30 Years of Sex Trends
In case you haven’t heard, this year we’re celebrating Babeland’s 30th birthday! Since our shop doors opened in 1993, the world of sex and pleasure has seen trends and innovations galore. Here’s a few that left quite the mark on modern sex culture as we know it.
(By the way, if you want to learn more about our history - check out our blog post honoring three decades of Sex Toys for a Passionate World here .)
1990s
1993: Babeland is born. Toys in Babeland opens its doors in Seattle, Washington as a worker-owned co-op, with a mail-order and phone-order catalog offering a variety of toys and pleasure products, focusing on female pleasure.
1994-1995: The first Masturbation May is celebrated. In late 1994 Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the first Black woman to serve as Surgeon General, lost her position because she had made a simple and truthful statement about masturbation. Asked whether it should be part of sex education curricula, in light of the pressing need for safer sex information (and no kind of sex is safer than masturbation!), she said that it was something “that perhaps should be taught” about in the context of sexual health information, leading to her firing by then-president Bill Clinton. Our sibling company, Good Vibes , was deeply upset with this - and so in 1995, Good Vibes declared May as National Masturbation Month - reaching out and involving Babeland from the very beginning as well - to help bring light to the importance of self-love and masturbation-positivity for sexual health and comprehensive sex ed. Read more about the history of Masturbation May here.
1995: Fleshlight is created and released. There were certainly penis-focused toys back in the day, but the Fleshlight made an immediate splash because it was in a league of its own. The soft, supple material - molded into vulvas, anuses, mouths and simple non-anatomical designs - was a penis-pleaser from day one. Later porn stars proudly served as vulva models for the "Fleshlight Girls" line and earned royalties with every sale, inspiring performer-molded sleeves for years to come.
Mid-90s: Cybersex brings erotic play to our fingertips. As the internet became more widely available in homes, internet porn and chatrooms gained popularity fast. With chatrooms came “cybersex” - engaging in sexual roleplay via instant messaging - not a far cry from what we know as “sexting” today. Except, in the 1990s, unless you had a really refined knowledge of IP tracking, it could be completely anonymous if you wanted. There was no social media to connect to, nothing more than a username and the information that you provided, popularly A/S/L - aka your age / sex (gender) / location (area you live in) - which could be honest, but could also have adjustments made to it or be completely made up, whether for the purpose of the roleplay, for concealing identity, or any other reason (good or bad).
1996: First “camgirl” website launches. In 1996 a college student named Jenny Ringley created a site she called 'JenniCam' that was so innovative, she has since been considered the very first camgirl (that’s an online performer that streams sex or other erotic acts live / in real time). Every few minutes her webcam captured her picture, no matter what she was doing—clothed or naked, studying or having sex--creating a candid chronicle of her life as a dorm-dwelling young woman. Her images appeared live and unfiltered on the internet, drawing attention and making history. Eventually she created a paid version of her site as well as the original free one. In 1998, another paid website, AmandaCam, changed the model in a significant way: Amanda let viewers chat with her while she was online, offering requests for a premium. From there, the cam industry was born.
1998: Sex toys feature on primetime TV. Season 1 of Sex and The City introduces “The Rabbit” to mainstream audiences and features a scene of women in a sex toy shop [more info pending, watching this episode today] Later in 2001, season 5 of SATC features yet another still-popular vibrator, the Magic Wand Original - the same toy that prompted one of the most iconic lines from the show in an earlier season: Charlotte: "Samantha, your face is glowing. Did you get a facial or something?" Samantha: "I masturbated all afternoon.”
1998: Babeland goes East. Babeland (still operating under the name “Toys in Babeland” at the time) opens its first New York City location on Rivington St. in the Lower East Side, immediately becoming a beloved institution within the neighborhood’s communities of artists, queer folks, and forward-thinkers.
2000s
In post-Y2K America, casual sex saw a more visible presence in the mainstream - with TV shows like SATC and big-screen blockbusters like Almost Famous portraying no-romantic-strings-attached sexual encounters, especially with female characters at the helm.
2002: Secretary hits theaters. Based on a 1988 short story of the same name, Secretary is a film about a sadomasochistic relationship between the main characters - one that directly influenced and inspired the 50 Shades phenomena of the 2010s. The erotic-romantic-dark-drama-comedy quirked the eyebrow of viewers and inspired couples made hot and heavy by Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader’s lust-filled romance to give BDSM (especially bondage) a go. We still love it—but maybe don't do this at work?
2003: Cosmo’s infamous sex tip “number 30” is published. In the early aughts, Cosmopolitan released an article titled “99 Ways to Touch Him: These Fresh, Frisky Tips Will Thrill Every Inch of Your Guy,” in which the now-infamous “sex tip no. 30” was featured - instructing readers to put a glazed donut around their partner’s shaft and alternate nibbling at the donut while performing fellatio. The anonymous contributor slash donut-wearer was quoted as saying “the sugar beads from her mouth tingle on my tip.” Nobody thought to mention that this was likely a UTI in the making... BTW - if you are looking to add something sweet to your BJ game, try a flavored lube instead. The System JO Gelato line has some flavors sure to satisfy a sweet tooth without having to incorporate a trip to the coffee shop as part of your foreplay, or the discomfort of an infection the morning after.
2005: The term “sexting” is coined. Though the Daily Telegraph first published it in 2005, it didn’t gain heavy popularity until 2009, and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011. Once it hit social media, the phrase quickly replaced the term “cybersex” in referral to text-based romps of this kind for future generations. With the near-ubiquity of smartphones today, this act is sort of the technological version of the missionary position.
2007: Pornhub is launched. The site gave countless viewers easy access to free porn and represented the beginning of the “death” of video porn shops. The movement of porn to online access isn't a surprise (and only outrages anti-porn diehards), but the adult industry has bitterly complained about the ease of piracy with platforms like this, and it's made questionable content (like revenge porn) more accessible, too. But Pornhub and its competitors answered the musical question: The Internet IS for porn.
2007: Threesomes got their time in the spotlight. The Threesome Handbook: A Practical Guide to Sleeping With Three hit shelves and menage-a-trois romps conquered pop culture. TV shows like Entourage and Flight of the Conchords featured three-ways, while celebrity threesomes heated up the gossip rags across drugstore mag racks: A-listers like Brangelina hooked up with their Victoria’s Secret Angel third, and Scary Spice/Mel B and her sapphic three-way hit the headlines.
2008: Babeland sets up shop in Brooklyn. With the success of our Manhattan shops (and the demand of out-of-borough shoppers to bring the vibes their way), we opened a boutique-inspired storefront nestled between coffee shops and indie bookstores on Bergen St. in Park Slope, introducing the world of toys and sex positivity to the young families living on the brownstone-lined blocks surrounding.
2010s
Though certainly not a trend, sex positivity was the previously underground term that finally reared its head in the mainstream and took its deserved place in the cultural lexicon. From more shame-free visibility for sex toys and pleasure products to the vital unpacking of r*pe culture and the #MeToo movement, people became rightfully emboldened to take ownership of their sexual selves.
2010: Teledildonics sweep the sex toy industry. The 21st century is one of constant advancements in technology, and sex toys certainly haven’t been left behind. Smartphone App and Bluetooth compatible, VR connected, immersive linking to cam sites - vibrators, strokers, and other motorized toys have buzzed their way into the realm of hi-tech electronics. With innovators in the app-controlled toy field like We-Vibe, to brands like Lora DiCarlo (since retired) that literally integrated robotics into their designs, we’re stoked to see what the future holds for new and exciting ways to use our toys.
2011: Fifty Shades of Grey is published. This kinky romance flew off of the shelves of bookshops everywhere, and just like 2002’s Secretary - but on a much, much larger scale - inspired couples everywhere to give kink a try, and even managed to normalize reading erotica in public. While it allowed BDSM to get a well-deserved spotlight, let’s emphasize that the book is a work of fiction, and so the details around what should be a desired D/s dynamic should look like - safewords, communication, scene negotiation and boundary setting - leave much to be desired. The steamily-written portrayal of explicit spontaneity of Christian and Anastasia’s trysts did leave some vital info out (again, it’s smut - not a how-to guide). Thankfully, this also led to an uptick in resources by real sex educators and kinksters - customers devoured how-to books written by kink experts, and endlessly-requested free educational BDSM classes held at our storefronts would be packed out night after night. A sex toy line inspired by the books was even released - featuring products that still deservedly top our best-sellers.
2014: Air Pleasure toys hit the market. Womanizer created the first “air pleasure” device designed for clitoral stimulation, bringing about a toy trend that changed the game. (About that name, we know what you're thinking: but, the German creators likely didn't realize its English application towards people with unsavory dating tactics - or the Britney song, for that matter - when it was named and launched.) The suction sensation is actually produced by rhythmic pulses of air, and the toy's focus on clitoral stimulation means that millions of orgasms later, this incredible innovation has made its way into countless clitoris-havers' hall of fame - kicking off what is now one of the most popular genre of external toys in the industry. Here’s more all about air pleasure and suction toys.
2016: Only Fans launches. This user generated porn app hit the scene running and is still driving a huge uptick in amateur self-made porn. For some adult industry creators, OnlyFans fixes the problem PornHub unleashed with the kind of entrepreneurial verve made famous by JenniCam. Now porn stars—and exhibitionistic newbies—can start an account and monetize their own image and time. If Warhol was right about everyone's 15 minutes of fame, it's now a whole lot easier to make that a reality.
2017: Closing the orgasm gap. Though the “Orgasm Gap” (aka the “Pleasure Gap”) had been discussed (by feminists, anyhow) for decades, the term itself took off when it appeared in Dr. Laurie Mintz’s 2017 book Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It . Mintz’s book exposed the broader cultural problem with the aggressively large disparity between folks with penises and folks with vulvas when it came to orgasm and sexual satisfaction, and the limitations that mainstream media provided in almost exclusively portraying sex as defined by P-in-V intercourse - and inspiring conversation at both a clinical and casual level about “female orgasm” and discovering how to close that gap by exploring other avenues for pleasure (spoiler alert: learning all about the wonders of the clit).
2020s
2020: Sex goes remote for quarantine. Lockdown brought on by the pandemic forced couples - especially those quarantining apart from one another - to get creative in the ways that they got busy. App-controlled toys, though released in the 2010s (made first popular by still-best-selling brand WeVibe) had a spotlight shone on them as lovers looked for a way for physical connection while staying safely distanced from one another. From toys that could be controlled by a Bluetooth-compatible smartphone anywhere in the world to toys that actually mimic your partner’s moves as you play.
2021: Low contact sex starts trending. With the ongoing pandemic keeping pleasure-seekers still cautious even as the world began to “open back up” and strict quarantine restrictions are lifted, many folks still wanted to play safer and be more mindful of contact with others. Mutual masturbation became a popular way to play in-person while still keeping the recommended 6 feet apart, and even the CDC got in on the social distancing sex tips by recommending that people “use barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact”. Yes, you read that correctly, a US federal agency recommended glory holes - and we’re all for it.
2023: AI enters the chat. AI has been an oncoming reality for quite some time now, but the Uncanny Valley is getting closer and closer as we speak. The recent phenomenon of Chat GPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) uses artificial intelligence to process chat dialogue and generate a real-time response that provides not only info (whether right or wrong) scraped from the entirety of the public internet, but also integrates human speech patterns and emotion-driven response to make the conversation feel like there’s a flesh-and-blood person on the other end. Of course, this allows Chat GPT to be used for sexting / cybersex without the need for another consenting human, allowing them to curate their experience to their wants, desires, kinks, fetishes, and fantasies. With that being said, we do have some further feelings on AI - you can read Sexologist Carol Queen’s thoughts here.
2023: A new Babeland location is coming… We’re so excited to announce that another Brooklyn, NY Babeland shop is opening this Fall! Decked out with best-sellers and new goodies, and staffed by our team of trained Sex Educators, this new location is going to be a grand time (hint, hint). Grand opening date and address will be announced soon!
Here's to thirty more years of pleasure!
