Nearly half of heterosexual men have used a sex toy
A nationally representative sample, not a shop's customer list.
A 2009 study of more than a thousand heterosexual American men, drawn from a probability panel rather than from anywhere a sex toy is sold, found that 44.8 per cent had used one. Use was reported both alone and with a partner, and it was most common among men in their late twenties and thirties.
The sample is the reason the number matters. Every other figure in this market comes from a seller, and a shop's numbers describe people who already shop there. A probability sample describes the country, which is the difference between knowing how many men buy and knowing how many men are like you.
What to do with it
If the reason you have not bought one is that it feels like an admission, the number is the answer: it is an ordinary object that roughly half of men have used.
It is also worth saying out loud to a partner rather than hiding it, because finding one hidden is a worse conversation than owning one openly. The same research finds most of the men who own one are in a relationship.
If you have not decided on a type at all, seven questions narrow it to one.
