How to Sell Sex to Gen-Z
Sexual wellness brands have a Gen-Z problem.
When a wave of sexual wellness startups emerged in the late 2010s, their mission was clear: disrupt legacy players like Trojan and Durex with sleek design, inclusive messaging and a bold, feminist rebrand of pleasure. These brands leaned heavily into Millennial pink palettes and 'Instagrammable' aesthetics — with products positioned as much about shelf appeal as sexual empowerment — but the playbook they helped write is falling flat with younger consumers.
Pandemic-era sexual wellness brands' 'feminist girlboss energy' yielded toys that 'look like MoMa pieces,' said Step Tranovich, the founder and chief executive of the Gen-Z focused label Cute Little Fuckers. 'They're nicely designed, but they lack, to some degree, personality and personability.'
For Gen-Z, a cohort fluent in queerness and meme culture that maintains a scepticism of corporate polish, the visual language and values of Millennial-targeted brands can feel overly curated to the point of detachment.
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This disconnect is further compounded by Gen-Z's evolving relationship with sex and intimacy. According to a 2024 survey by dating app Feeld and the Kinsey Institute, 37 percent of Gen-Z respondents reported having no sex in the previous month — nearly double the rates reported by Millennials (19 percent) and Gen Xers (17 percent).
Their ambivalence toward intimacy is also playing out in pop culture. In a 2024 survey, over 60 percent said film and TV sex scenes aren't necessary to advance a plot. For a generation rethinking intimacy, even on-screen sex often feels outdated and out of step with their reality.
Elizabeth Tan, senior culture strategist at WGSN, ascribes this shift to a Gen-Z 'confidence crisis' that emerged during the pandemic. 'They lost all social confidence in lockdown and now find it difficult to pursue friendships or even make romantic connections,' Tan said.
But where Millennial shoppers gravitated toward clean branding and taboo-breaking empowerment, brands hoping to reach Gen-Z are succeeding with educational messaging, in-person and online community events — not only to market their products, but to reawaken young adult desire.
'Brands becoming a bit more cheeky and tapping into humour with their messaging can be a great tool to communicate with this generation,' said Tan. 'You have to make them more curious about sex.'
The New Sex-Ed
The latest buzzword in sexual wellness isn't innovation — it's education.
Among high school-aged Gen-Zers in the United States, 57 percent reported having had no sexual contact in their lives, according to a 2021 Centers for Disease Control study. This cohort is also overwhelmingly single compared to previous generations: nearly half report being unpartnered. These statistics have led some researchers to label Gen-Z as the 'loneliest generation,' with 80 percent reporting feelings of loneliness in the past year.
There's an opportunity for brands to step in and help this generation navigate dating, sex and relationships, Tan added.
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Smile Makers, which launched in 2012 as one of the first sex toy brands to centre female pleasure in its messaging, is now investing heavily in transforming its platform from a transactional storefront into a space for exploration and learning, said Samantha Marshall, Smile Makers' global head of brand and marketing.
The brand's e-commerce site now includes a free educational series titled Vulva Talks along with an anonymous Q&A function that connects users with sex and relationship therapists as well as physicians. They've also updated their packaging and user manuals, which now include accurate anatomical language, data on female orgasms and guidance on how to get the most out of each product.
'I think that for Millennials and above, we had this experience going to a shop, buying a sex toy, and the only thing that it told us to do was how to turn it on and off,' Marshall added.
Some sexual wellness brands are also rethinking the 'by women, for women' messaging that defined the category in the 2010 and early 2020s. While that positioning resonated with Millennial consumers, it's proving too narrow for Gen-Z, who tend to reject binary identities and gravitate toward more fluid approaches to pleasure.
Alexandra Fine, founder of budding sexual wellness conglomerate Dame, said that although gendered messaging once delivered strong results, it ultimately felt overly simplified. Today's younger consumers, she noted, are more comfortable navigating the complexities of sexuality and gender, particularly around the topic of consent. (Dame's largest customer base falls between the ages of 25 and 35 — older Gen-Z and younger Millennials.)
Where Millennials often embraced a straightforward, binary consent model shaped by the #MeToo movement (where no means no, yes means yes), Gen-Z is more likely to question its limitations. Fine pointed to growing interest in topics that once lived on the fringes — like kink and consensual non-consent — as evidence that Gen-Z is open to exploring sexual dynamics that aren't always easily defined.
'That was such a risky thing to talk about 10 years ago,' said Fine. 'With Gen-Z, I feel like there's so much more nuance, and people are ready for the conversation.'
Changing the Conversation
To connect with Gen-Z, sexual wellness brands are learning to walk a careful line — creating a sex-positive community that feels inclusive and empowering without becoming a full-on consumer goods orgy.
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Cute Little Fuckers, a queer and disability-inclusive label, is taking a grassroots approach by offering a programme that allows low-income users to apply for discounted or free product, with costs subsidised through consumer donations.
'It does mean that sometimes we move products that are less than our target ROI, but I think that's okay,' said Tranovich. 'Building genuine community support will work out for us in the long term.'
For Dame, that means investing in offline experiences that foster real-world conversations around pleasure. Earlier this year, the label launched a campaign in partnership with Planned Parenthood aimed at protecting access to sexual wellness products and reducing stigma as a response to the state's efforts to ban sex toys from grocery stores.
While much has been made of Gen-Z's declining rates of partnered sex, Fine cautions against interpreting this trend as a moral panic.
'They are having sex — they're masturbating, they're engaging in online experiences,' she said. 'We're just not acknowledging those as valid forms of sexual expression.'
Brands are increasingly turning to non-visual mediums, like the podcast and audio erotica space, which has seen rapid growth in recent years, led by startups like Dipsea and Quinn. In 2023, Smile Makers launched an audio erotica series dubbed Audioboobs which aimed to encourage woman-identifying listeners to perform breast self-checks during self-pleasure. These platforms also represent one of the few digital spaces where sexual wellness brands can reliably run ads.
Audio is a powerful medium for a cohort grappling with 'warped self-image perceptions' shaped by social media and pornography, said Tan of WGSN. Unlike visual content, audio allows listeners to imagine themselves within the story without feeling pressure to look a certain way.
'With Gen-Z, it's not so much about sexuality more than it is about sensuality,' Tan added. 'At the end of the day, gaining confidence is about evoking desire and being authentic. That's what matters most to this generation.'
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