Are people ready to hook up again (cause, like, just let us know)?
Male condom sales in the U.S. are on the rise, according to CNN Business. Specifically, sales have increased 23.4% to $37 million during a four-week span ending on April 18. Those numbers, calculated by the market research firm IRI, are compared to the same amount of time from last year. In addition, condom sales experienced a 4.4% drop in all of 2020.
Durex condoms also experienced a double-digit percentage sales increase in the last quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Walgreens and CVS have also experienced sale growth in recent weeks, and Trojan condoms maker Church & Dwight noted in January that his year’s sales looked “promising.”
“An even more eagerly awaited bounce back of sales is in the condom category as condoms mean pleasure. Eighteen-to 24-year-olds can’t wait to get their social lives back,” said Church & Dwight chief marketing officer Britta Bomhard to CNN.
The field of condom sales saw a relative drop during 2020. An obvious cause of that was the coronavirus pandemic. Many people went without sex during a large part of the year. In February of this year, Grindr polled 10,000 users and asked how they managed during the pandemic. Most users reported switching over to virtual ways of getting off. This includes 69% watching more porn and 71% saying they traded pictures and videos on Grindr to get off. And despite 59% of respondents saying their sex drive rose during the pandemic, only 31% said that they’ve hooked up with a mask on.
Similarly, a study from July 2020 found that three out of ten Americans left their homes during lockdown to have sex. 65 percent of respondents from that study said boredom was the main cause for their sexual encounters outside of their homes. The U.K. was no different as another 2020 study found that 24% of the U.K.’s gay men had casual sex during a lockdown.
With all of that in mind, the rise in condom use makes sense. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, more than 50.4% of U.S. adults (18 or older) have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Plus, the vaccines are now available for all U.S. adults. This has created a “light at the end of the tunnel” feeling for many American citizens. Back on the Grindr survey, 63% of respondents said they plan to make up for lost time by hooking up more than usual after the pandemic. And this rise in condom sales might be a sign of that to come.
So, again, we ask, are people ready to hook up again?
Source: CNN Business,
