I read with amusement recently that Sainsburys the UK supermarket are now selling sex toys in store. I say amusement because I don’t have a problem with them selling sex toys, far from it. Sex and masturbation are good. Sex and masturbation are fun. They are natural and enjoyable parts of being a human being and unless you get obsessed with pleasuring yourself masturbation an sex toys form part of a healthy and rounded sexuality.

I say I was amused because the newspapers and magazines that covered this story were able to say little about it. Not because the censors would cut stuff out. There is nothing to censor. The products are legal and made by a quality British manufacturer – Rocks Off. Masturbation isn’t illegal and almost everyone has done it at some point in their lives, either alone or with a partner.

The reason so little could be said in the articles is that there is no reason to get righteously indignant about selling these products. There’s no moral argument that says having a wank, rubbing one out or whatever you want to call it is in any way a bad thing. Only a few decades ago there would have been outrage. But time and society moves on. While there are a few places in the US and several countries around the world where buying a sex toy prohibited it’s simply not the case in the UK. The only places that prevent the sale of these products are those driven by an overwhelming urge to follow outdated views about human sexuality.

There was a time when selling sex toys in supermarkets would have been a problem. This has partly been overcome by the sale of condoms and latterly disposable cock rings on the shelves. Now I think it’s great that condoms can be bought so easily. They are after all the only way to reduce the risk of spreading sexually transmitted diseases while also helping avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Disposable cock rings are another thing. Single use cock rings just seem to be adding to the ever increasing amount of waste including microplastics and unrecycled batteries that we generate every year. However what cock rings and condoms did do is make it acceptable to buy products that improve our sexual health and general wellbeing in the supermarket.

Yet more than condoms and cock rings I think it is the evolution of sex toys from often hideous flesh coloured models of phalluses into sleek and stylish objects that don’t often immediately suggest their sexual application is what’s really made selling sex toys in supermarkets tenable.

If you’d like to buy a supermarket sex toy Sainsburys are knocking out three from what I can tell. A Rose Gold RO-80mm bullet for £8, a Rose Blush Bullet for £12 and the Silver Aura Vibrator for £15. Looks like you still have the issue of non-rechargeable batteries with these babies but you can remove, replace and recycle the batteries in these sex toys, unlike the nasty cheap cock rings previously populating some store’s shelves.

They don’t cost much either so if you want to experiment and try your first sex toy without the investment in a high-end rechargeable model this might be a good place to start.