Tenga is a Japanese brand that has steadily been carving out a slice of the Western sex toy market over the last decade. They're famous for producing affordable and pleasurable male masturbation aids, and in Japan, Tenga's popularity is unmatched. The name "Tenga" is derived from a Japanese word meaning "elegant" and "refined," and you can see this influence clearly in the brand's award-winning designs.
Tenga accounts for around 70% of the Japanese sex toy market, with over 90% of men in their 20s having heard of them. Tenga has over 25 stores across Japan, and its products are available in over 25,000 locations nationwide. Tenga is one of the leading sex toy companies in the world, with a brand that stands for sex positivity, innovation, quality, and style.
Tenga is a popular brand here in the U.S., but its popularity is relatively new, so it can be difficult to find detailed information about it online. That's why we've created this detailed review of the Tenga brand, in which we'll dive into its history, explore its range of products, and look at what precisely makes Tenga such amazing masturbation aids!
About Tenga
Tenga is the brainchild of Koichi Matsumoto, a mechanic turned sex toy inventor. Matsumoto's lifelong passion for craftsmanship drove him to work as a classic car mechanic, and it was at this job that he developed an appreciation for customer satisfaction. The simple joy of seeing a customer's happy face kept him going, and he found fun and value in making people happy.
Tenga Catalog
He eventually moved back to his hometown, and it was here that Matsumoto developed a burning desire to create something new. He wanted to create something with a "soul" with a clear purpose, thought, and feeling behind it.
Tenga is the brainchild of Koichi Matsumoto, a mechanic turned sex toy inventor.
Matsumoto was struggling to find his feet until, one day, he found himself in the adult section of a DVD store. Surrounded by explicit masturbators packaged in pornographic boxes, devoid of branding or basic manufacturer details, Matsumoto found himself wondering: why is there so much shame attached to these products? It seemed to him that these products were causing people to feel ashamed for something as natural as masturbating.
Fifteen minutes later, Matsumoto had made up his mind: if there was no shame-free masturbator on the market, he would step up and create it - a product for the average Japanese male. As Matsumoto put it, "People have three basic desires: to eat, sleep and have sex - and there are already plenty of restaurants and finding someplace to sleep is easy enough." This was the birth of Tenga.
Matsumoto wanted to create a stylish, discreet product. He knew it needed to appeal to the conservative Japanese market, but he also wanted to promote sex positivity.
He wanted Tenga to have the brand integrity other products lacked, so he quit his job and focused all his time on creating prototypes. He worked tirelessly on the Tenga prototypes, researching masturbators and mixing design ideas with everyday materials. Matsumoto would test every prototype personally (a tradition he continues today) and was incredibly critical - if it didn't feel good, he'd start again from scratch.
Over a year and a half later, with funds running dry, Matsumoto was offered a lifeline - a chance to present his product to a distribution company. His presentation went down a storm, and in 2005, his first product line (the disposable Tenga CUP) launched, with a vision "To bring sexuality to the forefront, for everyone to enjoy." Tenga made over a million sales domestically in its first year.
Nowadays, Tenga is sold in 73 countries worldwide and has shipped over 140 million products worldwide. Tenga made almost 68 million dollars in 2022, and these sales figures keep rising year on year! Tenga has branched out from simple male masturbation aids and, these days, has its own range of lubes, lotions and assorted sex toys.
A Word From Our Expert
We've asked Certified Sexual Wellness Expert Danny Garrett to collaborate with our specialist team on this article and share his insights on the Tenga brand and its products.
Tenga represents a significant advancement in the field of male sexual wellness, offering an innovative and refined approach to masturbatory aids. This Japanese brand has masterfully redefined the aesthetic and functional standards of sex toys for men, emphasizing discreet and elegant designs that resonate with modern sensibilities. Products like the Tenga Egg, Cup series, and the Flip Hole exemplify the brand's dedication to creating unique and pleasurable experiences through meticulous design and technological innovation.
From a sexual health perspective, Tenga's commitment to safety and quality is commendable. The use of medical-grade materials ensures that each product is not only effective but also safe for body contact, addressing potential health concerns associated with lower-quality materials. Furthermore, the ease of cleaning these products supports optimal hygiene practices, which is a crucial aspect of sexual health.
Moreover, Tenga's discreet packaging and focus on privacy reflect a deep understanding of the personal nature of sexual wellness products. This sensitivity enhances the user experience, making it more comfortable and accessible for individuals to explore their sexuality.
Tenga's influence extends beyond the individual user experience, contributing to a broader cultural shift towards openness and acceptance of male masturbation as a natural and healthy activity. By prioritizing education and advocating for a positive dialogue around sexual wellness, Tenga plays a vital role in destigmatizing aspects of male sexuality and promoting a more informed and healthy perspective on sexual exploration and pleasure.
In summary, Tenga stands out for its innovative designs, commitment to safety, and educational efforts, making it a pivotal brand in promoting sexual health and wellness among men.
The Tenga Range
Let's not beat around the bush - Tenga's range is massive. and even their own edible range. By our counts, Tenga has over 20 different masturbator lines, and each line comes with a huge range of sensations, sizes, textures, and tightness.
Tenga masturbators have different designs, features, and functions, and they can loosely be categorized into either disposable or reusable.
Disposable masturbators are one-time use and typically come with a sachet of lube for convenience, while reusable masturbators improve upon disposables, repurposing design features with higher-quality materials or added functionality for an enhanced experience.
If you're interested in Tenga, we've put together a table of their most popular ranges alongside our expert's ratings to help you make an informed decision.
What makes Tenga products stand out?
Tenga's success is a combination of multiple factors. From its brand ethos to its innovative designs and technologies, Tenga's products have earned their reputation on a global scale. Let's take a look at what makes these toys so good.
1. Award-winning design
Tenga's design is well-regarded throughout the sex toy industry as some of the best, renowned for its simplicity, functionality, and innovation. Their masturbators aren't designed as a replacement for sex. Instead, Tenga has gone all in on masturbation for pleasure and created a range of aesthetic products designed with function and pleasure at the forefront.
Their designs are literally award-winning: Over the years, Tenga has won 14 awards for product design at the Red Dot Design Awards, a prestigious international design competition.
Recently, Tenga was awarded a Red Dot: Best of the Best award for the Tenga GEO - this is an award reserved for outstanding design that only a small percentage of entrants have won, and it marked the first time a sex toy had ever won this award in the Red Dot's 65-year history!
Tenga has fully embraced the elegant and refined nature reflected in their name; their masturbators have some of the most stylish and discreet designs on the market. We mean it when we say that some of their designs would look more at home in an art gallery than on your bedside table - take a look at the Tenga 3D or Crysta if you don't believe us - but they're also packed full of sensuous nubs, bumps, and ridges that help maximize pleasure.
Even Tenga's disposable range comes with a variety of internal textures that stimulate with each stroke, and the material used in their designs means their products are flexible and will fit most sizes. Coupled with Tenga's intelligent design, their products offer a completely unique experience.
2. Presence in popular culture
Over the years, Tenga has carved out a niche in popular culture, solidifying its place in the worldwide market through brand collaborations, marketing, and media appearances. Tenga is one of the more frequently mentioned male masturbators in mainstream media - partly due to its sex-positive ethos as well as its widely accepted name.
Tenga has been featured in documentary episodes, T.V. shows, as well as music videos - and has even released a rap video, which was later performed live, advertising its range of sexual enhancement drinks!
Their positioning within popular culture allows Tenga to present itself as accessible and entertaining, helping normalize the conversation about sexuality in Japan.
Tenga has collaborated with artists, designers, and influencers on their range of masturbators, perhaps most notably artist Keith Haring. Tenga released a Japanese exclusive range of the Tenga CUP designed as robots that can transform, and even more amazingly, sent a Tenga rocket into space just a few years ago, carrying messages of "love and freedom."
Their positioning within popular culture allows Tenga to present itself as accessible and entertaining, helping normalize the conversation about sexuality in Japan.
3. Pioneer in the masturbator industry
Tenga was the first sex toy company to popularize the disposable masturbator. They've been at the forefront of innovation for years, a trait that goes back to Matsumoto's desire to create unique products that make people happy and bring "new ideas to the world."
Tenga threw out the rulebook when it comes to pleasure - from their inception they've challenged traditional notions of male sex toys and prioritized quality, innovation, and sophistication. Tenga's slick designs have changed the way Japan views sex toys, and they've consistently embraced new technologies and materials in their product range.
Tenga was the first sex toy company to popularize the disposable masturbator.
While a lot of popular male sex toy brands like to focus on realism as a replacement for sex, Tenga bucked the trend and has built its brand on pleasure for pleasure's sake - masturbation as an enjoyable healthy act rather than a sexual stand-in.
The engineers at Tenga love to innovate and often need to create new manufacturing processes to complete their designs. They've even had to create their own manufacturing equipment to ensure that their products meet Tenga's high standards. From products like the Tenga EGG to more recent toys like the FLIP ZERO, Tenga has consistently pushed the boundaries of male sex toys.
4. Use of Tenga in clinical tests
Tenga holds the unique position of being one of the few sex toys directly referenced and recommended in clinical trials and peer-reviewed journals. Tenga has helped assist people in cases of premature ejaculation, ejaculatory disorder, and erectile dysfunction following surgery.
In these studies, scientists used either the Tenga EGG or the Tenga CUP, which they explain is due to their mainstream availability and ease of use. Tenga products are disposable and hygienic, allow people to maintain constant grip pressure, and offer different strengths of stimulation, ensuring consistent rehabilitation efforts.
All studies point to Tenga providing effective and consistent results after repeat use.
One study noted that participants' erection hardness increased after eight weeks of using Tenga's stamina training CUP, a positive side effect of their research into ejaculation disorder treatment. Another reported that self-esteem levels increased across the majority of participants after repeated Tenga EGG use.
In 2016, Tenga created Tenga Healthcare to work with academic experts and medical organizations to educate the public on sexual health and improve their overall sexual wellness. Through this brand, Tenga has worked with prominent sexual health specialists to create a range of training aids, supplements, and lotions that aim to solve common bedroom issues.
5. Material Choice
Tenga products are all made from high-quality thermoplastic elastomers (TPE), silicone, or a blend of both. These materials are body-safe and phthalate-free (a group of harmful chemicals used in the everyday production of many items.) Tenga ensures they choose premium materials for products to minimize any harmful risks.
Silicone is non-porous, which means it can be fully cleaned and sterilized as it has no minuscule openings that could harbor bacteria. TPE is a porous material, but as long as you clean and store it correctly after every use, it should remain clean and bacteria-free. Typically TPE is suitable for toys that go over the penis but shouldn't be used internally.
The outer casings for Tenga products are either plastic or polymers, which are both non-porous.
Cleaning these materials is simple: just use some mild soap or a dedicated sex toy cleaner, rinse with warm water, and leave them to air dry. In the case of 100% silicone sex toys, you can boil or dishwash them for thorough disinfection.
Due to these materials, we recommend you avoid oil-based or silicone-based lubricants, as they can degrade your Tenga products, and instead use a water-based lubricant.
6. Affordability
A key feature of Tenga products is their affordability. Disposable items are cheap by nature, and Tenga has multiple ranges of disposable masturbators that retail for very low prices despite their high-quality materials.
Tenga wants their products to be affordable and accessible to people from all walks of life, hence their budget-friendly options that can match more expensive masturbators on stimulation, pleasure, and sensation.
A key feature of Tenga products is their affordability.
That's not to say their reusable range is expensive either - these offer long-term value for money and only start to get pricier as more high-tech features are added, like vibration or suction. Many people prefer Tenga's reusable masturbators as they're more sustainable than the disposable range.
7. Accessibility
It's natural that Tenga, a brand dedicated to revolutionizing sexual pleasure, would want its toys to be accessible to as many people as possible. Their male range of masturbators is excellent - it caters to men of all sizes with its "U.S." range and has options for people with reduced erectile function, as well as support aids to allow those with disabilities to enjoy their products.
Tenga has also branched out into female pleasure products with their Iroha range of vibrators and masturbators, as well as couples toys designed to enhance relationship intimacy. Recently, Tenga released the Tenga UNI, their first universal sex toy designed with an innovative reversible design for anyone regardless of gender or sexuality, and that can be used solo or in a couple.
Summary
Tenga is a brand that sprang from an engineer's desire to create a product with soul, a mainstream male sex toy that would promote masturbation as a healthy, natural activity. They have remained true to that vision with all the new products they've released and continue to push sex-positivity forward.
Whatever your gender or sexuality, Tenga wants to help you feel comfortable and at ease with masturbation and is working towards destigmatizing sex for everyone. Tenga would be an excellent choice for someone new to male sex toys or for someone on a budget, but their premium options also offer a range of innovative textures, intense sensations, and artistic designs.
With their off-the-wall approach to sex toy design, years of expertise, and a dedicated focus on user experience, Tenga has solidified its status as a masturbation trailblazer within the sex toy market.
Tenga's huge range of masturbators offers something for every man - proof of their commitment to inclusivity and pleasure for all.
If you're interested in purchasing a Tenga product but don't know where to begin, we've got a host of expert reviews available with all the necessary information to help you make the best decision for yourself.
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