There are few things more cringeworthy than when someone finds your sex toys. It’s almost never good — depending on who discovers them, they can be stolen, inspire incredibly awkward conversation, or worse, be recruited for use as jewelry and swords in the make-believe games of people whose fontanelles haven’t even closed yet.
Of course, this isn’t a problem if you live alone, but if you’re like most people, your home is occupied by some combination of friends, family and children who, despite what virtues they may have, are nosy bastards. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a universal law that states that if someone is in your house, they will rifle through your shit. Double that if that person is your mother, and triple it if that person is your kid — those tiny hooligans truly have nothing better to do than open up every drawer, closet and box in your house and rub their grubby little paws over whatever they find. (And some of them go much further than that.)
My 3 year old daughter found my sex toy stash from TwoXChromosomes
Needless to say, a good sex-toy hiding spot is a smart thing to have. Where, though, can you hide them so they’re impossible for others to find, but still easy for you to get to?
All the obvious places are off the table — drawers, medicine cabinets and under the bed are the first places a sex-toy snooper looks, so I won’t waste your time with them. Instead, I racked my brain — as well as the brains of several sex-toy experts — to come up with some bomb-proof hiding spots not even the most spirited sleuth could find. Here’s what we found…
In a Locked Toy Box
Bar none, the gold standard of sex-toy stashing is in a dedicated toy box with a lock on it. They come in all different shapes and sizes, but if you don’t find one you like through a retailer, you can always just Home Depot it and throw a padlock on the storage container or suitcase of your choice. This kind of box can help you keep your toys neat, tidy and dry without exposing them to dust or myriad horrors of human detritus.
Holistic women’s wellness coach and intimacy expert Isabella Frappier says she likes to dress hers up like craft boxes that look unassuming and innocuous from the outside. “I’d suggest labeling it with something like ‘craft supplies’ or ‘stationery’ to dissuade any unwanted snoopers, then putting it at the back of your closet for an extra hiding spot,” she says.
In Your Taxes
Sex and relationship therapist Jamila Dawson has one word (or three, depending on how you’re counting) for people with kids and nosy housemates: IRS. “Get a boring beige safe to keep your toys and lube in, put it in your closet and say it’s for ‘tax stuff,’” she recommends.
Genius — people don’t even look at their own taxes, so the likelihood of them ferreting through yours is slim.
In a Rolled-Up Sock
You’ve got a lot of socks right? Like, too many socks for someone to rifle through? Good, because Pleasure Chest social media director Ness (last name withheld) wholeheartedly recommends you pop your small-to-medium sized sex toys in a sock and then bury them underneath all the other pairs you have in your sock drawer. “Ain’t nobody gonna look in there,” she says. Amen.
In a Fake English Dictionary
If there’s one book no self-respecting adult or toddler is likely to pick up, it’s a dictionary. Good thing Amazon sells quite a selection of fake dictionaries that look like the world’s most boring book on the outside, but are actually handy lockboxes on the inside. Most of them are just the right size for a couple of butt plugs or mid-sized vibrators, and you can keep them sinfully close to your bed with no one the wiser.
In the Inner Pocket of a Coat Hanging in Your Room
When people see a coat hanging in a closet, their first thought usually isn’t, “There’s a dildo in there!” Well, they’re wrong.
Inside a Wrapped Present
Unless someone’s a total psychopath, they’re not going to deflower an unopened gift, especially if it’s not for them, and especially if it’s wrapped. (Ribbon, in many cases, is much stronger than curiosity.) As redditor KatsatheGraceling writes, “My go to tip for hiding [sex toys] is to keep [them] in a gift bag, with tissue paper and everything. People generally don’t open random gifts. … And you always have the option of saying you bought it as a gag gift for a friend if someone happens to open/see it.”
At the Bottom of Your Laundry Basket
When was the last time your prying mother or pathologically bored roommate picked through the pile of your dirty underwear and mysteriously shrunken sweaters sitting on your floor just for the hell of it? Never? Exactly.
In a Naughty Pillow
Liz Klinger, co-founder and CEO of the vibrator company Lioness, is a big fan of this secret compartment pillow because it allows you to hide your toys in plain sight and in the super-accessible habitat of your bedroom. If your toy is rechargeable, she recommends stashing it inside the pillow with a portable USB charger so you’ll never be caught with a dead battery.
In Your Suitcase
If someone is motivated enough to look through your belongings, chances are they’ll stumble across the closet or cobweb-laced storage space where you keep your suitcase. Thing is, people never check what’s inside the suitcase — everyone knows all that’s ever in there is air or another smaller, Russian doll-style tote. That makes your luggage a great place to hide your sex toys, especially the bigger ones that won’t exactly fit in fake dictionary or a rolled-up sock.
In Plain Sight
There are a ton of sex toys that are designed to look like everyday household items. There’s vibrating chapstick, a cock ring that looks like a FitBit, and for some reason, a dildo chess set. These have the benefit of being both handy and making you feel like a gadget-laden spy.
Some Final Pro-Tips for Intelligent Hiding
No matter where you hide your stash, there are a few things you should know about sex toys and what they’re made of so you don’t create a nuclear-meltdown situation in your sock drawer. Such as:
1) If your toy is made from jelly, PVC, rubber, TPR or “realistic material,” store that shit separately. These materials love to melt, collect dust and hair and otherwise destroy everything they come into contact with. Not to mention, they often have a nauseatingly plastic smell that’s hard to wash off. They’re also incredibly porous, which means they can easily harbor bacteria and yeast from your body and the environment. If I were you, I’d stay as far away from these materials as possible. But if you must indulge, heed my warning when hiding them with your other toys (or around anything you love at all). Separate cloth storage bags are ideal.
2) Definitely keep your silicone toys separated from each other. Silicone is the Rolls-Royce of sex toy materials — in addition to being incredibly soft and smooth, it’s also non-porous, which means it’s ultra-hygienic and won’t trap bacteria or yeast. Its only flaw is that silicone molecules are extremely attracted to themselves. And so, if two silicone toys are touching (or you put silicone lube on a silicone toy), they’ll try to bind and you’ll end up with a grainy, crumbly mess. Any barrier you can put between them will keep this from happening.
3) Kinky toys are their own ball game. Because so many kinky toys like crops and floggers are made of leather, it’s easy to permanently bend them out of shape. Crops need to be laid flat in their hiding place, while floggers need to be hung up or their falls (the tail thingies) will crumple up. Likewise, squishy gags — which are usually made of silicone or rubber — tend to pick up a lot of hair and dust, so store them in a plastic bag in whatever diabolically brilliant sex-toy foxhole you’ve created.
4) You’ll never believe this, but lube bottles leak. I know, it’s crazy. However, you can contain any messes — which can be extremely hard to clean up if your lube is oil-based or made of silicone — by throwing your little bottle of bliss in a Ziploc bag before you stuff it into your “2014 Income Tax” file.
Isabelle Kohn
Isabelle Kohn is a sex and relationships journalist, educator and consultant who, for some reason, keeps writing about livestock instead. She writes features and long-form pieces for MEL, usually without the help of Clippy.
