The triple shockwaves of the tariff war on the sex toy consumer market
Huge price increases
If the tariffs do not change. “Companies will have to significantly increase the price of sex toys, which may eventually be 300%,” said Halle Lieberman.
American sex toy brands are dealing with this potential reality in different ways.
Unbound and Dame published articles about tariffs, promising to be transparent with customers. When the tariff was set at 20%, Dame imposed a $5 “Trump tariff surcharge.” Fine told the media that this was far from enough to offset the company’s increased costs.
Last week, Dame updated its charges: “We have updated the price to reflect a tariff of about 50%. Because we don’t think the tariff will remain at 145%.” Dame’s “Trump tariff surcharge” is currently $15, and Dame and Fine shared more information about the company’s calculations on social media, Instagram.
Vibratex sells its products wholesale to retailers and, effective immediately, is charging a 10% Trump tariff offset, a fee that Herskovits said doesn’t fully offset the increased costs either. As of the date of this article’s publication, the tariff offset will be 20% in May, 30% in June, and 40% in July. Vibratex aims to cap the fees it charges its customers (retailers) at 40%.
Vibratex is also limiting order sizes so that sex toy retailers don’t stock up on all the inventory before prices go up.
Meanwhile, Crave stocked up on extra inventory before Trump announced the tariffs, given his history of imposing tariffs on China. In an email to customers, Crave said it won’t raise prices for now, but urged customers to buy if they see something.
“With the extreme tariffs and the high likelihood that they will be maintained, it’s unclear how long current prices will last,” Kreve said in an email.
It’s hard to say how much product prices will rise if manufacturing eventually moves to the U.S., Topolovac said, but he estimated prices could rise by 300% or 400%.
- Adult Product Quality Crisis
“When the genuine adult sex toy product price increases by 30%, the knockoff market will usher in a carnival,” Lieberman warned. Amazon’s platform has seen a $19.99 “tariff-only” vibrator, whose silicone ingredients have not been tested.
- Shrinking sex toy promotion channels
The Meta platform (Facebook) bans advertising for female sex toys, but tacitly allows the promotion of male private products. Statistics from the American sex toy brand Unbound show that its advertising approval rate on the mainstream American social media platform Instagram has plummeted from 78% in 2021 to 12% in 2024.
The US sex toy industry in a policy siege
The tariff crisis coincides with a resurgence of sexual conservatism in the US:
- FOSTA/SESTA Act: Two bills signed by Trump in 2018, the Federal Sexual Offenders Act (FOSTA) and the Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault Act (SESTA), are ostensibly intended to curb online sex trade, but in reality, they have driven sex toy-related practitioners (and sex education experts) off social platforms and the internet. This has made it more difficult for people to find authoritative and reliable information about the sexual health industry online.
- Age Verification Laws (2023): About a third of US jurisdictions have laws requiring visitors to websites that feature adult sex content to provide identification information (in the form of a government ID or facial recognition). Although free speech advocates and researchers say age verification does not prevent minors from accessing websites, they are still insisting on doing so.
Age verification is coming to sex toys purchased online. Last month, Texas introduced a bill that would require official proof of age when purchasing sex toys online.
“We are experiencing systemic strangulation,” said Mandy Salley, COO of the nonprofit Woodhull Freedom Foundation. “From the production end to the consumption end, the autonomy of adults’ sexual interests is being compressed layer by layer.”