Obstacle One: Shipping
The arrival of sex toys at any home inhabited by one's parents or other potentially judgmental humans can be a terrifying and stressful experience. The endlessly creative stream of what-if scenarios racing through one's brain put even Stan Lee's implausible and convoluted plots to shame.
Let's first deal with this using logic and when that fails, we'll move on to paranoid spy fantasies. But all good secret agents know that it's best to base a plan on reality, so we really must start with logic.
First of all, any decent sex toy retailer will ship your products in a plain box, with a discreetly vague return address. They will not fill your mailbox with a deluge of sexy junk mail for the rest of your mortal days. Well, the bad ones will, and if you make that mistake, your cover story is this: your worst friend, the one your parents hate and you're tired of anyway because he's a terrible loser at Settlers of Catan, put you on the mailing list as a joke. But it won't come to that, because you're going to make sure that somewhere on your chosen retailer's FAQ page there's a promise to never send junk mail, because your privacy matters. If they refuse to promise this, go elsewhere.
If you're still convinced someone will magically guess the contents of your box, or worse yet, open it, there are several simple steps you can take to combat this danger. First of all, use a site with a shipping calculator -- not the one eBay has, that allegedly uses your zip code to estimate shipping costs and yet always returns the same price, but rather the one EdenFantasys uses to estimate the arrival date of your package. It's pretty darn accurate, and you can choose your shipping method to match the optimal arrival date. Ideally, you'll be home, and home alone.
It's also helpful to know what time of day a package might arrive. Through many hours of anxiously awaiting your special variant cover of Fantastic Four, you already know when your mail comes. Make a note of when UPS and FedEx drive through your neighborhood as well, for a truly informed shipping decision.
Once you have all the facts pertaining to your shipment, it's time to plan for worst case scenarios. Do you have a cover story for the arriving box? The most believable lie is the one you can instantly prove. Before even scheduling your shipment, place an amazon order containing at least three items, preferably things you'd order anyway. Waste is bad. When the amazon box arrives, save one of those items -- the one in shrink wrap looks the most convincingly brand new -- and hide it. Then, should your sex toys arrive with witnesses in the area, you can pull a classic switch. Casually walk the box to your hideout, dump the contents into hiding, and reemerge with the empty box and your shrink wrapped DVD from amazon, which you will now slice out of its shrink wrap in the kitchen. You can even leave an amazon packing slip in the empty cardboard box, and put it in the recycling bin. A little white out and a copy machine makes it easy enough to change a three item packing slip to a single item packing slip.
If all of that seems like entirely too much trouble, spring for a post office box, or request that UPS hold your packages at the local UPS store (you can do that at the UPS website), and then bring your purchases home in the bottom of a comic book box on a Wednesday afternoon. Nobody will blink.
Obstacle Two: Storage
Your first instinct is probably to hide your new sex toys so cleverly that you'll never find them again and each use will require three hours of ninja maneuvers and a really big shovel. Ignore that instinct, or your sexual frustration will never end.
Sex toys should be stored in the bedroom, in a clean, dry location that can be reached without moving furniture. Before your toys arrive, get a box that locks. A toolbox, a small piece of luggage, a briefcase -- anything that's not suspiciously pink will do. Fill it with anything your family will actively ignore, and then leave it somewhere that will make them nag you to put it away. You've now trained them to ignore it. You could leave it on the dining room table unlocked, and they'd likely never open it. Of course, don't test that theory, Murphy's Law isn’t fun for anyone.
Your locking box should be kept locked at all times and keep the key within reach of it. Yes, I hear you screaming in horror at the obvious flaw in that plan, but keep reading. Position a decoy container between the sex toy box and the key, leave it unlocked, and fill it with something dreadfully boring. I use a locking CD case full of unlabeled DVDs containing episodes of Nova. By the time a nosy snoop gets done watching them all, in search of porn to overreact at, they'll be far too bored to go after the sex toys.
If you're really ambitious, you can hide your toys in a hidden compartment built into your headboard, or behind a false panel in a bookshelf. Just make sure that your hiding place isn't so complex that your laziness will overpower your libido.
Obstacle Three: Will They Hear It?
Short answer: no. Before you order any toys, you'll carefully study the specs and the user reviews. Buy only toys that promise near silence. There are plenty of high end toys that meet that criterion, and a fair number of modestly priced options do as well. Turn on the television, and let the adventures of the Enterprise or the TARDIS drown out any remaining buzz.
Enjoy your new lack of complete sexual frustration.