How to hide sex toys (if you want to)

It’s that time of year when some of you will no doubt be scouring our deals page to find the perfect present for the sexy person in your life. If you need any help choosing, our Christmas gift guide is a good place to start – I’ve picked a few excellent sex toys that will make brilliant Christmas presents, so head to that post if you want to get started on your shopping.

But inevitably, if you’re buying sex toys, you’re probably also going to want to work out how to hide them from people who shouldn’t know they’re there. Your kids, perhaps, or your housemates. Or – seeing as it’s Christmas – visiting relatives who might stumble across them if you leave them drying on the bathroom sink after cleaning. Which reminds me, I really should go and gather my butt plugs before my friends come round tonight…

Apparently ‘how to hide sex toys’ is one of the most frequently asked sex toy questions, which is why it’s getting wrapped into this blog series along with ‘can you catch STDs from sex toys’ and ‘how do couples vibrators work?’

While I may be sloppy with my butt-plug-tidying, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to hiding sex toys, so here are my top three tips if you want to hide sex toys from kids, housemates, and great Auntie Maureen.

1. Hide sex toys in… a sturdy, lockable box

Rule the first: if you can’t lock it up, children will probably get into it. I don’t have kids myself, but I have had to do enough panicked dashes around the house when young nephews go wandering that I am starting to believe children might have actual superpowers. If you need to hide your sex toys from kids, it’s not enough to just slide them under the bed in a plastic Ikea storage box, go grab something that can be secured tightly – like this Hallan cabinet, which has a tonne of different cupboard openings, so you can start off with one and gradually expand as your sex toy collection grows.

2. Hide sex toys… somewhere so boring no one would think to look

Just as it’s unlikely someone will find your porn if you store it in a folder marked ‘tax return’, so prying housemates are less likely to find your dildos if you dump them in a drawer labelled ‘stamp collection.’ Or, you know, something even duller than that.

If you can’t find somewhere lockable to store your sex toys, pick a place that no one would think to go looking for them. Most people tend to store their sex toys within easy grabbing distance – in a bedside drawer or just under the bed on the side they sleep on. If you’re putting your sex toys in a cardboard box marked ‘receipts and bills’ on a high shelf somewhere in a dark corner, it’s far less likely some nosy parker will go looking for them.

3. Hide sex toys… in plain sight

There are plenty of sex toys available on the market which don’t actually look like sex toys. For instance, this magic wand vibrator? It’s actually a karaoke microphone. This Rocks-off unicorn horn vibrator? Stress reliever. This egg-shaped masturbator? Executive desk toy.

You can buy plenty of sex toys that look exactly like sex toys, if that’s what you’re after: realistic dildos that look like standard cocks, and realistic masturbators which look like vaginas or bums. But honestly, if you’re nervous about someone judgmental finding your sexy stash, you could do a lot worse than hiding your sex toys in plain sight. After all, who’s to say that glass dildo isn’t just a beautiful paperweight? If they want to judge you for owning them, first they’ll have to own up to knowing exactly what they are.

Don’t feel like you have to hide your sex toys

Obviously if you have curious children, keeping your sex toys locked out of their way is really important. Not only so they don’t find out what their parents are up to, but also because sex toys can contain batteries which are dangerous in little kids’ hands.

But if you don’t have children, ask yourself: do I really need to hide these away? Sure, you don’t want to pop them in the middle of the kitchen table when your friends come round to visit, but there’s no shame in owning a sex toy. No shame in knowing your own body, understanding what gives it pleasure, and enjoying all the fun that well-made, innovative sex toys can give you. As I mentioned at the start, I have a habit of leaving butt plugs (and dildos, and my Doxy, and… well… any of my sex toys to be honest) lying around my house. I like using them – a lot – and to me sex toys are as much a part of my home as plates, cups and saucers.

If you want to hide your sex toys, I hope my handy hints have given you some useful advice. But if you don’t want to hide your sex toys? I for one won’t be judging you. Just remember to remove them from the drying rack before you make a start on the washing up.