The shortage of sex dolls and online dating boom

© Ekaterina Nikolaeva

As we wrote earlier, the situation with coronavirus infection around the world has affected the adult goods industry.

Demand for sex products is still growing in many countries, for example, in Denmark after the announcement of the self-isolation sales of erotic goods doubled compared with the same period last year. Every day retailers send more than one and a half thousand orders to customers throughout Scandinavia. At the same time, according to sellers, on the contrary, in the first week of the quarantine sales fell sharply as people rushed to buy essential goods and only then people began to think about entertainment in this difficult period.

Just because of the boom in sales of sex products, analysts believe that a baby boom should not be expected: the availability of a variety of sex toys, as well as barrier contraceptives, will allow people to spend time in isolation with a partner or alone.

However, the lonely might not be very lucky during the quarantine: the coronavirus provoked a shortage of sex dolls in the United States and Great Britain. Due to the situation in China, where the main factories for the production of these goods are located, there was a significant slowdown in production, which in turn led to a disruption in the supply of sex dolls, where the demand has increased.

At the same time, not only sex doll factories were limited due to the coronavirus pandemic, but also condom factories. So, Karex Industries Sdn.Bhd (they produce goods for the Durex brand), whose facilities are located in Malaysia, were forced to stop all production for ten days. After the decision of the government, the factories were reopened, but only at half the strength. “We continue to pay full salaries to all our employees, but people now work only half the time, so the costs will generally increase,” the company said. At the same time, stocks in warehouses have only a two-months supply.

By the way, isolation in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic also led to a surge in activity on dating sites. According to statistics from Dating.com, 82% of single people are looking for relationships on the Internet, while almost 5% of those polled said they were not going to meet with anyone in real life until the virus disappeared. The Tinder is also seeing an increase in the volume of communication by 12% since the beginning of the isolation regime as compared to the same period last year.

According to sociologists and psychologists, this interest in sex products and online dating is present due to two factors: people have more time and are bored, so sex and communication help to fight this.