Estimated Population in Chastity

Given I am an atheist I could not agree more. If they did that when they took vows it would be better for a lot of innocent pepole.
And just think of the economic upturn with the sale of all those chastity cages! A way to get a V shaped recovery after covid!!

 

I like the logical analysis but disagree with this particular assumption. I think that most peope that will take the time and money to order a (even cheap) device are going to give it a try, and many will get hooked. Of course many will get resistance from the SO, etc, but I would estimate at least 10-20% of sales are of serious intent. This brings us into 7 digits, not bad.

I offer myself as an example: mainstream, hyper vanilla, Christian. Introduce a cage and I'm hooked (still don't understand it)! My GF had 2 friends recommend it that led similar lives outwardly. My kids joke about "caged" or "cucked" husbands (before anything started here) so this must be common talk in their circles.

Based on all this I would estimate as high as 1% of couples in US/EU.

 

If so that's a huge number, but it does not equate to the limited numbers who use the various forums.

I think lots try it few persist with it, and lots of men do solo play. But overall I think it's far more limited than it would seem from the sale of devices.

I agree that it is becoming more popular much like BDSM, following several very poor films!! With the younger generation becoming far less prudish due to the advent of the Internet and the wide variety or porn and information on sexual kinks which equates to greater experimentation than previous generations.

 

One of my sons, noticing a guy going out of his way to help his wife said "she's got a lock on His dick!" to which his brother said "oh, yeah" rather nonchalantly. I had no idea what they meant at the time but remembered the conversation when ordering one of my 1st cages.

 

I agree 1% "feels" too high, but if you include all those that use it occasionally as a toy, and consider that many would consider CM as "out there" (I know I did at first) then it plausible that the number is much higher than forum membrrships.

 

Yes, in the same way that membership of car forums, marriage forums, gardening forums, or banking forums, is not at all representative of the number of people who own cars, are married, do gardening, or who use banks.
With most things, most people just 'do it' and don't talk about it online, even more so when it might be socially embarrassing for them.

 

One reason I suspect the numbers are surprisingly high is that chastity is oddly different from other fetishes. I can't quite articulate why, though.

 

I don't know if it's different, but I think it can be viewed as an auxiliary or crossover fetish. That is, it can be a bondage thing, an FLR thing, a cuckold thing, a sissy thing, a DS or BDSM thing. In other words, devices can be used just by themselves (as Mrs Edge and I do), or be a part of other scenes.

Mrs Edge likes the idea of holding the control over me, as if she is taming a wild animal. But some men wear them for the opposite reason; licking their tonker away makes them feel emasculated. Some men like the emasculation humiliation aspect, while others use it to play down their feeling of having a penis.

A lot of men fixate on the "sit to pee" aspect, which for me, is a hard pass when considering a device. And vanilla couples probably just enjoy the tease and denial aspects.

Blindfolds and handcuffs are generally bedroom only items, while a cage can be worn daily without it impacting your regular life.

 

Yes, I've said as much myself. It's the Swiss Army knife of kink!

I think there's something else as well, though. If you think about it, most modern fetishes have old roots. You can find crossdressing, puppy play, stockings, boots, corsets the works in 1930s art, and much earlier.

Male chastity, however, originally appeared via medical appliances and non-western adornment. It only spread once the internet was there so people could know it exists. It's as if it satisfies a very primal urge that's not really a fetish in the usual sense, more an evolutionary trap: there's some urge to restrict erections and clutch our genitals. My guess is that any such primal urge is also a relatively common one, somewhere between the percentage of men who are gay and the percentage of those who harbour submissive urges. As devices get cheaper and better, male chastity devices will become as standard toybox items as butt plugs are.

 

Another point of reference - you can now buy male chastity devices from Walmart.

 

Lol realy that is hilarious which Isle are they in!!!

 

I wonder how prevalent male chastity is in Muslim countries. First, these countries are very conservative, and second, they are very patriarchal. Male chastity and FLR sounds like the ultimate taboo for a Muslim.

 

Given that even "normal" sex toys are prohibited (illegal) in some middle eastern countries, I would suspect the odds of chastity is pretty low, if anything, it may be female chastity with MLR as the predominant lifestyle.

 

This is a strong indicator - not specifically Walmart, but the sheer number of vendors who sell them, and the number of different models and designs by each. They have to be selling reasonable numbers just to stay in business.

 

Another slightly weird point of data. The Quiui Cellmate Bluetooth Chastity Device turns out to be really very insecure. The whistleblowing website was able to extract what they said was a small sample of user locations, which they published as a map. It's... intriguing:


For a start, I've always wondered how much chastity actually goes on in China: quite a bit, it seems.

 

Update - the security people guestimate 40K users.



Glancing at the map, that gives us about 12K users in the USA.

As of 10 years ago, the US had 60,000K men fit for military age.

That gives us 0.02%

So what proportion of the market is the Cellmate? I think no more than 5%. If so, that gives us 0.4% of Western men have chastity device.

 

Interesting. CB-X has been around 20 years, and were the only game going in cages for quite a while. They claim to be the largest manufacturer, with 200k total sales worldwide. A $190 upstart selling 1/5 that number in a couple years is a strong claim. There don't seem to be many users here, where serious practitioners are likely to surface, nor are there common reports at the other forum.

Also notable from the article, on 25JUN20, Qiui claimed to have $50,000 in liquid assets. If they sold 40k @ $189, they grossed north of 7.5 million, $50k would be 0.6% of total sales. Three to six months cash on hand is recommended for small businesses, so they are either being coy about their available funds, are dreadfully short of funds, or have expenses (production, payroll, logistics, etc) of at most $200k/year, which is not compatible with annual sales of 20-25k units, more like 2-4k. Might there be a trend towards multiple "friends" per device boosting the estimate? Seems like that would be an awful lot of people handing over control to a lot of other people (5-10 keyholders per purchaser?), so either there's something wrong with the estimation, or something fishy at Qiui.

"As of 10 years ago, the US had 60,000K men fit for military age."

Many users here seem to be above military age, if that's typical, it dilutes the percentage a bit; per the most recent census, there are about 3/4 as many 45-64 as 25-44. I'd argue census numbers are the better way to go, conditions disqualifying military service would not likely affect the ability or interest to practice chastity play. So, 174M from 18-64, plus 35M 65 and over. That's a total of roughly 2 1/3 the number of men fit for service (last year's census vs ten years ago per your link).

That's before we categorize "bought a chastity device" vs "wear a device sometimes" vs "wear a device often/continuously" vs all of the previous with a keyholder.

On the other hand, they would only detect activated devices? That would underestimate total sales at least slightly.

Just a couple thoughts than spring up.

 

Those are all good thoughts and caveats!

I agree that the financial picture seems odd. However, perhaps they are merely incompetent, or blew it all on drugs, or the cost of development was high. Let's assume the figures are as estimated for now...

Somebody on Twitter said that you needed 2 registrations per device, one for the wearer, one for the keyholder. So, that takes it to 20K users.

Is that plausible?

First of all, the CB-x figure is old, and that device grew pre-Internet boom. A more recent data point is Tall Chaste Guy's estimate that Steelworxx sell 2K devices a year, or about 5 a day. (He did this based on ordering two devices and looking at their serial numbers and extrapolating from the time lag.)

If it's been around for 2 years, then Cellmate sells at 5 times the rate, which sounds about right given that Steelworxxs are more artisanal, and being solid metal, more niche.

That's still a lot of Cellmate users, why aren't they here?

Two reasons. First, most experienced chastity wearers take one look at that design and say, "no." Second, the Cellmate is a killer app for online mistresses and their clients, who are under-represented here.

That last point might explain Cellmate's success. It's largely being pushed by internet prodommes.

What does this mean for numbers?

I think "Military age"is an OK proxy, because older people are more conservative, younger ones don't get into this kink so quickly: what you lose at the bottom you gain at the top. However, using the census gives us a good lower bound (think that's the right term).

So that gives us 1 in 10,000 to 20,000 US guys own a Cellmate chastity device.

Though they are underrepresented on our forums, these are all guys who wear a chastity device seriously, 24 hours a day, otherwise there is no point in the bluetooth app.

If the current number of users is stable, meaning as many starting as finishing, then based on the Steelworxx guestimate, and there being about half a dozen serious chastity device makers, we can guess double that number of serious chastity users:

Serious chastity users = 1 in 5K to 10K.

Pareto's Principle (80/20 rule) lets us guestimate that there are at least 4 times that number of casual users of any chastity device, hence 5 times that number of men with a device.

That takes it to 1 in 1K to 2K, or between 0.1% and 0.05% men have a chastity device.

I'm not sure how that compares to some of the estimates upthread!

I will say that I'm sure these are clustered according to socioeconomic factors. For example, about a 1/3rd of the population are graduates. Suppose it's concentrated on them?

 

Key thing is not taking sales into account, many pepole have multiple devices and still only play at chastity.

I have over the years bought 12 devices several of the cheap plastic/silicon kind CB, Holly trainer, birdlocked etc. I also bought a cell mate to see what it was like and whilst the app is fun the device itself (cage element is poorly made and definatley not some thing for long term wear)
So basically whatever figure you put on sales I would suggest you need to look at may be one fifth being the number of chastity purchasers and then look at the proportion who are likley to use them longterm /life style v those who play or have tried it and given up etc.
Probably less than 5 % of the 20% of sales are lifestyle type users.
Not sure how that plays into your figures...

 

Does that apply to "serious" devices, though? Are you likely to have more than one of those?

 

Yes several pepole I have chatted with have multiple loris, mature metal, steelworxxx devices etc.

I actually think the more serious you are, over the years you try multiple bespoke devices trying to get the perfect fit and comfort and security(the Holy Grail of devices). This includes full belts.

As an example I have two full belts a couple of steel devices as well as the cheeper ones and am awaiting delivery of a Lori's 16.

I have corresponded with several pepole who are in long term chastity and most if not all have multiple devices bought over years.

Ms Lori as an example is snowed under with orders, they make currently between 100 and 120 devices a year, with a now approaching 9 month order time due to order volume and covid delays.
Each at a cost of between $600 to $1000

 

Thanks! In that context, would sales per year be in proportion to users?

As in, "each serious user buys on average X high-end devices a year."

If so, Serious Users = Yearly Sales of Serious Devices / X.

 

Not nearly enough!

 

That's some pretty good reasoning. Although, if there are two registrations per Cellmate (minimally), that make 6k US users, topping out at 1 in 10k of your military age metric.

Anecdotally, it seems, around here, at least, 50+ is better represented than under 40. I suspect disposable income, reduced libido (I can't imagine trying this at 20, I was delirious if I hadn't ejaculated in 12 hours or so), and stable relationships where heavier kink can be negotiated.

1 in 1k or 2k as serious practitioners is maybe not wildly out of line.