Sexy Gifts Under $50 That Don't Feel Cheap
By Zoey Unicorn · 8 min read
Okay but like, this is genuinely the hardest price bracket. Under ten and everyone understands it is a joke. Over a hundred and the gift speaks for itself. Somewhere in the middle you have to actually have taste, because the shelves are full of things that cost forty dollars and feel like they cost four.
The rule I use is that a thing either has to be genuinely funny, genuinely useful, or made of something I would actually want touching me. If it is none of those, it is landfill with a bow on it.
Fifty is the number that changes what is possible. Under thirty you can buy someone a great joke, a good book or something to wear. At fifty you can buy them a real toy from a brand worth owning, which is a completely different gift. So this is sorted by who you are buying for rather than by what it is, because that is how anybody actually shops for a present.
Under thirty, where the funny stuff lives
This tier is not the consolation bracket. It is where the best jokes are, and a gift that makes a room laugh has done its whole job before anyone gets it home.
Golden GILFS Coloring Book
The coloring books are the quiet best sellers of this whole category, and this one outsells the rest of them combined. It is funny sitting on a table and then people genuinely pick it up and color it in at eleven at night, which is a lot more than most fifteen dollar gifts manage.
Shop it · $15 →The rest of the under $30 tier
The bath bomb deserves its own sentence, because there is a bullet vibrator hidden inside it. It looks like a nice bath thing right up until it dissolves, which makes it the best sixteen dollars in the shop and a great gift for somebody who would be too shy to buy a toy for themselves. Shop all books and coloring books →
For the friend with a filthy sense of humor
The gift here is not the object. It is the ninety seconds where everyone in the room loses it. Judge accordingly. Plushies are the safe pick when you are only about seventy percent sure of somebody's humor, because nobody has ever been offended by something soft.
Brat Bondage Bear
The joke gift that survives the joke. Properly made, properly soft, trussed up in tiny harness straps, and the one thing in this section people actually keep out on a shelf instead of hiding when their mother visits. The red pony is its equally unhinged sibling.
Shop it · $40 →More that will get a reaction
Ornaments are a year round buy in my experience, not a December one. People give them as keepsakes, for a first apartment or an inside joke, and then it comes out of the box every year and the joke lands again. The Going To Daddy's House bag belongs in this tier too, because it is a punchline you can actually carry, and it is the rare gag gift with a job.
Games, books, and the bachelorette table
Give people something to do rather than something to own. A game or a book puts the idea on the table without putting anything on the table, and either person can pick it up first, which is the entire point.
Clone a Pussy Kit
Not a toy, a project. It is a molding kit you use yourself to cast a keepsake, which makes it the funniest thing you can put on a bachelorette table and a genuinely sweet long distance gift depending entirely on who is opening it. Bring it to a party and it becomes the whole party.
Shop it · $35 →Something to do together
Shop all adult games, gifts and books →
For a partner, not for a friend
Some of this only works when you are the person they are sleeping with. The oral kits are a lovely gift for a partner and a very funny one at a bachelorette or a birthday where everybody is in on it. What they are not is something you hand a colleague at a secret santa. Read the room before you wrap it.
HighOnLove Massage Oil
If you want one gift that cannot possibly land wrong, it is this. Strawberries and champagne, a bottle nice enough to leave out, and it turns an ordinary evening into an actual event without asking anybody to be brave. Massage is the gift that gives you both something to do with your hands.
Shop it · $45 →Partner gifts and party gags
On the teddy, and lingerie generally: do not guess at a size. There is nothing romantic about a number that is wrong. A teddy is the most forgiving thing you can buy because it is one piece with nothing to align, but if you are not certain, buy the oil instead.
Their first real toy, which is what fifty dollars actually buys
Here is the section that only exists because the ceiling moved. At thirty dollars I would have told you not to buy anyone a toy, because below about thirty five you are into materials and motors that will disappoint somebody who is already nervous, and a bad first experience puts people off the whole idea for years.
Between thirty five and fifty that stops being true. Buy body safe silicone, buy a name you recognize, and skip anything at this price that will not tell you what it is made of.
Dame Fin 2.0
The least intimidating first toy there is, because it sits between your fingers rather than replacing your hand. Dame design things well enough that this reads as an object rather than a sex toy sitting on a nightstand, which matters enormously when you are giving one as a gift.
Shop it · $49 →Also worth giving
The Jessi is the budget pick and it earns it, because rechargeable at twenty eight dollars is rare and battery powered bullets are where cheap toys go to disappoint people. The print also makes it the obvious gift for a stoner babe, which is a real gifting category whether or not anybody admits it.
For someone who is kink curious
The trick with a kink gift is that it should read as an invitation rather than an instruction. A starter set does that better than a single piece of hardware, because a set arrives looking like an idea rather than a demand. Collars are the riskier end and you should only buy one for a person who has told you out loud that they would like one.
Naughty in Pink Set
Better value than buying the same pieces separately, because somebody has already worked out which things go together and how they should match. Pink enough to be unintimidating, complete enough to actually use, and a much easier thing to unwrap in company than a single piece of hardware.
Shop it · $39 →Other starter sets and collars
The satin set is the softest entry point of the three, literally and otherwise, and at twenty six dollars it is the one I would give somebody who has hinted rather than asked. Shop all bondage beginner sets →
When it has to be a real present
Sometimes the occasion will not carry a joke. An anniversary, a first Christmas together, the birthday where you have already used the funny gift three years running. For that you want something made specifically for them, because personalized is the one category where under fifty dollars stops being visible at all.
Engraved Custom Heart Necklace
Here is the part people miss: it does not have to be a name. It can be an inside joke, a date, a nickname only you two use, a title somebody earned, or a word you would absolutely not say out loud at dinner, sitting on a chain that goes to dinner anyway. Real jewelry, thirty nine dollars, and nobody else in the room has any idea what it means.
Shop it · $39 →Also made to order
The bar necklace gives you more characters to play with, which matters if the word you have in mind is a whole phrase. And the rhinestone collar is the same idea pointed at somebody who has already told you what they are into. Shop all jewelry →
Wrapping it so it does not read desperate
Presentation carries a gift further than almost anything else you can do to it. Take it out of the shipping packaging, which is always the thing that makes something look like it cost what it cost. Tissue paper, a proper box, done.
The other thing is the card, and specifically what you write in it. A joke gift with a sincere note is a great gift. A sincere gift with a joke note is a confusing one. Pick a register and stay in it.
And if you are buying this for a partner and you are secretly hoping it changes something between you, say that part out loud separately from the gift. Objects are terrible at carrying messages. People assume the worst version of what you meant, every time, and then nobody uses the thing.
If your budget goes further than fifty, the gifts for her guide picks up right where this one stops.
