The taboo of pleasure in Lebanon

Sexuality is part of everyday life in Lebanon, appearing in relationships, entertainment, music and private conversations. Yet discussing intimate products and personal pleasure openly can still feel uncomfortable, leaving many people to explore these subjects quietly and discreetly. Behind that discomfort, however, a market has been growing. Online businesses such as Kinky Closet LB and SirrShop serve a demand that long existed but was rarely addressed openly: adults seeking intimate products, information and a discreet way to explore their sexuality. For Pamela, the owner of Kinky Closet LB, the business began in 2018 as she questioned what she had been taught about sexuality. “I was searching for my purpose and passion while unlearning the shame and stigma society attaches to sexuality, self-love and pleasure,” she said. What started small grew into a business serving women, men, couples and queer customers. Pamela said the goal was never simply to sell sex toys, “the vision was always bigger than selling products.” She mentioned that “People didn’t need permission to explore this part of themselves, they needed a space where they wouldn’t be shamed for it.”

A market that was already there

SirrShop approaches the industry through “intimate wellness.”  Coming from healthcare, the people behind SirrShop said Lebanon’s market was unsurprising. Sexual intimacy is a normal human need, they argue, but products and information have historically been difficult to access openly. The gap was not a lack of demand, but a lack of businesses serving it “properly or respectfully.” The customers also challenge the idea that Intimate products belong to one demographic. Pamela rejects the notion of a typical customer. “My main customer isn’t a demographic, it’s a person curious enough to explore,” she said. “Pleasure has no single profile.” Kinky Closet LB sells to people across ages, genders and sexual orientations. SirrShop reports a similarly broad customer base, from 18-year-olds to customers in their 60s. Men currently represent a larger share of its customers.

Lebanon is talking about intimacy, just quietly

Both businesses have noticed Lebanese customers becoming more comfortable with sexual products. Pamela believes Kinky Closet LB helped create that shift. “For years, I made it safe for people to ask the questions they were too embarrassed to ask anywhere else,” she said. The change has not necessarily happened through public conversations. Instead, Kinky Closet LB has entered private gatherings, WhatsApp groups and late-night discussions between friends. “Normalization doesn’t always begin publicly,” Pamela said. “Sometimes it begins quietly, between people who finally feel safe enough to talk.”

SirrShop has observed a similar shift, particularly when products are framed around intimate wellness and understanding one’s sexuality rather than pleasure alone. Generational differences remain. Customers between roughly 20 and 25 tend to discuss products more comfortably than older customers, while men generally appear more open than women. Still, these patterns are not universal.

Privacy before pleasure

Even as the market becomes more open, customers do not want purchases announced to neighbours, families or delivery drivers. For both businesses, privacy remains central. “Privacy is non-negotiable,” Pamela said. “From day one, discretion and confidentiality have been part of the trust I built with my customers, from the conversation to the packaging and delivery.” She distinguishes shame-driven secrecy from privacy as a personal choice. “Discretion isn’t about treating pleasure like something that should be hidden,” she said. “It’s about respecting people’s boundaries.”

At SirrShop, packaging is plain and unbranded, delivery drivers are not told what they are carrying, invoices do not list individual products, and the company says purchases are not disclosed on packaging, paperwork or bank statements. The store also offers anonymous chat through an AI agent. For SirrShop, privacy is what makes the service possible. If customers fear exposure, many simply will not buy.

Selling something nobody wants to advertise

The difficulty does not end once customers decide to buy. Pamela said Kinky Closet LB has faced delays, changing requirements and supply disruptions that have caused significant financial losses. She has learned to treat that uncertainty as part of operating in “a category that isn’t always clearly understood or consistently handled.” SirrShop works with a separate logistics company and did not comment on customs procedures or import regulations. Advertising presents another obstacle. Pamela said Meta’s restrictions are often more challenging than presenting products to Lebanese customers. Rather than becoming less outspoken, she said the limitations have forced her to be more creative.

“I present pleasure the way I believe it deserves to be presented, with confidence, elegance and intention,” she said. “I’ve never confused openness with vulgarity.” SirrShop has taken a similarly careful approach, focusing on education, guidance and awareness rather than provocative content. The challenge is to attract attention without exposing customers, discuss sexuality without being blocked by platforms, and sell products without reducing the conversation to shock value.

Public taboo, private curiosity

These businesses expose a contradiction in Lebanon: sexual products remain uncomfortable to discuss publicly, yet people buy them privately. Pamela does not consider that hypocrisy, “Privacy is not hypocrisy,” she said. Instead, she believes sexuality is often presented publicly as either silence driven by shame or exaggerated provocation. “Both reduce something deeply human to an extreme,” she said. Her approach with Kinky Closet LB is to create a “third space” openness without sacrificing dignity. “Pleasure can be normalized without being trivialized, and sexual freedom should come with consent, boundaries, communication and responsibility,” she said.

SirrShop sees the divide similarly. Demand for intimate products suggests private attitudes have developed faster than public conversation. People may already be making decisions about their sexuality while lacking comfortable ways to discuss them. “The silence was never the absence of interest,” SirrShop said. “It was the absence of somewhere safe to be curious.”

Talking about intimacy differently

The larger change may not simply be that more sex toys are sold in Lebanon, but that businesses are changing the language around them. For Pamela, sexuality is connected to self-knowledge, consent, communication and boundaries. Customers may arrive seeking a product, but Kinky Closet LB is built on the idea that curiosity should not be embarrassing. She also resists dividing that curiosity by gender, age or sexuality. “Human is human,” she said. “Curiosity, desire and the need to understand ourselves exist across all of us.” Eight years after Kinky Closet LB began, sex toys still occupy an uncomfortable place in Lebanon’s public conversation. Customers continue to value anonymous questions, discreet deliveries and unmarked boxes.

But privacy does not mean the taboo is unchanged. Behind closed doors, in WhatsApp groups, between friends and through anonymous messages to businesses, Lebanese people are already having conversations that rarely enter public life. For Pamela, progress does not require turning every private subject into a public declaration. “Progress isn’t simply talking more about sex,” she said. “It’s learning to talk about it better.”