Battle of the Sex’s Pleasure: The Reverse Gendered Double Standard in Sex Toy Production

• In Event: 249 - Regular Session. Sociology of Sexuality

Abstract

Norms of intimacy and sexuality have changed significantly in the last century, transforming the traditional gender double standard (Armstrong et al. 2012). However, a new double standard has emerged, where rather than deferring sexual activity till marriage, women are subject to reputational consequences for engaging in casual sex rather than sexuality in relationships (Bogle 2008; Reid, Elliott, and Webber 2011). Significantly understudied is how these gendered standards of sexuality are reproduced in the production of sex commodities such as vibrators and cock rings. We might expect that men’s sexuality would be better supported by sexual commodities since they are less likely to suffer from sanctions, and thus would be freer to consume sexual commodities. But this does not appear to be the case. Using ethnography at two sex toy companies and drawing on 70 interviews with sex toy makers, I show that the industry privileges women’s pleasure. Sex toy makers put female sexuality center stage, considering women’s interests in the design process, featuring products for women more prominently as expos and more often reviling products for men. In contrast, products made for men are not only less common and less diverse; even makers working on products in the same industry, who in theory share the same symbolically contaminated professional category, more often revile them. In an inversion of the privileges of broader sexual (new double) standards, men’s sexual pleasure is riskier. Taken together, this amounts to what I call a reverse double standard.

Author

• Shelly Ronen, New York University