32 The Times Magazinehile tax, fuel prices and the
cost of living all spiral to
wallet-busting, bum-clenching
new heights, the only thing
seemingly going down – in all
senses of the phrase – is our
nation’s collective libido. The
annual hosepipe bans of the
Nineties may now be a dim,
dusty memory thanks to
soggy climate-change summers, but there is,
apparently, a full-scale sex drought going on
in bone-dry bedrooms across the land.
A fortnight ago, Charles Kingsland, chief
medical officer at the clinic group Care Fertility,
claimed that couples are having so little sex
that they are turning to IVF not because of
infertility, but because they don’t have time to
procreate in person. “People are having half
as much sex as they did 30 years ago,” he
said. “People don’t make the time because
they are too busy and too tired – they have
a poor work-life balance and sex starts to
seem like another chore. There is no doubt that
some people are opting for IVF simply because
sex isn’t something they have time to do.”
Meanwhile, at the end of last year,
more women aged 18 to 35 than ever before
reported not having had sex at all in the
previous 12 months, according to the US-based
Institute for Family Studies, with 21 per cent
of men and women under 35 reporting a year-
long dry spell in 2021, compared with 8 per
cent in 2008. The pandemic undoubtedly
exacerbated the issue, bringing – depending
upon your circumstances – either inadvertent
iso-celibacy or a suffocating, sex-strangling
fire blanket of 24/7 coupledom, plus stress and
anxiety for all, heavy drinking for most, and
a huge spike in antidepressant prescriptions
that, while good for mental health issues, are
generally not so great for the horn.
Little wonder, really, that in one month
during the pandemic, searches for the term
“sexual wellness” went up 850 per cent on the
health and beauty site Cult Beauty – a term
that had barely been heard of five years ago,
and is an industry now expected to be worth
£37 billion globally by 2026.
If you’re still not entirely clear on what
“sexual wellness” actually is, you’re likely not
alone. The World Health Organisation defines
it as, “A state of physical, emotional, mental,
and social wellbeing in relation to sexuality
and not merely the absence of disease,
dysfunction or infirmity,” which, to be honest,
doesn’t really clear it up all that much.
It might be simpler to think not in terms
of what sexual wellness is, but what it can sell.
Whereas five years ago Gwyneth Paltrow was
mocked for flogging jade eggs to “increase
sexual energy”, mugwort vaginal steam
treatments “to balance female hormone levels”
and a £57 candle called “This Smells Like MyVagina” on her wellness site Goop, she now
looks more like a canny trailblazer as celebrities
scramble onto the sexual wellness bandwagon.
Lily Allen has designed her own Womanizer
vibrator, Cara Delevingne is a co-owner and
creative adviser of sex-tech start-up Lora
DiCarlo, and Dakota Johnson is an investor
and the co-creative director at the Brooklyn-
based sexual wellness brand Maude.
Once niche, naff and not really something
you’d talk about in public, sexual wellness is
now officially mass market. Previously the
preserve of tittering Ann Summers parties, sex
toys are now sold everywhere from Selfridges
to Boots and Ocado (“Pop a vibrating bullet in
with the Domestos for me, darling”). Research
by sex toy company Smile Makers even
claims that more women in the UK now own
a vibrator than a dishwasher, and I believe it...
Though I may be singlehandedly skewing the
figures, since I’ve never had a dishwasher but
own six vibrators. Some were gifts, OK?
There are ever more creative dimensions
to the skyrocketing sexual wellness trade too,
like sustainability; this spring, Danish brand
Ohhcean launched the world’s first range of
vibrators made from recycled ocean plastics,while sustainable, biodegradable, gardening-
themed condoms have been launched in the
UK to encourage the over-65s, among whom
STI rates are rising, to practise safe sex.
For those who need to escape the daily
grind to find their friskiness, there are sexual
wellness retreats, like those offered at the
super-luxe St Regis Punta Mita Resort on
Mexico’s Pacific coast, promising “bodily
wellness” and better orgasms, while the W in
Brisbane has appointed “a sexologist concierge”.
Now, however, the sexual wellness industry
is no longer just about the external, the toys
and the travel. The latest trend is for sexual
wellness supplements designed to fan the
flames of arousal from the inside out.
Launched last month in the United States
by Maude, the hip brand that also sells sex
toys, lubricants and massage candles, in
collaboration with a Californian supplement
start-up called Asystem, Libido, according to
its promo materials, “is formulated to enhance
sexual arousal and stimulation (female) or
function (male) through natural ingredients
that increase blood flow, naturally boost
testosterone and alleviate stress”.
Sold in sleek, discreet, monthly-supplyboxes that resemble fancy cigarette cases and
cost $45 (Libido is currently only available in
the US), the supplements are not a wham-bam,
Viagra-style instant chemical turn-on. Popping
a little square, gummy-style, passion fruit-
flavoured Libido will not (sadly) take one from
flagging to gagging in seconds. “You’ll see the
effects over time – we recommend taking it
for the full 30 days to feel the effects,” says Éva
Goicochea, CEO of Maude. The gummies are,
naturally, also vegan, gluten and gelatin-free.
For women, the formula contains fenugreek,
French maritime pine bark and ocean
minerals (sea moss, bladderwrack), L-arginine,
L-theanine, boron and caffeine “to increase
blood flow to the vaginal area, making it easier
for women to become physically aroused and
experience orgasm”, while for men, a slightly
different formulation is designed to “target
common physiological roadblocks to desire
by increasing blood flow, naturally boosting
testosterone and alleviating stress”.
Can you really boost testosterone “naturally”,
I ask Henry Simonds, the British-born,
Marlborough-educated general manager at
Asystem, when he zooms in from Los Angeles,
where he lives with his wife, the author Coco
Mellors. “We look at the science, the peer-
reviewed papers on testosterone,” he assures
me. “We’ve got 6mg boron – that’s got studies
to show it increases free testosterone [a small
but important component of the total
testosterone in a man’s body, responsible for
key cellular functions] by 50 per cent. And we
put 20mg zinc in, which in peer-reviewed
studies is the exact dosage that’s going
to increase testosterone.” There’s also an
ingredient called Tribulus terrestris, which, from
my expert googling, looks to be a small, sweet-
looking yellow plant beloved of body builders
who want to bulk up without the ’roids, and
Simonds’ “favourite” ingredient: “Pine pollen,
which is nature’s natural testosterone.”
Both the male and female supplements also
contain a clinical ingredient called S7, he tells
me, a blend of seven plant-based ingredients
that has been clinically shown to increase
nitric oxide by 230 per cent, which acts as a
vasodilator, boosting blood flow to the crucial
frontline zones.W
THE GUMMIES ARE
NOT A WHAM-BAM,
VIAGRA-STYLE
INSTANT TURN-ON
Dakota Johnson, the co-creative
director of MaudeGwyneth Paltrow, whose Goop site
has pioneered sexual wellnessPAGE 30: BLAUBLUT. THIS SPREAD: GETTY IMAGES, TOM JACKSON