World Emoji Day – sexual wellness brand petitions for sex toy emoji

As an advocate for a sex-positive lifestyle, sexual wellness brand LELO supports texting and all it entails as it liberates and allows us to express things we might not say face to face to another person. As already stated in an attempt to get the sex emoji approved, there is nothing like the right emoji to elevate an everyday conversation. And yet in spite of this there is no pictogram dedicated to sex, self-pleasure or sex toys. So, in an effort to further normalize and break the stigma around masturbation, as well as the sex toy industry, LELO will petition Unicode to create the sex toy emoji.

In order to do so, we need the help from all and ask for your support by signing the LELO petition via Change.org. The goal is to reach 1 million signatures in time for the submission of the petition next year.

In 2021, the market was valued at USD 34.95 billion and it is expected to rise to 75 billion by the end of the decade (*).

More importantly the rise in the use of sex toys clearly points to the changing attitudes towards pleasure and sexual wellness, and the effect it has on mental health and overall wellness. Various LELO surveys and intel tell us that:

78% of people own a sex toy as of 2024, the number almost doubling when compared to the pre-pandemics.
The share of men and women buying sex toys is 49:51.
84% of women own at least one sex toy, 55% of those are clitoral stimulators.
Europeans buy more sex toys than Americans.
Three out of four agree that sex toys and masturbation are still a taboo in society.
Sex toy owners are 45% more likely to report that they are happy with their sex life.
98% agree that an orgasm causes the biggest surge of happiness naturally.
There’s a tonne of articles online about the benefits of masturbation, summarizing the pros of the practice.

Earlier survey done by LELO on the use of emoji revealed that:

76% of respondents say that they use emojis when communicating about sex.
Half of those participating in the survey use emojis regularly, not just for sexting.
The most popular ones being water droplets.
54% agree there should also be an emoji for safe sex and sex toys.

“No matter how much we have all started paying attention to our bodies and minds, there’s a worrying trend concerning sexual wellness. It is the silence. We can talk about supplements, about mental health, but at the same time dread talking about masturbation. Both in the context of self-care, and the context of pleasure! This also makes masturbation incredibly difficult to study. People get increasingly uncomfortable with disclosing such personal and intimate details of their lives. As a sexual wellness brand, LELO is acutely aware of the lack of conversation surrounding the topic of masturbation,” says LELO CMO Luka Matutinovic.

“And the ability to talk about sexuality in every medium is essential when it comes to personal wellbeing. This prompted LELO to submit an official application to Unicode to create the first official sex emoji and now we want to take this cause even further and petition for the creation of the sex toy emoji. For us sexual wellness goes beyond just making the best possible products. For us, sexual wellness is also spearheading this cause for the entire industry and general public, creating spaces and tools for unencumbered sexual expression. It is said that shame disappears when you create safe spaces for stories to be told. We would like to add that having adequate words or substitution for words, like an emoji, further helps erase the shame. It is because of this that the next milestone in fully liberating the discourse on sex is this sex toy emoji,” adds Matutinovic.