From Taboo to Trend: Why Self-Pleasure Is the New Self-Care

The sexiest wellness trend of all? Putting yourself first. Inside the rise of self-pleasure as self-care and what it means for female desire today.

Once upon a time, the word masturbation could clear a room faster than a fire alarm. It was something women whispered about, if they talked about it at all. But now? Self-pleasure is getting a much-needed glow-up.

It’s appearing on Instagram feeds, in wellness routines, and even in celebrity product launches. Yes, Harry Styles’s Pleasing line expanded and now includes vibrators and lube. Please yourself like you mean it, indeed. The shift is undeniable. For decades, female masturbation has been wrapped in shame, guilt, or brushed off as something women didn’t need. Now, it’s become a shorthand for empowerment — another form of self-care, right up there with journaling and jade rollers.

And the numbers back it up. A 2020 study found that 44% of women use sex toys during solo sessions and reported an orgasm rate of 81%. Another survey found that 60–72% of women under 60 masturbated in the past year.

Simply, women aren’t waiting for permission anymore. They’re taking pleasure into their own hands, literally.

The marketplace is paying attention. Beyond Harry Styles, Cardi B has promoted brands such as Bellesa and Vush, Dakota Johnson’s work with Maude, and Lily Allen’s “Liberty” toy with Womanizer that sold out in hours.

The message? Solo sex isn’t dirty — it’s desirable. It’s chic. It’s self-love with a twist.

But underneath the trending toys and hot-pink branding is something bigger. This is about women reclaiming desire.

For centuries, female pleasure has been policed, hidden, or used for someone else’s satisfaction. Reclaiming masturbation means rewriting that script. It’s not about waiting for a partner, or performing — it’s about asking, what do I want? and then giving it to yourself.

Because let’s be honest: pleasure is power. And women are finally learning that self-pleasure doesn’t make them selfish.

The Cultural Shift

For most of history, women’s pleasure has been treated like a rumor. Something people whispered about but couldn’t quite prove existed.

Ancient Greek philosophers celebrated male orgasms as vital and divine but treated women’s as optional. Fast-forward a few thousand years, and not much had changed. In Victorian England, doctors treated female masturbation like a medical problem, prescribing cold baths and bland diets as a “cure.”

Even into the 20th century, pop culture didn’t exactly do women any favors.

TV and movies rarely acknowledged that women had sexual agency, let alone that they might enjoy solo sex. Pop culture rarely took masturbation seriously, and when it did, it played it for laughs or guilt, like Charlotte’s vibrator episode in Sex and the City.

But somewhere between Sex and the City and Euphoria, the narrative shifted.

Tired of being told their desires were dangerous or didn’t matter, women embraced the rise of sex-positive feminism in the 2010s, which reframed pleasure as wellness, self-love, and empowerment.

“TMI, but self-pleasure is an enormous, enormous part of my life, and a huge, huge help for me,” singer Billie Elish revealed to Rolling Stone in 2024, “People should be jerking it, man. I can’t stress it enough, as somebody with extreme body issues and dysmorphia that I’ve had my entire life.”

Then came the internet and the femtech boom. From sleek, Instagram-worthy vibrators to companies like Maude, Unbound, and Dame rebranding self-pleasure as chic, accessible, and feminist, the message was clear — the female orgasm isn’t just welcome, it’s worth investing in.

According to Grand View Research, the global sex-toy market is projected to reach nearly $65 billion by 2030.

Even the language around masturbation has softened. “Self-pleasure.” “Solo intimacy.” “Wellness ritual.” These words give permission to talk about what was once considered unspeakable.

TikTok and podcasts have done their part, too. Millions of women now share their “first vibrator” stories like they’re comparing skincare routines.

The real takeaway? Pleasure isn’t just physical anymore — it’s political. Every time a woman talks openly about her body or buys a vibrator without shame, she chips away at centuries of silence. And that’s not just progress. That’s liberation.

The Business of Pleasure

Once upon a time, a celebrity endorsement meant perfume, handbags, or maybe a skincare line. Now? It’s vibrators. And not in a “shhh, don’t tell anyone” way — in a “press release with a bow on it” way.

Over the last few years, the sexual-wellness industry has gone from taboo to trend, thanks to a wave of famous faces turning self-pleasure into serious business.

Dakota Johnson became co-creative director at Maude in 2020, telling Vogue, “Sexual wellness is self-care. To me, taking care of your body in a sexual way should be the same as taking care of your body in terms of nutrients, skincare, exercise, etc.”

And just this year, Harry Styles’s brand Pleasing entered the chat with a line of “gender-inclusive pleasure products,” including a sleek double-ended vibrator and a water-based lube.

What’s wild isn’t just that these celebs are making vibrators, it’s how they’re doing it.

Gone are the days of back-alley sex shops and neon packaging. Today’s toys look like art objects: matte silicone, minimalist design, and branding that could pass for a Glossier ad.

“You don’t always want a goofy sexual product,” Johnson told Vanity Fair in 2020, describing a hypothetical “giant, hot pink, crazy-looking dildo.”

“It’s nice for things to be kind of malleable in that way, aesthetically,” she continued.

But make no mistake: this isn’t just about capitalism cashing in on female desire, it’s about visibility. When celebrities with massive platforms talk openly about masturbation, they normalize it for everyone else. They turn what used to be whispered about into something you can proudly purchase with free shipping and a 10% off code.

The Masturbation Rebrand

The rise of the vibrator isn’t just about orgasms. It’s about ownership over our bodies and our own pleasure.

For generations, women learned to please, not to feel pleasure, to shrink their desire, and to believe being wanted mattered more than wanting anything themselves.

But when you choose to center your own pleasure — when you say, “I don’t need permission to feel good” — you’re doing something quietly revolutionary.

Dakota added in Vogue, “Sexual wellness is essential to all humans. Everyone deserves to feel included in and able to access this form of self-care, and we need to destigmatize the conversation around sexual health.

“For too long, sexual health has been poorly marketed, hyper-aggressive, and highly gendered.”

Maybe that’s what this whole “masturbation rebrand” is really about.

Yes, it’s fun that vibrators are chic now. Yes, we love a celebrity collab and a millennial-pink marketing moment.

Solo sex has become more than a private act; it’s a statement of autonomy. It’s a way to tune back into your body when the world keeps trying to pull you out of it, and a reminder that intimacy doesn’t start with someone else, it starts with you.

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