The sexual wellness market is a hot commodity in 2024.
The global sexual wellness market is estimated to reach $115.1 billion by 2030, with celebrities and brand founders from Emily Oberg to Christina Aguilera joining the fray in recent years.
But launching products like vibrators or libido supplements means more than just cashing in on a growing category. It also means wading into an industry that directly intersects with divisive issues like bodily autonomy and sexual freedom at a time of tense political transition in the U.S.
“In a lot of ways, for our company and companies like ours, just existing is a political statement in itself,” said Anna Lee, co-founder and CEO of the smart vibrator brand Lioness. “It’s always kind of been an uphill battle.”
In the wake of Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign in November, consumers have criticized brands or called for boycotts of companies for allegedly supporting Trump or other political candidates, even while some claims have proven inaccurate. Beauty and wellness brands, in particular, have walked a tight line between making a response to the election without endorsing a political candidate or viewpoint. That puts a potential spotlight on sexual wellness brands, whose branding often speaks to progressive issues like sexual freedom and women’s empowerment.
Maude co-founder and CEO Éva Goicochea said the brand seeks to normalize and destigmatize sexual products like vibrators. In 2023, Maude became the first sexual wellness brand to be stocked at Sephora, and, as of November, the brand’s condoms and lubricants are available at the luxury health food store Erewhon.
And the most effective way to do that, Goicochea says, is to take an apolitical stance.
“It’s agendered, it’s inclusive of age, it’s matter of fact, it’s apolitical,” said Goicochea of Maude’s strategy. “Ultimately, once you can start to create this understanding that this is very human, and we talk about it the way we want to see it talked about in the world, you start to make inroads into people’s psyche and their psychological expectation of the [sexual wellness] category. It becomes more palatable, understandable and digestible.”
While a second Trump administration’s policies are yet to be seen, organizations related to sexual and reproductive freedom have already voiced concern over his presidency’s impact on issues like birth control access. Pro-choice organization Reproductive Freedom For All, formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued a press release on November 14 condemning President Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services. In the wake of Trump’s reelection, sexual and reproductive health research group The Guttmacher Institute published a list of ways his administration may limit sexual and reproductive freedom.
“Trump ran on a promise not to ban abortion nationwide, but his cabinet nominees are Project 2025 come to life. RFK Jr. is an unfit, unqualified extremist who cannot be trusted to protect the health, safety and reproductive freedom of American families. Anyone who enables these appointments is complicit in the realization of Project 2025 and the further destruction of our rights and freedoms,” Reproductive Freedom for All president and CEO Mini Timmaraju said in a statement.
Potential threats to reproductive freedom may lead to more consumer interest in sexual wellness brands and products, Lee believes.
“Historically, when reproductive rights come under threat, we’ve seen a heightened interest in education, self-advocacy, figuring out access to products that empower women to take control of their sexual health, all these different things,” said Lee.
But, she added, for brands like Lioness, sharing both marketing and educational materials related to sex online has always been a challenge due to social media platforms’ restrictions around content related to sex.
“We’ve always seen [sexual education] be stigmatized and neglected,” she said. “It’s always been a problem, whatever administration we’ve been under. And it will continue to be stigmatized and neglected. … The incoming administration is truly just saying the quiet part out loud.”
Goicochea agreed that posting on social media platforms like Meta has been a longstanding challenge for brands like Maude. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, told reporters in December that the platform’s content moderation has been overly restrictive.
Sexual education is a part of Maude’s platform on both its own website and its social channels. But though the incoming administration may lead to more restrictive policies around birth control and reproduction, Goicochea said Maude is careful to keep its sex education posting to topics like intimacy and pleasure, rather than reproductive care.
“We delineate between procreation and reproductive rights, versus sex ed, intimacy and sort of psychological health. And as somebody that doesn’t have children and doesn’t want children, I’m hyper-aware of that delineation,” she said. “This starts to go into areas of the conversation that we’re just not equipped to, nor should we, be talking about. Because that’s not why we exist. It’s within the same world, but we exist over here.”
Cultural norms around sex and sexuality may evolve in a second Trump administration, as well. Leading up to and following the November election, U.S. social media users have taken to platforms like X and TikTok to endorse South Korea’s 4B movement. The movement emerged in 2016 in response to gender-based violence and discrimination in South Korea and posits that women abstain from marriage, childbirth, romance and sexual relationships.
“There are some statistics and research coming out that the younger generations like Gen Z are having less sex,” said Lee. “I don’t think it is necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it’s showing there’s going to be a big shift in how we see sex and pleasure, and especially what it means to be a woman in society.”
Goicochea believes that even with a more conservative administration coming to power, sexual wellness products will continue to be normalized, and in demand.
“Trump and the administration can think whatever they want, but the numbers do the talking,” she said. “When you look at the success of this category on Amazon and in other bigger retailers, … people are consuming these things, and it is crossing a lot of political lines.”
