Do Sex Toys Improve Your Sex Life? What Research Shows
“Will this actually make things better?” is the real question behind most first sex-toy purchases, and it’s the one product pages never answer honestly, because they’re selling. So here’s the honest version, built from the research rather than the marketing: what the studies actually show, where they’re weak, and who paid for them.
This guide is research-based, not hands-on. See how we review.
Quick take: the evidence is cautiously positive, but thinner than the marketing implies. Large surveys link toy use to better sexual-function scores, yet they’re correlational, so they can’t prove the toy is what helped. Research on couples specifically barely exists, and the foundational studies carry industry fingerprints. The single best-supported finding in this whole field isn’t about toys at all. It’s that couples who talk openly about sex have more satisfying sex. A toy can help, mostly by making that conversation, and a bit of experimentation, easier.
What the research actually found
The most-cited evidence comes from two nationally representative US surveys published in 2009.
In the first, of 2,056 women aged 18 to 60, 52.5% had used a vibrator at some point. Recent users scored higher across most measures of sexual function (desire, arousal, lubrication and orgasm), and were more likely to do health-promoting things like scheduling gynecological exams (Herbenick et al., 2009). The companion survey of 1,047 men found 44.8% had incorporated a vibrator into sexual activity, with recent users again scoring higher on four of five domains of sexual function (Reece et al., 2009).
Taken at face value, that’s a consistent, positive picture. Across thousands of people, using a toy travels alongside better-rated sex.
The catch: “travels alongside” isn’t “causes”
Both of those studies are cross-sectional, a single snapshot in time. They can show that vibrator use and higher sexual-function scores appear together, but they cannot show which way the arrow points. Maybe the toy improved something. It’s just as plausible that people who already feel confident and satisfied are the ones more likely to buy and use a toy in the first place. No study in this area has followed couples over time, or randomly assigned some to use a toy and others not, which is what it would take to claim the toy caused the improvement.
And the industry has its fingerprints on the foundational studies
Those two 2009 surveys share a second thing that rarely gets mentioned. Each one lists a co-author whose stated affiliation is Church & Dwight Co., Inc., the consumer-goods company that owns Trojan, a brand that makes and sells vibrators (affiliation confirmed in both papers’ own published author metadata: women’s study, men’s study).
That doesn’t make the data fake. These are large, well-constructed samples from respected researchers at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute. But when the two headline studies establishing that “vibrators are good for you” were co-authored by someone working for a company that sells them, that’s a conflict of interest you deserve to know about before you treat the conclusion as neutral science.
What about couples specifically?
Here’s the honest gap. Almost all of this research is about individuals, usually women, using toys, not partners using them together.
The closest thing to a couples study is recent and small. In 2025, researchers surveyed 361 women aged 18 to 35 and found that those who used sexual devices during partnered sex reported higher arousal, higher satisfaction, and greater perceived orgasm intensity than women who used them only during solo masturbation, with no difference in measures of anxiety or depression (Sansone et al., 2025). It’s a genuinely useful data point, and it points the right way.
But keep its limits in view. It’s cross-sectional again, self-reported, and limited to young heterosexual women. As with the 2009 surveys, two of its authors were affiliated with an online sexual-wellness retailer. And even this study asks one person about partnered use; no published research yet surveys both people in a couple. So the truthful statement is narrow: one small, recent, industry-linked study suggests toys help in partnered settings. That is not the same as “couples research proves toys improve relationships.”
The orgasm gap, where a toy has an obvious job to do
If there’s a mechanism that makes toys genuinely useful for many mixed-sex couples, this is it. In a large US sample of over 52,000 adults, 95% of heterosexual men said they usually or always orgasm during sex, compared with 65% of heterosexual women, roughly a 30-point gap (Frederick et al., 2018). (That study’s sample was self-selected online rather than a true random sample, so read the exact numbers as indicative, not precise.)
What’s more useful is what the same study found among women who did orgasm more often. They were more likely to receive oral sex, have longer sex, ask for what they wanted, and use a wider range of activities. The gap narrows, in other words, with more varied, less intercourse-only stimulation, which is exactly the role a well-chosen toy can play. It’s not magic. It’s a tool that makes a specific, common mismatch easier to close.
That fits a long-standing clinical idea that desire, for many people, is responsive: it builds during arousal rather than always arriving first. So anything that reliably improves arousal can matter more than waiting to be “in the mood” (a model proposed by Basson, 2000; it’s an influential clinical framework, not a settled fact).
What actually matters more than the toy
If you take one evidence-based thing from this page, make it this. A 2022 meta-analysis pooling 93 studies and nearly 38,500 people found that couples’ sexual communication was one of the strongest predictors of both sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction, and that the quality of how partners talked about sex mattered more than how often they did (Mallory, 2022). An earlier meta-analysis by the same group tied better sexual communication to measurable improvements in arousal and orgasm, too (Mallory et al., 2019). Unlike the toy-prevalence surveys, this research carries no industry funding. It was supported by the US National Institutes of Health.
That reframes the whole question. The most reliable route to a better sex life, in the data, runs through talking to each other. A toy’s biggest contribution may simply be that shopping for and trying one is a low-pressure way to start that conversation. If bringing it up is the hard part, here’s how to raise it without the awkwardness. And if the deeper issue is that your desire levels don’t match, that’s its own very common challenge, one we cover in mismatched sex drives.
So should you get one?
An honest bottom line: a body-safe toy is a low-risk, potentially rewarding thing to try as a couple, and the research leans gently in its favor. Just go in with realistic expectations. It’s a tool that can make good sex a bit better and help close a common mismatch. It isn’t a fix for disconnection, and it isn’t something the evidence can promise will “improve your relationship.” And if what’s really nagging at you is whether the two of you are having sex often enough, that question has its own answer, and it’s more reassuring than most people expect: how often couples actually have sex.
If you decide to try one, the useful next steps are practical, not hopeful:
- Start with our beginner’s guide to choosing a couples toy, which covers the four things that actually matter: materials, type, control, and the practical details.
- If distance is your situation, our research comparison of app-controlled vibrators for couples documents five models built for different control situations, and our long-distance intimacy guide covers the rest of staying close.
- And whatever you buy, treat the conversation as the main event and the toy as the prop.
FAQ
Do sex toys actually improve your sex life? Probably a little, but the research can’t prove it. National surveys link vibrator use to higher sexual-function scores in both women and men, yet they’re correlational, so they can’t show the toy caused the improvement rather than confident, satisfied people being more likely to own one. The cleanest finding in this area isn’t about toys at all: couples who communicate well about sex report more satisfying sex.
Is there research on couples using toys together? Very little. Almost all the well-known studies measure individual use. One 2025 study of 361 women found that those who used devices during partnered sex reported higher arousal and satisfaction than women who used them only alone, but it was small, cross-sectional, limited to women aged 18 to 35, and two of its authors were affiliated with an online sex-toy retailer. No published study yet surveys both partners in a couple.
Are these studies biased? Some carry conflicts of interest. The two most-cited US vibrator surveys (2009) each list a co-author affiliated with Church & Dwight, the company that owns the Trojan brand. That doesn’t make the large, nationally representative data wrong, but it’s an industry affiliation on the foundational studies, and worth weighing.
What matters more than the toy? Communication. A 2022 meta-analysis of 93 studies and nearly 38,500 people found that how well couples talk about sex is among the strongest predictors of both sexual and relationship satisfaction, and that quality mattered more than frequency. A toy can be a good prompt for that conversation. It isn’t a substitute for it.
Related reading: How to choose a couples toy → · Research comparison of five app-controlled couples vibrators → · Keeping intimacy alive long-distance → · How we review →
This article is for adults 18+. It is general information, not medical advice.