Poundland’s Nooky range of sex toys proves that kinky fun in the bedroom is no longer a taboo
WITH its green and yellow plastic sign, on the surface there’s nothing sexy about Poundland.
But while the high street store is usually the place you visit for a cut-price can of beans and cheap light bulbs, it is now also the place for those looking to spice up their sex lives.
Poundland has launched its own range of sex toys, enabling customers to fill their baskets with kinky products for the same price as a small bar of Galaxy.
The saucy collection comes a year after the chain stocked pink bullet vibrators that flew off the shelves.
Now the range, under the name Nooky, will include a finger fun stimulator, vibrating love ring, joy ring, sexual vitality supplements and lubricant.
At £1 each, the range is bound to attract excited shoppers in their droves.
But not every- one is too pleased about it.
Some shocked customers have taken to Twitter to blast the store.
One wrote: “Who the hell buys a sex toy from Poundland . . . you’re asking for trouble!!”
But with three million people now owning a sex toy, is it a shock that cut-price retailers are getting in on the action? Since the Noughties, or should that be naughties, a vibrating rabbit has been a must-have accessory.
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They were stocked everywhere, from Ann Summers to seedy backstreet sex shops, and they were not cheap.
An average vibrator would set you back £30 and the stress from just entering a sex shop was enough to send some into a cardiac arrest.
Now you could pick up 30 for the same price.
We have seen a lot of changes since the days when 68 per cent of women said they were too embarrassed to go into shops such as Ann Summers.
There is no longer the need to sneak into sex shops — those wanting to spice things up can do so while grabbing their shampoo and some Mari-golds.
But while you may think this latest stocking decision from Poundland is merely a sign of modern life, you would be wide of the mark. Fake phalluses made from stone, wood, leather and even camel dung have all been found during archaeological excavations and the oldest known example of a sex toy dates back 28,000 years.
A siltstone phallus measuring 7.8in was found in Germany in 2015.
During the Victorian era, “female hysteria” — or sexual frustration — was recognised as an illness.
The traditional treatment involved a doctor rubbing the patient’s private parts until the poor woman reached orgasm.
When doctors started to complain of wrist ache, an inventor created the first steam-powered vibrator.
It failed to catch on but when electricity became mainstream, so did modern designs.
Soon, women’s magazines were running monthly reviews of the at-home “sex machine” — but the happy housewives had to keep up the pretence it was purely for medical reasons and not sexual pleasure which was, of course, frowned upon in those days.
The Rampant Rabbit was invented in the Nineties and the revolutionary design was instantly a hit with Ann Summers, with the chain selling more than a million in just 12 months.
Now the company has sold nearly 40million of the devices.
And the market is bursting with weird and wonderful designs.
Online sex toy retailer Lovehoney even allows you to make a silicone vibrator exactly the same as your man’s member — seen as perfect for those in long-distance relationships.
Advances in science and technology have also made sex toys into tech toys.
The We-Vibe vibrator is typical of what we can expect from next-gen toys and can be controlled using an app on your smartphone.
Paul Jacques, of Lovehoney, said: “We design over 300 products a year drawing them, 3D-printing them and testing them before they are purchased.
“Sex toys are designed based on what we think consumers will want.
“They tell us what they like, what they don’t and write very honest reviews on the website.”
Thanks to the store’s website, Poundland shoppers don’t even have to pretend the sex toys are “for a friend” at the till.
They can be ordered at the press of a button and delivered discreetly, or can be slid through the self-service machine along with everyday items, saving buyer’s faces from flushing 50 shades of red.
Now, where’s the nearest Poundland . . . ?
I get good vibrations
SEX toy firm Lovehoney welcomed me into its headquarters in Bath to design my own gadget, writes CHRISTINA EARLE.
After drawing a massage wand and choosing it in my favourite romantic red, the design was fed into a 3D printer, which took seven hours and 11 minutes to make it.
Group quality and technical manager Paul Jacques – whose previous job was REMOVING the vibration from power tools – said:
“These 3D printed prototypes allow us to work out how to fit them with all the bits that make them vibrate.”
Once fitted with its electrics, the prototype is sent to China, where it is produced, sent back and put to a panel of sex-toy testers.
Product director Bonny Hall said: “We have to consider things like how intensely it vibrates, whether it hits the G-spot and which angle the head rotates at, or even if it rotates at all. The colour is important, too.”
Lovehoney produces around 450 sex toy prototypes a year, as well as 2,200 litres of lubricant and enough vibrators to build a three-mile-high tower every month.
Its priciest is the £12,000, 24-carat gold Coco de Mer device, left.
