New York may be synonymous with Sex and The City, and Seattle is the home of the 50 Shades of Grey love dungeon but Carrie, Samantha and Christian Grey would be equally at home in Manchester, named the UK's "sexiest city" in new research in sex toys.
Researchers found colder northern cities in the UK were more likely to heat up under the sheets with a sex toy or two, according to date from Desire and Pleasure, a sex toy retailer which funds sexual health charity FPA.
Demand for sex toys like vibrators and bondage gear has boomed, increasing 92% in the last two-and-a-half years.
The research looked at 30 months of online searches from across the UK, gathering evidence of people’s purchasing habits for sex toys.
The UK’s Top 15 Sexiest Towns and Cities
1. Manchester
2. London
3. Sheffield
4. Glasgow
5. Edinburgh
6. Nottingham
7. Liverpool
8. Cardiff
9. Birmingham
10. Leeds
11. Bristol
12. Reading
13. Brighton
14. Leicester
15. Milton Keynes
London came second in the study, with the cities of Sheffield, Glasgow and Edinburgh completing the top five.
Terry Hawkins, Business Development Manager at FPA says: “People are understandably reluctant to discuss their sexual habits, so we used an analysis of online behaviour to show what their sexual habits really are.
“It’s clear that the UK has seen a huge increase in demand for sex toys over the last two and a half years, with interest up by an average of 92%. It seems that cities in the north of the UK are leading this trend making up four of our top five sexiest cities.”
Retailers believe the growth in online sex toy purchases is the anonymity of the internet, allowing the nervous man who once shuffled in an overcoat around Ann Summers, to hide behind the safety of his computer.
Terry believes that this growth in interest across the UK is being fuelled by the greater anonymity offered by the internet, allowing us to overcome our traditional shyness when it comes to buying sex products.