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Hourglass-shaped sex toys casually glide along a conveyor belt through an airy new store in Tokyo, the latest attempt by Japanese manufacturer Tenga to sell adult products without the shame that is often attached.
At first glance it’s not even obvious that the sleek, colorful products on display are Japan’s favorite sex toys for men, but the store has drawn a stream of couples and tourists since opening this year.
“Its openness surprised me,” said customer Masafumi Kawasaki, 45, “and made me a bit embarrassed that I’d had a ‘naughty’ image” of the company.
“I might have thought this was some kind of cosmetics shop,” he added.
Although best known for single-use male masturbation aids, known as cups, the Japanese Tenga brand has grown into an intimacy empire, offering toys for men and women, as well as family planning and help for people with sexual disorders.
It is a key player in Japan’s adult goods market that Yano Research Institute in 2016 estimated was worth around 209 billion yen ($1.3 billion).
Tenga items are sold in dozens of countries, and nearly half the firm’s annual sales of 10 billion yen — a figure that has doubled over the past six years — are from overseas.
Founder Koichi Matsumoto, 57, told AFP that he has long strived to de-stigmatize sexual pleasure.
Sex toys for men existed before Tenga, but their crude designs replicating genitalia kept them underground, far from the mainstream image that his firm projects.
