Sex Industry Weathers Financial Crises

Varmus Christopher

Forbes.com 12/29/08 14:00:05 GMT

The sex industry traces back to 500 B.C., when traders from the Greek port of Miletus sold olisbos, an early version of the dildo. Today, the business of sex (including pornography) now runs into the tens of billions of dollars. (No official estimates are available; Wall Street analysts don't tend to track this stuff.) And while print and video sales are ebbing, as more free adult content has become available online, sales of un-reproducible sexual aids are still healthy.

"Of course, there's concern about the economy, but right now our sales are growing," says Michael Trygstad, founder of Wet, a lubricant manufacturer in Van Nuys, Calif. "We've grown 30% this year alone. We've had to completely automate our factories to meet the tremendous demand. People are deciding to stay at home and engage in inexpensive entertainment.''

Slick marketing--and the ability to shop anonymously online--helps, too. Liberator markets itself as "relationship care," and advertises in mainstream magazines such as Men's Health, Rolling Stone and AARP The Magazine; the brand also has prominent placement on Walgreens.com. Meanwhile, K-Y (which sells its lubricants at Target and Rite-Aid) is playing the intimacy card with a line called Yours+Mine. And Babeland, a retail store in Brooklyn, N.Y., offers instructional sex seminars for new mothers, as well as an in-store diaper-changing station.

"The emphasis has gone from family planning to sexual well-being," says Friedman. "It used to be that you had to go in and give a wink to the pharmacist, who would open a drawer behind the counter, put the condoms in a brown paper bag and slide them over to you without a word. It took AIDS to really bring condoms out into the open with a sense of urgency. And now the fun is coming back."

Subtly packaged fun, that is. "We're seeing a shift to women's products and a change in packaging," says Erica Heathmann, managing editor of AVN Novelty Business. "Gone are the porn stars of old. Today's products have a more classic, clean aesthetic."

When it comes to marketing sexual aids, one person's vibrator is another's "personal massager." Says Adam and Eve's Zvolerin: "The same massager we sell in our catalog is available at CVS. It has a different label, which says it's to relieve sore muscles, aches and pains, but that's my massager!"

And just as farmers and grocers are able to charge more for organic apples, so, too, are sex-toy makers grabbing customers with health-conscious pitches, such as sexual aids that are "phalate-free." (Phalates, often used in plastics, have been tenuously linked to certain kinds of cancer.) (More of this story)