Adult toymakers lust for ‘Fifty Shades’ movie

The impact of "Fifty Shades of Grey" on the porn world is hard to overstate.

The explicit best seller sparked an interest in areas that were largely considered taboo at the time—resulting in a sizable interest in both DVDs that dealt with the subject of bondage and the multiple adult novelty accessories that are part of the culture.

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The frenzy over the book has died down over the past year though, and so have sales of sex gadgets, according to industry representatives attending this week's Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.

"It's not the gasoline that it once was," said Scott Taylor, founder and president of adult film studio New Sensations and adult toy company NS Novelties. "What was most significant for us was the increase in sales of Kegel eggs, which were iconic in the book. At the time, we didn't know how many to order, because it never seemed to be enough. That wave is definitely gone."

Brian Sofer, a strategist for Eldorado, a distributor of sex toys to adult stores, agrees.

"It's definitely contracting," he said. "We certainly enjoyed the publicity it gave our industry, but it was a fluke and those numbers are now correcting."

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However, when the Hollywood adaptation of the novel is released in February 2015, the adult industry hopes for renewed interest.

Adult novelty companies were the biggest beneficiaries of E.L. James' erotic trilogy. Sales of restraints, whips and other items mentioned in "Fifty Shades" skyrocketed by as much as 400 percent at some companies after it became a mainstream phenomenon.