What the science says about sex toy use

What the studies say overall

The published surveys agree on one thing: using sex toys is common, both alone and with a partner, and in some samples most respondents do so (Rosenberger et al., 2012; Espitia De La Hoz et al., 2025; Collar et al., 2022).

The percentages vary widely depending on who is asked: almost all the studies focus on adults in one country or on a specific group, such as gay and bisexual men, women over 60, female university students or women who have sex with women (Rosenberger et al., 2012; Hille et al., 2026; Stokłosa et al., 2026).

In Great Britain, in the months after the first covid lockdown, the less formal the relationship, the more masturbation and toy use were reported, and the less partnered sex (Mercer et al., 2022).

Among women, one pattern recurs: toys are used considerably more during masturbation than in partnered sex (Hille et al., 2026; Stokłosa et al., 2026). In the German sample, however, use with a partner and use alone were almost level (Döring et al., 2020).

There are also differences by age and sexual orientation: in a Canadian study, women, younger adults and gay or bi/pansexual people were more likely to report using them (Williams et al., 2025).

Two recent studies of women give high figures: in Colombia, more than seven in ten women in stable relationships used sex toys, and in a survey of eight hundred women, almost eight in ten did; of these, almost a third shared them with their partner (Espitia De La Hoz et al., 2025; Collar et al., 2022).

Where they disagree

The figures differ from one study to the next because they ask different questions ("ever in a lifetime", "in the past year", "almost always") and different populations. That is why it makes no sense to average them or to say how many people use them "in general".

Limits of the evidence

These are one-off surveys: they capture what people say about an intimate subject and cannot tell us what causes what.

Online samples tend to attract people who are more open to the subject, and several studies focus on a single country or group, so they cannot be generalised to everyone (Rosenberger et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2012; Hille et al., 2026).

One compares the sexual function of people who use them and people who do not, but none of them can show whether using toys is good or bad for health (Espitia De La Hoz et al., 2025).

The studies, one by one

We have gathered 9 verified studies. Each summary is our own; the quotation in inverted commas is taken word for word from the original abstract, in English.

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