At TENGA, we believe sexuality is a normal, healthy, part of life that should be celebrated, not something to be ashamed of. That is why TENGA strives to create safe, functional self-pleasure and wellness items that combine intricate design with performance.

Since our founding in 2005, our core brand message has remained that individuals should be free to enjoy their sexual wellness without guilt or shame.
We help individuals around the world explore and express this with our variety of pleasure items.

In order to open up conversations about masturbation and the taboos surrounding it, TENGA started to conduct yearly surveys - called "TENGA Global Self-Pleasure Reports" - about the views and habits of people towards self-pleasure, sex, and sexuality. The first survey was conducted in May 2016 as a way to celebrate Masturbation May, a movement that originated in the US. Since then, we have surveyed numerous countries and discovered more about the masturbation habits of people around the world.

This year we surveyed over 5,000 people aged between 18-54 across five countries, with 1,000 each in the US, UK, Germany, France and Spain. The deep dive surrounding their habits related to sex, masturbation, and sex toy usage revealed some continued trends in connection to the pandemic, as well as some interesting new findings.

In our second year of tracking the perceptions of masturbation during the pandemic, we can see that self-pleasure continues to play an important role in people's wellbeing. Among those who masturbate and have been under lockdown, nearly two-thirds report that masturbation provided a lifeline and acted as a form of self-care during quarantine. Additionally, around 40% report that their frequency of self-pleasure has increased during the past year.

This year's report also revealed that Americans and Europeans are increasingly incorporating sex toys and masturbation into their lifestyles. With roughly 50% reporting to have used a sex toy before, some (about 20%) used the additional time during the pandemic to add to their sex toy collection, and a further 8% bought their first sex toy during this time.

While some have started to make more time for self-love during the pandemic, for many it has long been an integral part of their weekly self-care routine. Men especially tend to include masturbation into their weekly me-time. Generally, more women report to have a weekly self-care routine, but about half of the men surveyed who have a weekly self-care routine say that masturbation is a part of it, compared to only one-third of women.

This year, we also wanted to bust the common narrative around masturbation being somehow "lesser" compared to sex. Thus, we have asked people in the U.S. whether they would rather give up sex or masturbation for a month. While this is U.S. specific data, it turns out that not everybody would prefer sex over masturbation as 35% would rather give up sex. Especially for LGBTQ+ identifying individuals, masturbation seems to be more important than having sex. This proves that self-pleasure is not an alternative or a replacement of sex, but that it has its place for many.

At TENGA, we create safe, functional self-pleasure and wellness items to make masturbation itself a more enjoyable and beneficial experience.

The past year has been marked by restrictions for many. This year's report has shown that many people used this time to pay more attention to one special area: self-pleasure! We are especially happy to see how many took the occasion to not only experiment with their self-care routine but also to incorporate sex toys into their lives for the first time or to stock up their existing collection. The outcome was pretty clear across all countries surveyed: people reported that self-pleasure (65%) and sex toys (56%) helped them to feel better and acted as a form of "self-care" during the pandemic.

With more and more people realizing that self-pleasure is self-care, we are proud to play our role in further spreading the benefits of pleasure!