Americas sex toy shopping habits are not what youd expect

I’ve seen enough election maps since last Tuesday. Personally, I’m a little more interested in the one that tells me where people are buying sex toys and which cities prefer birthday cake-flavored lube. Lovehoney’s 2026 U.S. Sex Map (based on 12 months of sales data across 1,216 locations) does exactly that, and I’ve pulled together a few highlights below.

You can also type your city into the interactive tool to see its overall ranking, how it ranks for purchases in categories like vibrators and bondage gear, and its customers’ favorite lube flavor. The tool has two search fields, so you can compare cities side by side. Naturally, I looked up Wilmington, NC (where I currently live). It ranks 171st out of 1,216 locations, and strawberry is the favorite lube flavor. Interesting...def keeping that info on the back burner.

Before anyone starts making assumptions about their neighbors, though, this is shopping data, not a survey of Americans’ sex lives. It tells us what customers bought from one retailer — not how often they have sex, how satisfied they are, or who they voted for.

Boston has entered the chat

Boston takes first place in Lovehoney’s overall city rankings (by product purchases), followed by Somerville, Massachusetts; Reston, Virginia; Bozeman, Montana; and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The rest of the top 10 includes Blacksburg, Virginia; Royal Oak, Michigan; Fairbanks, Alaska; Boulder, Colorado; and State College, Pennsylvania.

Massachusetts also shows up multiple times in the category awards. Somerville wins for dildo purchases, Boston for strap-ons, and Cambridge for both male sex toys and condoms. All four nominees in the dildo category (Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville) are in Massachusetts. You know what, good for them.

Charleston outranks Vegas by a long shot

Charleston ranks 143rd overall, while Las Vegas comes in at 891st. This surprised me. I would’ve expected a place called Sin City to rank a little higher, but once I thought about it, Vegas does have more sex toy shops than Charleston, so maybe people are just buying local. Again, good for them.

Lube deserves its own map

Strawberry is the most popular lubricant flavor nationally, followed by bubblegum, cherry, peach, and birthday cake. At the city level, bubblegum is Wichita's favorite, while Des Moines prefers birthday cake. Strawberry is a fave in Atlanta, Charleston, Charlotte, Columbus, Las Vegas, and Houston.

I’m not sure what I expected from a regional breakdown of lubricant flavors, but Des Moines choosing birthday cake wasn’t it.

Vermont is buying smaller dildos

Vermont takes Lovehoney’s “Sexiest State” title (the one that buys the most products of all), but it also has the smallest average dildo length in the 2026 state table, at 6.56 inches. Montana has the largest average at 6.98 inches, compared with the reported national average of 6.71 inches. No state’s average exceeds seven inches this year.

Virginia’s shopping list includes bondage gear and nipple clamps

Arlington, Virginia, wins Lovehoney’s bondage-purchasing category, while Fairfax takes the lingerie title and Reston leads for nipple clamps. Reston also ranks third overall among cities. Virginia, it turns out, appears in several very different parts of the shopping report.

There's a lot more in the map than I can reasonably get into here, so go ahead and look up your city. Then your hometown. Then wherever your ex moved to. Just remember that a shopping cart doesn’t tell you everything about a person, let alone an entire city.