John Lewis has backed the ‘summer of sex’ campaign launched by Labour MP Samantha Niblett to help end the social stigma surrounding sexual health and pleasure
Respected department store John Lewis is said to have backed Labour MP Samantha Niblett’s “summer of sex” campaign.
The South Derbyshire MP has confirmed that her parliamentary sex toy exhibition will go ahead. The drive also has the firm backing of luxury sexual wellness company Coco de Mer.
The political and public health drive advocates for comprehensive, lifelong sex education and in removing the social stigma surrounding sexual health and pleasure. Ms Niblett has spoken about wanting to display a number of sex toys in Parliament as part of a stunt promoting the campaign.
At a launch event for her campaign last week, the parliamentarian said: “I was a little worried about putting my head above the parapet because actually, who wants to hear their MP talk about sex?”
She reportedly said that she wants to be a “part of the change of the culture” in Westminster. According to The Spectator, John Lewis hosted the launch event, with partygoers given luxury goodie bags which were full of ‘intimate bodycare products’, along with biscuits and canned cocktail drinks.
She has previously said she hopes that bringing the toys into parliament will help promote open discussion around sexual pleasure and consent. The MP said: “Lots of people are turning to pornography for their sex education and they are seeing awful things like strangulation. I just believe it should be ethical and it should show real sex and real people.”
The development comes as John Lewis has seen sales of sex toys more than double in a year. The upmarket store is flogging the “Ferrari of sex toys” – Coco de Mer’s £145 Pleasure No.6 Intimate Wand vibrator in its line of devices.
The retailer – which has a royal warrant to supply goods to the King – previously said the line of sex toys was introduced after a sharp rise in customer searches on the website.
The high end store started selling the adult pleasure devices in 2024 and declared sexual wellbeing is no longer a “taboo” subject. But some customers were stunned to see them advertised in its in-house magazine.
Ms Niblett told Sky News she felt that sex education isn’t good enough and should be more comprehensive, not just in schools but on the NHS too.
She added: “If we feel embarrassed just to talk about what is deemed as consensual, pleasurable sex, how on earth are we going to talk about horrible, awful, non-consensual rape? How can we do that?”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is far from excited by the campaign. The leader of the opposition dubbed the initiative as a self-absorbed and non-legislative distraction.
Badenoch penned on X: “One of the improvements we’re making to our candidate selection process is screening for this tendency. Conservatives are weeding out the self-absorbed who come into politics because they couldn’t get into showbiz.
“For these poseurs, being an MP is not about legislating to make people’s lives easier, safer and richer but a platform to campaign for their personal hobby-horses and other self-promoting activity. They waste a lot of Parliament’s time with trivia, creating unwelcome delays and distraction from their colleagues’ work and focus on serious matters.”
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