil on the shoulders of the average consumer, and Mr. Grey was all these folks needed to stop choosing in favor of the angel.
“We recently conducted some research in the U.K. and of the 1,500 people we polled, 52.5 percent of the respondents found the idea of bondage highly appealing and enjoyable, yet only 27 percent were regularly using bondage items or clothing,” remarks Wood. “More and more of our customers are looking to explore their kinkier side in the bedroom, and we have a great range of products the will encourage them to try it out.”
Fetish Material
Materials that are easy to maneuver in are especially important to bondage beginners when experimenting with testing their limits during restraint play. Flexibility in terms of ways to use them also is key, Grossman said.
“For beginners who are unsure about restraint play, it provides a more comfortable experience,” she said. “These products are popular with beginners because as they advance into more BDSM play, the toys move with them. Our Universal Cuffs have universal clasps that can be combined with other bondage toys or used to create a plethora of pleasure combinations. The versatility of these products is what makes them so popular.”
Budget-friendly materials such as neoprene, faux leather and plastic are often used to create introductory bondage items that are non-intimidating. Even while aiming to experiment with more extreme fetishes, beginner-friendly material can make it more accessible to consumers through price and how they are used.
“There are some beginner-level products, and it’s all about materials,” said Fred Hovermann, the owner of Philadelphia-based retailer The Kink Shoppe. “Silicone is more budget-friendly than surgical stainless steel. There are some items that I would not recommend or skimp on just for pure safety, such as plated surgical insertables and cheaply made e-stim power boxes. In those cases, some ‘beginner’ items can still be on the pricier end.”
Coyote Amrich, director of purchasing and product development for Good Vibrations, echoed the sentiment and says there is indeed such thing as introductory items for those curious in niche fetishes.
“By nature, these products are a little more advanced, but we have found ways to introduce these items to our customers so that the product range offers something accessible to their experience level — an example being CBT. We offer a small range of cock cages in acrylic, which might feel more advanced but are also more expensive,” Amrich said. “Therefore, we introduced a soft-material option so that the curious customer could experiment to see if this line of play would be something they’d like to invest deeper in.”
Go Hard or Go Home
“Not just the mainstream kink is seen in the bigger channels. More and more heavy duty stuff is made available and also produced in a good way,” says Chambers of Love’s Store Manager Tottis Crossler. “Kink products just keep getting more quality oriented, and the industry is making bigger ideas and fantasies available for the ones who can’t build, for example, a vacuum bed at home or other things that have been quite hard to get.”
When you’re on the market for a serious piece of bondage equipment or a purposely painful yet body-safe torture toy, it’s best to stick with fetish experts who know their way around a few yards of rope. Safety is always first, even in the dankest of dungeons.“The more mature the fetish consumer becomes, the more he is willing to invest in a high quality product that is durable and especially safe to play with,” says Sousa da Cunha-Pochet. “Certain fetish practices involve certain risks. For example, with bondage you can use a cheap rope, one that will let you have burn marks on your skin when too tight and scratches the skin, or you can opt for a high quality rope that will not generate these damages to the body.”
It’s Electrifying
“With e-stim, we understood that there can be a learning curve for this type of play and began by offering a set of items that was sold complete,” Amrich said. “The customer could have everything they needed, including a safety manual, in one box rather than having to piece together what they needed — since a beginner may not know what they needed.
“With any items in this category, we choose to source from manufacturers who specialize in this type of play rather than large-scale importers who add these items as a line,” Amrich continued. “We want to make sure that these are functional, safe items and need to trust that the manufacturing is looking at safety and quality rather than just expanding their line.”
Among the industry’s leading specialty e-stim manufacturers is U.K.-based ElectraStim. Claire Blakeborough, the company’s marketing and communications manager, says that due to the growing demand for e-stim products, ElectraStim has ventured into unchartered territory to develop a greater variety.
“The Jack Socket was and still is the first and only electro-stroker for men on the market, and we’ve recently brought out a second sleeve to accommodate guys who are more well-endowed than average,” she said. “We also improved upon the classic rubber loop design of cock ring by launching, last spring, Prestige ElectraLoops, which have a thicker and more conductive rubber as well as an anodized aluminium adjustment choke — (and) is our first foray into using color on our toys.”
Blakeborough pinpoints the start of e-stim products’ rapid evolution around the same time that the “Fifty Shades” craze began.
“Electro-sex as a category has changed rapidly over the last five or six years,” she said. “Whereas it used to be very focused towards the BDSM community, we’ve definitely noticed a shift towards more ‘mainstream’ users and beginners trying electro out. As a result, we’ve developed more products to cater for these audiences, including our Silicone Noir range of 100 percent silicone electrodes, which include the Lula Electro Kegel Balls.
“The ElectraStim Flick and Flick Duo stimulators are the perfect introductory stimulators for people looking to experiment with electro-sex,” she said. “They’re small, simple to use and are USB-rechargeable; so, (they) are more akin to a high-end gadget, which we’ve found really helps to encourage people to give it a try. Our silicone accessories are also a great way to bridge the gap between ‘regular’ sex toys and electro, as it’s a material and finish that a lot of people are already used to.”
Genital Genius
Inflicting a little pleasurable pain to one’s privates also is an often-unexplored area of sexual play for the mainstream. Urethral sounding is another fetish that tests the boundaries of fans of edgier sex play.
“Sounding remains a popular trend; we just added a Cadence Extreme Vibrating Urethral Sound, with its 14 inches of insertable vibrating stimulation, to the Master Series,” XR Brands General Manager Rebecca Weinberg said. “The response has been amazing. For the ladies, labia spreading continues to be hot; our new Master Series Labia Spreader Straps with Clamps takes it to the next level. And if chastity is your thing, we are always coming up with new creative ways to thrill our bondage clientele. Whether your yum is spikes, plugs or e-stim, our range continues to grow with the popularity of the fetish.”
According to Weinberg, XR Brands prides itself on being a resource for retailers looking to offer the latest fetish items.
“We’ve now become known in most markets in the world as the go-to manufacturer for fetish play items,” she said. “When a customer asks for something different, store managers from Adelaide to Atlanta to Amsterdam now know to reach out to us to find out if we — or even someone else — makes it.”
BDSM goodies have become the market’s wonderfully nasty retail darlings because society has finally stopped — at least for the most part — slut-shaming us about loving latex and leather.“The big thing here is that customers actually feel comfortable walking into our physical stores and asking for these products without feeling the need to whisper it, or only search for it online,” says Evelina Odile, a sales associate and pleasure product expert at M Shop. “It feels as though the normalization of different fetishes have become much more open and welcoming. Customers are more daring to try something new that, a couple of years ago, would be looked at as hard-core-fetishes.”
With the influx of bondage play newbies, a multitude of low-quality, cheap versions of popular gear has made their way to the marketplace.
“Popular entry-level products, especially in the low-price segment, rarely withstand repeated use, are often made of imitation leather and equipped with buckles of low quality,” Kostic said.
Sportsheets Marketing Director John Turi echoed the sentiment, noting that the veteran brand places its focus on quality.
“If you’re not making quality products, then you’re just another random Amazon seller pushing a toy that everyone else is selling,” Turi said. “Who knows what that toy is made of, and what it may do to your body? You may get a few sales, but once the consumer reacts to the poor quality, then they are going to look for a brand they can trust.”
As the marketplace has evolved to cater to fetish fans with all levels of expertise, more specialty product designers are expanding their focus to also include beginner products that offer a taste of the finer quality that they also offer.
“Stockroom wants beginners to see the enjoyment and fun in BDSM and bondage; that’s why we created KinkLab, which provides newer kinksters intro-friendly products like genuine leather cuffs, collars, gags, hog ties, rope, etc. without sacrificing comfort or quality,” Tucker said. “They are affordable items, but designed to last.
“Sportsheets is another good brand which we’ve always carried and supported even though there is some crossover — i.e., competition — between some of their offerings and ours,” he said. “But they have always done a good job with making entry-level bondage more accessible and affordable. Their quality is good for the price, and they have brought more and more innovative and higher-quality offerings to the market over the years. The larger Stockroom catalog is much more vast and includes some much higher-end gear for advanced players and collectors, but always with the commitment to quality and good value received for whatever investment is made.”
Good Vibes’ Carol Queen also credits Sportsheets and Stockroom as frontrunners in the beginners’ bondage category.
“Sportsheets has gone all-in on bondage and light-impact gear, and they’re a good option for both newbies who are just exploring and for those on a budget,” Queen said. “Stockroom has affordable options too. I’d call them a lifestyle brand; so, it’s by no means only beginner or basic-level things they produce.”
For 25 years, Sportsheets has specialized in manufacturing bondage gear from its Huntington Beach, Calif. facilities.
“Soft bondage is ever evolving with people’s imaginations,” Turi said. “If you can think it up, it can be made into a sex toy. These days, Sportsheets is focused even more on original designs and using the best materials for our products. It’s not about saving 10 cents; it’s about maintaining a 25-year-old company’s respected reputation in the industry by pushing the envelope.”
According to the German sex toy experts at Orion, soft bondage and lighter fetish playthings are still top sellers for the veteran distributor.
“Shades of Grey has always had a large influence on the fetish market, and just like in previous years, the latest movie has also led to more sales and is still influencing the soft fetish niche,” says Bjorn Radcke, a wholesale sales executive at Orion.
“We are getting higher demands on almost all soft fetish items, like soft bondage items, ball gags, and floggers,” he says. “Our vinyl sheets in different sizes and colours also sell very well too. Furthermore, various sets or bundles tend to be bought by bondage beginners.”
Old stand-bys reign strong when gentle is the name of the game. Sweden’s favorite pleasure boutique, M Shop, is a one-stop-shop for everything from fancy vibes to fluffy kink gear that takes the ouch out of impact play.
“Overall, ‘regular’ fetish products like nipple clamps, hand cuffs and smaller whips have increased in demand, as well as kits containing a mix of products,” Odile said, “so the customer can try an array of things before they decide what types of products that suits their preferences.”
Fashionably Fetish
Fetish has also permeated into the fashion world as a timeless go-to style to express dominance and sex appeal. From fashion photo spreads and the runway, to mainstream movies and pop star music videos, leather and latex fashion sometimes has nothing to do with actual kink.
“From the most prestigious designer brands to music icons, everyone has fallen for BDSM trends in fashion,” said Lisa Sananes, Bijoux Indiscrets’ head of sales. “With BDSM-inspired lingerie, harnesses and garters appearing underneath or on top of our clothes, the trend is to show what is usually only shown in intimacy. This in-and-out trend is what triggered us to come up with a special BDSM-inspired line of lingerie accessories two years ago: the Maze vegan bondage line, which you could wear outside, with your day-to-day outfit as well as in the bedroom.”
The Maze collection features styles that are stylish and also transform into useful bondage play accessories.
“My personal favorite product is our Maze Wide Belt, which looks like a beautiful belt during the day and can be converted into restraints at night,” Sananes said. “Really amazing!”
In addition to functioning as actual pleasure products, Bijoux Indiscrets’ bondage play accessories also enhance intimacy by bolstering the confidence of the wearer.
“It acts in two ways,” Sananes said. “Women always want to feel beautiful, since this acts as a self-esteem booster — which then reflects on their capacity to let go. Wearing a BDSM outfit that not only serves this purpose, but also, sublimates your body, is therefore the perfect option.”
