The A-Z of sex in London

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‘Someone was playing with nipples, someone was stimulating a clit, another person was riding the fuck machine,’ says Adriana*, a regular at One Night’s no-men-allowed sex parties. ‘It was beautiful to watch. I was busy getting railed by my friend’s 11-inch strap-on.’

With spanking benches and strip shows, bondage beds and Shibari artists who tie up guests using Japanese rope bondage, One Night has been on London’s kink scene since 2019. But because of pandemic restrictions, it wasn’t until last year that the party really started.

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London sex shops aren’t what they used to be. Gone are the days of furtively peeling back a dusty old velvet curtain or sneaking off into some grotty basement to browse through a dusty DVD collection. 

These days, the capital’s adult stores are often loud, proud, and quite pleasurable experiences to be inside. Not to mention they're way more diverse, with loads more places for women and queer people to get their kicks. 

Whether you’re after a discrete little vibrator or a full-on latex maid’s costume, you’ll find it all in here, from saucy lingerie to sex toys, nipple clamps to ball gags. Go forth and let your freak flag fly, London!

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By now, you’ve probably seen Bumble’s controversial marketing campaign – the one where they plastered billboards with messages like ‘You know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer’ and ‘Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun’. 

The campaign spurred a huge amount of backlash on social media. ‘You’re delegitimising our celibacy because you want males to have more access to our bodies,’ said one TikTok video addressed to Bumble. ‘2.5 years of celibacy and never been better tbh,’ wrote actress Julia Fox in the comments of another related video. The dating app promptly apologised and claimed the billboards were supposed to be a funny gag for those ‘frustrated by modern dating’, but it seemed the damage was already done. 

Away from the critics of Bumble’s billboards, celibacy is trending. The hashtag ‘celibacy’ on TikTok has 22,000 posts and counting, while the phrase ‘boy sober’, coined by comedian Hope Woodard to describe abstaining from all romantic relationships with men (including situationships, people!), is also gaining traction online. In London specifically, Google searches for ‘celibacy’ in have increased by a quarter in the last three months. Is there any truth in all this talk? 

From fetish photography sessions and ideas for spicing up your sex life at home to the clubs to go to for a naughty night out and dominators to fulfil your fantasies, we've rounded up some of the sexiest activities on offer in the capital.