this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
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[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I take it that this Lily Allen person does designer goods.

searches

Apparently so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Allen

Karl Lagerfeld, the head designer for Chanel, personally hired and photographed Allen for a campaign to promote a luxury line of handbags due to launch in September 2009.[154][155] Allen and her sister opened their own clothing store, titled "Lucy in Disguise", on 15 September 2010.

I don't really think that butt plugs are a very good choice as a designer product, in most cases.

Designer clothing is probably going to generally be a Veblen good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

A Veblen good is a type of luxury good for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. They are named after American economist Thorstein Veblen who described the contradiction.

The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.

The problem with sex toys as Veblen goods is that Veblen goods benefit from being high-visibility, and sex toys generally can't be high visibility. Like, you probably can't generally be walking around making it clear to as many people as possible that you have a particularly expensive object up your butt.

I'd think that for this sort of thing to be successful, you'd either have to be, oh, having the thing visible at some sort of event where sex toys are on display and you're aiming to score status points with the people there, or you'd have to alter social norms to the point that having butt plugs generally on display is a thing.

[–] fratermus@piefed.social 3 points 6 days ago

sex toys generally can’t be high visibility

I was thinking those fox tails were for furry purposes but maybe it's an economic function.