How to talk to your partner about sex toys

Why it’s awkward to bring up, even after years

The awkwardness has a specific shape. Whoever raises the subject worries it’ll sound like a complaint, as if what the two of you already do isn’t enough. Whoever hears it worries about the same thing from the other side. So the topic sits there, both of you assuming the other would take it badly, and neither of you checking.

There’s a second layer for couples who’ve been together a long time. After years, you assume you know each other’s whole map. A new curiosity feels like it should have come up already, and the fact that it hasn’t makes it feel bigger than it is. Wants change. A year-five curiosity is as normal as a year-one curiosity; it just has more history to push through.

And for a lot of people the subject carries a picture they didn’t choose: a drawer of things, a certain kind of store, a certain kind of person. If your partner has never thought about it, that picture is probably what they’ll react to first, before they hear what you actually said.

Start with the category, not a product

The most useful move is to talk about toys as an idea before anyone talks about a thing. “I’m curious whether that’s something you’d ever want” is a conversation. Showing up with a specific item, a link, or a box is a proposal, and a proposal forces a yes or no before your partner has had a chance to form a view.

Keeping it at the category level also protects the person who hasn’t thought about it. They can say “I don’t know, maybe” to an idea. It’s much harder to say that to an object sitting on the bed. Leave the specifics for a second or third conversation, once you both know you’re on the same side of the idea.

It helps to say why you’re curious, in one sentence, and to make that sentence about you. “I’ve been wondering what it would be like” works. “I read that couples who…” doesn’t, because now you’re citing authority at someone instead of telling them what you want. The same rule holds for any want, and there’s a longer version in how to talk about desires without the shame.

What to say first

Pick a moment with no sexual charge and no audience: a walk, a drive, the kitchen while one of you cooks. Side by side is easier than face to face for a first pass, because nobody has to manage their expression. Then say something short.

• “Random question. Have you ever been curious about toys? I have, a little.”
• “I want to ask you something I’ve never asked. No pressure to have an answer.”
• “What do you think about toys in general? Not for tonight, just in general.”
• “I’ve been thinking about something we’ve never tried, and I don’t know how you’d feel about it.”

Every one of these names the subject plainly and takes the pressure off the answer. Don’t soften the noun. “Toys” said out loud once is far less awkward than ten minutes of talking around it. And don’t stack a second ask on top. This conversation is about whether the idea is welcome, not about when.

If your partner has never thought about it

“I’ve honestly never thought about that” is a complete and good answer. It isn’t a soft no, and it isn’t a yes. It means the person needs time to find out what they think, and the worst thing you can do is fill that time with arguments.

Say you’re glad you asked, and leave it. Two or three days later, if they haven’t come back to it, you can ask once: “Did you think any more about the thing I mentioned?” That’s the whole follow-up. If you catch yourself explaining benefits, listing reasons, or sending articles, you’ve turned a curiosity into a campaign, and campaigns make people dig in.

Some partners, given room, come back with questions of their own: what kind, why now, whether it means something about them. Answer straight. “No, nothing’s wrong. I got curious and I’d rather be curious with you than on my own” covers most of it. If the question underneath is “are you bored with me,” answer that one directly too, because it’s the real one.

If the answer is no, or not yet

Take it whole. No “just once,” no “you might like it,” no revisiting the next night. A no that has to be defended stops being a no and starts being a negotiation, and the next thing your partner is curious about won’t get mentioned at all. There’s a companion piece on the other side of this: how to tell your partner you don’t like something.

There’s also a difference between “no” and “not this, but.” A lot of first-time noes are about the picture, not the category. “I don’t want anything that feels like a replacement for you” is a real objection with a real answer, and it opens a different conversation than a flat no does. Ask what instead. The answer often surprises both of you.

A no today isn’t permanent. Trust grows, embarrassment shrinks, and a year from now the same question can get a different answer. The way to get there is to let it lie, though. If either of you wants a single agreed signal for the nights when you do try something, safe words and boundaries for couples covers how to set one up before you need it.

What 6,595 couples say about toys

In Privé, a quiz game for couples, both partners rate the same activities separately on their own phones, and only a mutual yes is ever revealed. As of September 2026, 6,595 couples have both finished a round, which comes to 91,850 individual answers. In the category the game calls toys and accessories, 37.6% of couples are a yes from both partners, and 15.9% are a no from both. The rest are split: one yes and one no, or a yes on one side and a shrug on the other.

Compare that with the category the game calls “more than the two of us,” where 52.9% of couples are a mutual no and only 13.8% a mutual yes. Toys sit near the middle of the ranking: far from the things most couples rule out together, and not yet among the things most couples agree on. If you’re the curious one, the odds that your partner is somewhere between open and undecided are better than the silence suggests. The full ranking is in what couples say no to.

One more number explains why this conversation so often starts late. Across the same cohort, 26.6% of women’s positive answers and 18.8% of men’s are a shy yes: “I’d like this, but I’m embarrassed to say so.” Even inside a game built for saying it, a quarter of what women want comes with hesitation attached. At the kitchen table, with no game, that share only goes up.

Questions couples ask before this conversation

Does wanting toys mean something is missing? No. It means one of you got curious, which is the same mechanism as wanting to try a new restaurant. Long relationships have room for new curiosity, and this is one of the more common ones.

Who should bring it up? Whoever is curious. Waiting for the less curious partner to raise it means waiting forever, and the shy-yes numbers above suggest a lot of couples are doing exactly that.

What if we’re both a little curious and both embarrassed? That’s the most common version, and it’s the one a game handles better than a conversation. In Privé, you each answer on your own phone, and a mutual yes on toys only ever shows up if you both said it. Nobody goes first. The first round is 12 questions and free, and it takes a few minutes.