Reader Guide

LGBTQ+ Sex Toys: Inclusive Options for Every Body

Sex toys aren’t gendered, but the marketing often is. A practical guide to toys that work well for gay, lesbian, bi, trans and non-binary users, written without the assumptions that make most category writing hard to read.

The adult industry’s marketing has, historically, been organised around a very narrow imagined reader, a young cisgender heterosexual woman, occasionally a young cisgender heterosexual man, and almost nobody else. This is changing, slowly, but the change is uneven, and readers outside that imagined default often find that the writing about the products they might be interested in either doesn’t apply or reads as if it wasn’t written for them.

This guide is written with the opposite assumption: that the reader might be gay, lesbian, bi, trans, non-binary, or fitting no particular label at all, and that the toys themselves are the same objects regardless of who is using them. What differs is which categories are most useful for which uses, not which categories are permitted for which people.

The Baseline Reality

Nearly every sex toy on the market is functionally usable by almost any adult. A silicone dildo is a silicone dildo; the anatomy of the person using it, and the way it is used, does not change what it is. The categories on the shelf are organised around what the toy does, external vibration, internal insertion, wearable stimulation, penis-focused sensation, and any of those functions can be useful to any user who wants that function.

Where the marketing narrows the audience is often in the packaging and the language, not in the object itself. This is worth understanding before shopping: a “vibrator for women” and a “vibrator” are usually the same object, and the difference is a marketing decision made at the point of sale.

For Gay Male Users

The categories most relevant to gay male users tend to be prostate massagers, cock rings, strokers used solo or in partnered contexts, dildos with harness compatibility for penetrative partnered sex, and anal toys of every kind. All of these are covered in the men’s guide and the anal toys guide.

The specific marketing niche of gay-oriented adult products is real but often unnecessary. Most of what is sold as “gay sex toys” is the same shelf sold under a different label. Where the labelling is useful is in the shared-shelf category, toys designed to be used between partners, where design considerations around simultaneous use matter.

For Lesbian and WLW Users

For users whose relationships involve two people with vulvas, the most-searched categories tend to include harness-compatible dildos, external vibrators for shared use, and wearable toys designed for partnered sex without penetration or with mutual penetration. All of these categories exist and are well-served on the modern market.

Harness systems are worth understanding as a category. A harness is not a toy in itself; it is a wearable base into which a dildo (usually with a flared base compatible with the harness’s O-ring) can be inserted. This lets the same dildo be used in multiple ways over time, solo, hand-held, and harness-worn, which is one of the reasons a good silicone dildo is a foundational purchase.

Double-ended dildos are their own sub-category and are used both between partners and solo. They are, in practice, less common in day-to-day use than the marketing might suggest, they are less versatile than a good dildo used with a harness, and less controllable during use, but they have a real audience and a real function.

For Trans Users

Trans users have particular needs that the general shelf sometimes serves well and sometimes doesn’t. Users on hormone therapy may find that their sensitivity to certain kinds of stimulation changes over time; users pre- or post-surgery may find that certain formats work better or worse than they did before.

A small number of manufacturers make toys specifically designed for trans users, packers, transmasculine strokers designed for smaller anatomy, prosthetics designed for gender-affirming use, and these are worth knowing about. The best sources for finding these are trans-owned and trans-focused adult retailers, who generally have a much better sense of what works for their audience than the mainstream shelf does.

For general categories, vibrators, dildos, plugs, the material and safety rules apply equally, and the reader guides on this site are written to be usable by trans readers without modification.

For Non-Binary Users

The category of “sex toys for non-binary people” is mostly a marketing category rather than a product category, there is no specific shelf of toys made for non-binary users, and there doesn’t need to be. What is useful is category writing that doesn’t assume the reader’s gender or the anatomy of their partners. This is a small ask, but it is one the industry has been slow to meet.

For non-binary users, the useful move is often to ignore the gendered marketing entirely and read the category guides on their merits. A vibrator that works well against the clitoris works well against the clitoris regardless of who owns the clitoris. A stroker that is comfortable and well-made works regardless of who is using it.

Toys Designed for Shared Use

A number of formats are designed specifically for use between two partners, and these are worth calling out because they are underrepresented in general category writing.

Wearable toys with vibration on both ends can be worn by one partner during partnered sex to provide sensation to both. Vibrating cock rings sit at the base of a penis (or a strap-on) and vibrate against a partner externally. Bendable or two-part toys are designed to sit between partners during penetrative sex, delivering vibration to both. And app-controlled toys can be handed off, one partner controlling a toy worn by the other, in ways that add a specific kind of interaction.

Where to Shop

Adult retailers vary far in how inclusively they organise their sites. Some sort toys by gender and audience in ways that make cross-category browsing difficult; others sort by function and let the reader make their own decisions.

Trans-owned, queer-owned and independently-owned adult retailers are often significantly better organised for LGBTQ+ readers than the largest general retailers. They also tend to stock a wider selection of specialty products, trans-oriented equipment, harnesses in a broader range of sizes and styles, packers, that the larger general retailers do not carry in depth.