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Understanding These 2 Types of Sexual Desire Will Help You Feel In Control of Your Libido

Introducing: Spontaneous and responsive desire.

By Gabrielle Kassel

By now, you’ve probably heard a sexual health pro say—punctuated by 👏👏👏, of course—that porn is entertainment, not education. And that’s true. But there’s another type of media that shoves lies about what sex “should” (eye roll) look like down our collective throat: Romantic comedies.

One of the ideas these films have implanted into our brains? That the desire to get it on hits you out of nowhere—BAM! As a sex writer, this really gets me heated (as in, mad, not horny) considering only an estimated 15 to 20 percent of cisgender women (vs. 75 percent of cisgender men) primarily experience sexual desire in this way, according to sex researcher Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., in her book Come As You Are. (ICYDK, here’s the definition of “cisgender” and more about gender identity.)

“Most often depicted in movies, spontaneous desire is the urge for sex that hits you out of nowhere,” says Jill McDevitt, Ph.D, resident sexologist for sex toy emporium CalExotics. But what’s much more common for (cisgender) women is something called responsive sexual desire, which is when the desire comes in response to (or after) sexual activity has already (consensually) started. Meaning, sexual activity begets arousal, versus the other way around.

As McDevitt puts it: “Spontaneous desire is sex on the kitchen counter. Responsive desire is watching Netflix together, and starting to feel a tingle when your partner starts to trace the outline of your shorts during the sex scene in the movie you’re watching.”

The good news: Once you understand how these two types of sexual desire work, you can hack your sex life so you can start having as much (or as little) sex as you want! But first, scroll down.

Spontaneous vs. Responsive Sexual Desire

First things first: Both styles of sexual desire are normal and healthy. Unfortunately, people (especially cisgender women) who primarily experience responsive desire assume that they’re sexually defunct because their desire doesn’t look like Mila Kunis’s in Friends with Benefits. (See: Why Your Lack of Sex Drive Isn’t a Disorder)

Such is not the case, assures Zhana Vrangalova, Ph.D., professor of human sexuality at New York University and resident sexpert for sex toy brand LELO. “Most of these folks can experience desire/arousal, but they (and their partners) aren’t giving responsive desire a chance,” she says.

What does responsive desire look like IRL? Rather than waiting for a sudden urge to get down, you might say, “hey babe, any interest in me giving you a massage and seeing where that goes?” Or, “how would you feel about turning on porn and masturbating side-by-side, and seeing if that gets us in the mood?”

If you’re skeptical, you shouldn’t be. After all, “sex itself is not better just because it starts with spontaneous desire—people report just as much pleasure and enjoyment regardless of how it started,” says Vrangalova. Besides, the type of desire isn’t a measure of how good the sex was. How pleasurable it was is!

Deducing Your Own Sexual Desire Style

According to Nagoski’s aforementioned research, about 75 percent of men and 15 percent of women primarily experience spontaneous desire, whereas 5 percent of men and 30 percent of women primarily experience responsive desire (all cisgender). But for the rest of folks, sexual desire is context-dependent, says sexologist Jess O’Reilly, Ph.D., host of the podcast Sex with Dr. Jess. Meaning, “sometimes they’ll experience more spontaneous desire and other times the desire is more likely to happen responsively,” she says.

It’s common for context-dependent types to primarily experience spontaneous desire at the start of a relationship and responsive desire as the relationship ebbs on, or during high-stress, busy bouts of time. (After all, stress can lead to lower libido and even an inability to climax.)

Odds are, you were able to deduce your main type just by reading the above definitions. If not, I recommend investing in Nagoski’s books and flipping to the end of Chapter 3. There, you’ll find a “Sex Contexts” worksheet where she instructs you to journal (in detail!) about three of both your best sexual experiences as well as the “meh” ones. In reviewing these experiences, you’ll likely notice common themes around when and where sex took place, as well as whether the activity erected from spontaneous desire, responsive desire, or neither. For instance, if your top sexual experiences happened in coatroom closets at weddings, odds are you tend to experience spontaneous desire. If your top sexual experiences happened after day-long romantic dates or sexting sessions, odds are your desire leans responsive.

How to Lean Into Responsive Sexual Desire

So you primarily experience responsive desire and your partner primarily experiences spontaneous desire. Or, you both primarily experience responsive desire…now what? Fear not! “There are lots of different ways couples with different sexual desires can meet in the middle,” says sexual health expert Lyndsey Harper, M.D. ob-gyn, founder and CEO of Rosy, a sexual health technology platform.

1. Schedule sex.

Don’t be so quick to dismiss it. (After all, it works for sticking to your workout routine—why not extend it to your sexual wellness as well?) Sitting down with your planners and Google calendars and plotting out between work, birthdays, and exercise when you’re going to make time to ~get it on~ may not sound sexy. But “when the partner with responsive desire knows sex will happen at a certain time, they can seek out arousal tools, like erotica, ethical porn, masturbation, or ahead of time to help themselves get in the mood,” says Dr. Harper. (Or, good ol’ daydreaming.)

Plus, assuming you clear out your calendars for longer than, like, thirty minutes, it also ensures there’s plenty of time to do things that help the responsive desire partner get in the mood (think: showering together, kissing, etc.) versus feeling pressured to be ready to go ASAP.

If scheduling sex far ahead doesn’t feel right for you and your partner, consider scheduling date nights instead, and touch base that day about whether sex is on the table or not. Or, try some of these other suggestions first.

2. Intentionally take turns initiating sex.

Often in relationships where one partner experiences spontaneous sexual desire and the other experiences responsive sexual desire, the spontaneous person begins to feel like they’re always the initiator, says Vrangalova. Then, the partner who experiences responsive desire may begin to feel like their partner is constantly pestering them for sex, and feel guilty for saying no. This can lead to resentment on both sides. To interrupt this cycle, she suggests agreeing to take turns extending invitations to one another to have sex. Just remember: Your partner always maintains the right to say no.

Here’s how it works: Pre-determine a period of time within which you’ll each initiate, says O’Reilly. Maybe you’ll plan to initiate sex once per week, and alternate who initiates each week. This way, the responsive desire partner(s) can actively seek out arousal once they’re aroused, says Dr. Harper. (More here: How to Ask Your Partner for More Sex Without Offending Them)

3. Don’t make sex the objective.

Going from zero-percent horny to sex (of any kind) can be super daunting, especially when you’re working or busy child-rearing. Unfortunately, for a lot of couples, lines like “hey, babe, want to try to have sex tonight?” or “want to smash?” are common-place.

Vrangalova’s suggestion? Try asking “I’d love to take a shower together at the end of the day” or “how would you feel about a good old-fashioned makeout session?” instead. Why? Because making things like long passionate kisses, sensual massage, watching porn, reading erotica together, dirty talk, fantasy sharing, hand play, or even cuddling can feel more accessible to a not-currently-turned-on partner. (See More: 10 Foreplay Ideas That Can Be Even Hotter Than Penetration)

“If it progresses to sex from there, great. If not, that’s okay, too!” she says. “You’ll still get the benefit of spending intimate time together.” (And, if it’s applicable, the benefits of human touch.)

4. Lean on pleasure products.

“Research reveals that vibrator use is positively correlated with desire, lubrication, orgasm, lower levels of pain, and overall sexual satisfaction,” says O’Reilly. “So, sometimes some vibration or suction is just what your body needs to get in the mood.” Rather than going right for your hot-spots, spend some time using the vibe on your inner thighs, back, chest tissue and nipples, and the fleshy part of your bum, she suggests. Think of it as a self-care massage—and then let it turn sexual if it feels right.

5. Do a little extra sex ed.

Specifically, read books on this very topic such Mind the Gap by Karen Gurney or Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski.

Why? Because the greatest obstacle most couples face is their expectation around how sex “should” work, says Vrangalova. “Many people get stuck in this notion that you should only have sex if both partners are spontaneously horny at the exact same time—and refuse sex when that’s not the case.” (Sound familiar?)

Both of these books go into even more depth on topics discussed in this article to help you better understand just how normal any type of sexual desire is and how the messages you might have absorbed through pop-culture are pleasure-blocking your sex. Both also feature exercises you and your boo can do together to help you better understand your preconceived notions about desire, and how to troubleshoot them for boosted pleasure. (Get more wisdom from Nagoski here: How to Get More Pleasure By Shifting Your Mindset.)

What If These Don’t Work?

Okay, so you thought you primarily experienced responsive desire, gave these tricks a try, and still can’t find your libido? First, talk to your healthcare provider. Certain medications, mental health illnesses, and chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer can affect sexual functioning.

If you get the clear from your doc, think about why your body (specifically something known as your sexual inhibition system) might be intentionally keeping you from getting turned on. If your body perceives that it’s in danger, it can actually shut off your ability to get aroused. For instance, if you’re concerned about getting unintentionally pregnant, contracting an STI, or being socially shamed for who/how you’re having sex, arousal just won’t work. Ask yourself: What can I do to limit the (perceived) risk of the sex I want (keyword) to be having?

Also: Reflect on your relationship. How are you feeling about your boo? No doubt, it’s pretty tough to get turned on by a partner you’re feeling resentful of or aren’t feeling comfortable with. Addressing any underlying relationship issues (or TBH, calling it quits) may help.

Regardless, know that any way you experience sexual desire is ok. If you can relinquish the idea of there being a “normal”—because, truly, there is no “normal” in anything sex-related—that just might help you get there.

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12 Video Chat Sex Tips From Women In Long Distance Relationships

By Gabrielle Kassel

Thanks to the novel coronavirus pandemic, pretty much everything you used to do in person—work, happy hour, doc appointments, weddings—have all moved to Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Facetime. But sex? Yep. That too.

Katie, 29, a New York-based publicist is one of the unlucky lovebirds who has unexpectedly found herself in a LDR. “Pre-quarantine, my boyfriend and I probably had sex five or six times a week, and surprisingly the pandemic hasn’t changed how often we’re having sex, just how we have sex,” she says. “And I’ve gotta admit, video sex is way more intimate and fun than I thought it would be.”

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“COVID-19 pandemic or not, video sex with a partner can be totally hot,” says Zhana Vrangalova, PhD, professor of human sexuality at New York University and resident sexpert for sex-toy brand LELO. Think about it, you’re basically creating a personal porno just for your partner. “But unlike porn, video sex is a two-way street—you’re able to watch and hear your partner while they watch and hear you.” Hot, right?

But video chat sex can feel super awk at first, and there’s indeed an art to it. Here are tips from Katie and other women about how to make “special” video calls even better.

How to have video sex you actually enjoy:

1. Pick your platform wisely.

Before you even think about getting busy on camera, do a little research about the platform you’re thinking about using. Zoom, Skype, and WhatsApp, for instance, all have explicit rules against nudity and sexually explicit material. Sorry to break it to ya.

What platforms are video-sex kosher? At the time of publication, FaceTime and Telegram have no explicit rules against it.

2. Only do it with partners you trust…like, a lot.

About to accept a video call? Do a gut check. “Screenshots are absolutely a thing, so if any part of you feels like this person might take screenshots without your consent, opt out,” says Carly, 32, New York-based founder of Dildo or Dildon’t. Even if it’s been over a month since you’ve last got laid, no case of quarantine randies is worth some jerk having your nudes without consent or knowledge.

3. Schedule it in advance.

Feeling a little ‘LOL WHAT ARE DAYS?.’ Scheduling your sesh in advance just as you would for an IRL meet-up can help, says Maile, 30, a New York-based operations manager. “Scheduling video sex with my new boo helps make my days feel a little less monotonous, and it actually gives me something to look forward to.”

Plus, she says planning ahead gives her at least a few hours to figure out what lingerie she’s going to wear underneath her clothes, what toys she wants to have fully charged (important!), what lube she wants ready for use, and *exactly* where she’ll set up her camera (see below).

4. Figure out where you’ll set up the camera.

Your first instinct might just be to hold the phone. But getting freaky (read: orgasming) over video is way easier when you have both your hands to, ahem, aid in arousal.

Find a place to prop your phone up so that the lighting is in front of (not behind!) you, suggests Carly. “You also want the camera to be slightly higher up than you are,” she says. She invested in the GripTight Gorilla stand (shown here) so that she can set her phone up at an optimal height/place in the bedroom or bathroom or living room (hate to say it, but the best lighting may actually not be in the bedroom).

But if you don’t want to splurge on some video sex-cessories, Maile says, “I’ve been propping my phone up against a stack of books on my bedside table and it works just fine.”

5. Limit distractions.

Generally speaking, it’s rude as hell to check your cell or email when you’re out with your boo. But when you’re both (partially or fully) naked?? Well, *leaves meeting*.

Put your phone in do not disturb mode and disable your Slack and email notifications. “It can be hard enough to establish intimacy via video, so the last thing I want is a work email to interrupt the moment,” says Sarah Sloane, a sex educator who’s been coaching sex toy classes at Good Vibrations and Pleasure Chest since 2001.

6. Treat it like a date.

Don’t feel like you need to be naked, sprawled, and ready the second you answer the call. If you’re feeling romantic, make a whole damn date night out of it like Maile and her S.O. do.

“I may be living in a world of back-to-back meetings. But these video sessions aren’t that—these video sessions are what we’re resorting to in place of in-person date and romps,” she says.

So, she gets dressed up (lingerie underneath, of course), lights candles, cleans the apartment, breaks out a bottle of wine, and makes a fancy dinner. “We like to start with a drink, maybe some food, talk about our days, and when the mood veers toward the sensual or sexual, we let it,” she says. Modern romance!

7. Or have a quickie.

If you’re like Sloane and only have time for (or simply prefer) quickies, you’ve got another option: lean into sex-texting as foreplay. “We’re both working, so we like to sext all day long to build up the anticipation. Then, when we’re both unbearably horny and have a few minutes, we’ll hop on [camera] and get off together real quick,” she says.

8. If you’re nervous, say so!

Spoiler alert: These are unprecedented times that we’re livin’ in, and we’re all just trying to find ways to get our skin hunger met and feel a little less socially distant. So chances are your partner is just as new to this as you are.

“Telling my partner that I was nervous but excited helped me relax,” says new video sex aficionado, Angelica*, 31, a Texas-based accountant. “It turned out they were also nervous, which helped take some of the pressure off.”

9. Pull out the pleasure products.

The Womanizer may be your go-to, but Carly recommends bringing in toys that are way more ~visual~ than that. “You don’t want a toy that you just plop onto your bits, you want a toy that helps you put on a show.” Her suggestion? Opt for a thrusting vibrator like the Fun Factory Stronic G or Calexotics Shameless Tease. “I like to position them between my legs, then angle the camera down so my partner can see them rocking.”

Finger vibrators like the Dame Fin or Unbound Palma are good options too because your partner can still see your bits—and how you like to stroke yourself—even with the toy in the frame.

Oh, and take a tip from Sloane and ask if your partner has any sex toys that will really turn them off. You’re doing this together, remember?

10. Use lube.

Even if you don’t usually use lube during IRL sex, without your Babe’s hand and mouth in the mix helping to warm you up (or tbh, your go-to porno), it may take you a little longer to self-lubricate. And that’s where lube comes in. “Not only will the lube cut down on the friction, but it’s also visually sexy because it makes you look wet and slick on camera,” says Carly.

11. Make some noise.

It might sound a little “duh,” but when you’re video-sexing, in addition to not getting to touch your partner, you don’t get to smell or taste them. That’s why hamming up the audio component is a must. “All my partner gets is the sight and sound of me, so I really ramp up the dirty talk, moaning, and heavy breathing,” says Sloane.

If you’re feeling nervous about dirty talking, that’s A-OK, too. Katie doesn’t dirty talk at all, and she still has what she calls “orgasmic video sex.” “Instead of trying to say something more wild than I would if we were offline, I just let whatever moans and sounds that would happen naturally, happen,” she says.

12. Have fun!

“If there’s a silver lining in any of this,” says Kate, “it’s that it’s given my partner and me some more time to experiment with what feels good for both of us, have some seriously hot fun, and practice communicating our sexual wants and needs.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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SexTech and Disability

— Why These Markets Matter

By Wednesday Lee Friday

Everyone enjoys sex—or could, if they had access to the right products and solutions. Most SexTech is designed with able-bodied consumers in mind, which begs the question: What about the disabled market?

We spoke to leaders at three prominent adult product companies to examine the state of SexTech in terms of accessibility and meeting the needs of those with disabilities. Andrew Gurza, Chief Disability Officer at Handi; Dr. Soum Rakshit, Co-Founder and CEO of Mystery Vibe, and AJ Vitaro, President of Zen by Design.

Responses may be slightly edited for clarity or brevity.

SexTech Magazine: In terms of numbers, how big is the market for able-inclusive products? Is there enough potential revenue on the table to attract industry attention? In other words, does servicing this community make financial sense, as opposed to simply being ‘the right thing to do?

Dr Soum Rakshit: My research shows that 15% of people have some sort of physical disability (not including blindness), though many aren’t disabilities we can see. Setting aside numbers though, good designs should work well for everyone. When we designed Crescendo, versatility was our core concept. This involved adding a lock, making buttons flush, and adding a remote or app control for those who might not be able to reach buttons during use.

AJ Vitaro: Paralysis, for example, due to a wide variety of conditions and injuries, effects nearly two percent of the population in The United States alone. However, being in the furniture design business for over twenty years and connecting with thousands of people, it leads us to believe that these numbers are even higher than anticipated. As far as revenue potential for our company in particular, it is not a target market for us, per say; however, we do attract those with disabilities due to the supportive, ergonomic nature of The Tantra Chair ®.

STM: On a scale of 1-10, how has the SexTech industry performed in terms of able-inclusivity? 

Andrew Gurza: I would rate the SexTech industry a 3/10 in terms of their inclusivity of the disabled population. That isn’t to say that companies haven’t attempted to address the inclusivity gap, however, we rarely see disabled people in the marketing or creation of the products themselves, and if they are considered, it seems to be an afterthought or a PR stunt versus being integrated into the strategy from the outset.

We are one of the only companies with a Chief Disability Officer and disabled Co-Founder who advises on the lived experience and has been integral to the branding and product design. We hope to be setting a positive example of inclusive design and integration.

STM: Can you take us through the launch of one of your inclusive products?

AJV: When we develop a product, the creative process is arduous, time consuming and extremely detailed. Sometimes it can take us over three years to perfect a design concept, and this was true for The Tantra Chair ®. We work with the dimensions of the human body across a very wide spectrum to come up with designs that nurture the majority of people whether they are struggling with an injury, disability or in perfect health. In our initial years, we were very surprised by the amount of people with injuries or disabilities that were pleased beyond measure because they were able to be comfortable again during intimacy. We continue to hear this often and it is something that we are truly grateful for.

Dr. S.R.: We made the product with inclusivity in mind, but did not include people with disabilities in our user group. This wasn’t planned, and we have since added more diversity to test groups. Our purpose is to design products for everyone, not because you want to tick a box. When people put time into a design, it works for everyone.

STM: Products that are marketed to surmount a specific obstacle can often go mainstream unexpectedly. The Clapper, a device that turns off electric appliances by clapping hands, was invented with customers with mobility issues in mind. Similarly, weighted blankets were products used to calm children with autism and hyperactivity disorder. Now these blankets are immensely popular for an array of consumers.  

Still, we wonder if there’s concern in the industry that disability-friendly products will be less desirable to abled people. How might that be mitigated?

AG: Many of the people that we spoke with at Handi as we created our tech were both disabled and non-disabled alike, and they all told us that they wanted a toy that could work for everyone. When you design with disability in mind, you can create a product that is accessible to everyone. At Handi, we also understand that disability will affect everyone at some point in their lives, so we should be creating products with that in mind. It’s like a type of orgasm insurance – even if you don’t need it today, you may very well tomorrow. Not to mention, there’s something very compelling about a hands-free sex toy – which 76% of our able-bodied respondents were interested in.

Dr. S.R. Yes, that’s a perception that can be mitigated with design. Imagine retrofitting something for disability access—a staircase, for example. It’s not going to look as good as a staircase that was designed for access from the beginning. Design is everything. The better the tech is, the less you’ll see it. Adult products push tech forward just as pornography did for internet speed, enhanced picture resolution, accessibility—even the battle between VHS tapes and Betamax was settled by adult content.

AJV: We don’t believe that disability-friendly products will be less desirable to abled people. With our product specifically, it can enhance the life of a person with a disability, an aging couple, or even healthy, adventurous couples.

STM: What should product designers and developers be aware of in order to create more inclusive products? 

Dr. S.R.: Things outside our day-to-day life are often invisible to us. So it’s important to keep updating. Pilot groups are vital to us, and we use 1,000 pilot users for each new product. Even if you can’t have a diverse focus group—piloting works.

AG: A big roadblock in the SexTech category is the lack of marginalized people involved in the creation of the final product from ideation to concept to production.  SexTech needs to actively include these voices all the way through the process if they want to truly be seen as inclusive. Otherwise it can come off as lip service. Talking the talk, but not walking the walk. One of the biggest needs that isn’t being addressed by the current SexTech, is the prevalence of people with limited dexterity or hand disabilities/limitations. The buttons on so many current products are small and not easy to use. Hundreds of millions of people live with this as a result of disabilities, and 63% of the people we surveyed said that they struggled with self-pleasure due to issues with hand mobility. We need more toys that are easier to use; have bigger buttons and are as hands-free as possible.

The only way to effectively address this is to hire more disabled people to work on the product and concept design. Listen to what they have to say; what are their frustrations with products? What are their frustrations with sexuality as disabled people? By truly listening to these stories, you can uncover a need, and from that, you can create a truly groundbreaking product that will not only change their sex life, but will change their life entirely.

AJV: This is a difficult question to answer, but many disabilities stem from nerve damage due to physical injury, stroke, etc. In most of these circumstances, the spinal column is damaged. We hyper focus on spinal support for everyone, may they have an injury, or not and this inadvertently attracts customers that want to maintain a healthy spinal column to those that are injured and limited in mobility. It makes perfect sense to create designs that will enhance the well-being of everyone.

STM: How should inclusion and representation be marketed? Do you lean toward separate marketing for each demographic, or one clear message for everyone?   

Dr. S.R.: We tend to use education rather than marketing, just letting people know what’s available to them. We’re proponents of reverse marketing; simply telling people about a product and inviting them to check it out often yields better results than click funnels and the like.   

STM: What do you see as the main challenges to marketing inclusive products?

AJV: We do not market our products (specifically The Tantra Chair ®) as a medical device for a variety of legal reasons. However, people with disabilities are inadvertently drawn to it, because they recognize that it can help them solve a physical problem or at the very least, create a much more comfortable experience for them.

Dr. S.R.: We have never marketed on the basis of inclusiveness. We think that might be divisive. If we make it a marketing point, people may think it’s not genuine. Inclusiveness should be done by default. The only time we talk about the inclusiveness of our products specifically is in award applications.

What we’re seeing is an industry moving forward to inclusivity as a matter of course. The way forward is to create and market SexTech products that can work for any user, and be effectively marketed across multiple demographics. Extending inclusivity into focus groups and test markets will go a long way toward making the very concept of ability-accessible products a thing of the past. That’s bound to improve sex lives—and every other aspect of life.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How Sex Toys Became A Lockdown Essential

By Hannah Coates

We take our supplements, meditate religiously and practise yoga to still our busy minds – but how many of us will admit to masturbating in our efforts to maintain good mental health? It’s certainly an effective method of self-care – 78 per cent of us (that’s four in five people), say we feel happier and less stressed after enjoying an orgasm. And it seems that now more than ever, we’re in search of these positive side-effects. Online retailers have witnessed a spike in customers searching for “sexual wellness” – the term was up by 850 per cent on Cult Beauty in March, the month the UK lockdown began. Meanwhile chic sexual pleasure brands like Smile Makers have seen daily revenues double since the nation started staying home, and a 50 per cent uplift in traffic to its website from February to March.

More time spent at home, far less spent interacting with other people, and a significant reduction in the amount of touch (another endorphin-booster) we experience day to day, all means making time for self-pleasure and focusing on your own body has never been so important. And while in the past the social discourse around sex centred around its dangers and notions of virtue when it came to women, today – happily – female sexual expression is something to be embraced, enjoyed and shouted about.

“Smile Makers was started after our founders walked into a sex shop and found the whole shopping experience, branding and packaging quite vulgar and disrespectful to women,” says Cécile Gasnault, marketing director of the brand and creator of its Vulva Talks. “Even today, you think of a vibrator and the first thing that springs to mind is the big, phallic shape.” Conscious of a huge untapped market – more women in the UK own a vibrator than own a dishwasher – the Smile Makers team got to work on creating a brand that would open up the conversation around female sexuality, make it fun, and challenge the idea that female pleasure should revolve around a male perspective on what it might look like.

“My aim was to create a brand sold in mainstream retail, focusing on beauty and health stores, to send a strong message that sexual pleasure is important for overall wellbeing, a fact that has been scientifically documented in studies,” says Gasnault. From releasing a cocktail of hormones in the body that boost the mood and reduce cortisol levels, to alleviating pain and enhancing sleep, the benefits of self-pleasure are numerous – and within easy reach. All that’s required is knowledge of your own body. “We’ve also found that when a woman is comfortable enough with herself to own a vibrator and masturbate, she is usually better at vulva and breast check-ups too, so really it’s better for our overall health,” Gasnault points out. It’s also worth noting that studies have found a positive correlation between self-pleasure and improved immunity, too.

It’s undeniable that taking the time to connect with ourselves, our bodies and what we like and don’t like is as empowering as it is calming, and adding little moments of pleasure to our day – whether via a crafting project or a vibrator – can only be a good thing, especially when times are tough. Gasnault also compares masturbation and orgasm to a moment of meditation: “When you experience sexual pleasure, you’re really present in the moment – it brings you back to yourself.”

Unlike many of their predecessors, Smile Makers’ vibrators and toys won’t make you grimace at the sight of them – no exaggerated shapes, definitely no veins – just simple, sculptural and sleek products in pleasing-to-the-eye shades. With names like The Surfer (a gentle massager, perfect for foreplay), The Fireman (flame-shaped to go the extra mile on the stimulation front), and The Frenchman (tongue-shaped), there is truly a toy for every occasion.

Smile Makers products

There are other female-forward brands in the space, too, with Dame offering an array of products that are designed to “close the pleasure gap”, and are small and discreet enough to be used during sex with a partner, as well as with yourself. Unbound’s Bean is a palm-sized, all-bases-covered toy that uses targeted pressure while Lelo offer an array of different toys, with numerous pleasure-making settings. Then there is brands like Naked Grapefruit approach sex in a fun, accessible way. “The vast majority of our sex tech brands were founded by women, to target needs which have largely been ignored by a male-dominated industry for some time,” says Jenna Anderson, buyer at Cult Beauty. Vibrators have had a fashion makeover too, with Christopher Kane’s aptly-named “More Joy” 12-speed bullet vibrator selling out soon after launching.

Cult Beauty is just one of many e-tailers to have dedicated an entire section of its platform to sexual wellness – Boots, Feelunique and Look Fantastic all have sexual pleasure and wellbeing sections well worth a peruse. It’s not only vibrators on offer – there are mood-enhancing candles, intimate cleansers and lube, plus softening formulas for pubic hair and more. Wellness brands like This Works have launched products that aim to turn you on (try the Love Sleep Pillow Spray), with ingredients like ylang ylang and patchouli to pique feelings of sensuality. Sex and female empowerment is on all of our minds, it seems, a change that, according to Gasnault, has only really come to light within the past couple of years. “I think the Me Too movement played a big role in opening up the conversation,” she says. “Retailers became more open-minded in discussing female sexuality, and wanted to work with brands that were relevant for female sexuality.” Viva la sexual revolution.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Vibrators had a long history as medical quackery before feminists rebranded them as sex toys

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In the contemporary moment of sex-positive feminism, praises for the orgasmic capacity of the vibrator abound. “They’re all-encompassing, a blanket of electricity, that’ll course through your veins, producing orgasms you didn’t know you were physically capable of having,” wrote Erica Moen in her web comic “Oh Joy Sex Toy.” Vibrators today go hand in hand with masturbation and female sexuality.

Yet for American housewives in the 1930s, the vibrator looked like any other household appliance: a nonsexual new electric technology that could run on the same universal motor as their kitchen mixers and vacuum cleaners. Before small motors became cheap to produce, manufacturers sold a single motor base with separate attachments for a range of household activities, from sanding wood to drying hair, or healing the body with electrical vibrations.

In my research on the medical history of electricity, vibrators appear alongside galvanic battery belts and quack electrotherapies as one of many quirky home cures of the early 20th century.

Vibrating for health

The first electro-mechanical vibrator was a device called a “percuteur” invented by British physician Joseph Mortimer Granville in the late 1870s or early 1880s. Granville thought that vibration powered the human nervous system, and he developed the percuteur as a medical device for stimulating ailing nerves.

Current medical opinion held that hysteria was a nervous disease, yet Granville refused to treat female patients, “simply because I do not want to be hoodwinked… by the vagaries of the hysterical state.” The vibrator began as a therapy for men only. It then quickly left the sphere of mainstream medical practice.

By the early 20th century, manufacturers were selling vibrators as ordinary electric household appliances. The merits of electricity in the home were not as obvious then as they are today: Electricity was dangerous and expensive, but it promised excitement and modernity. Electric commodities, like sewing and washing machines, became the hallmarks of the rising middle class.

Vibrators were another shiny new technology, used to sell consumers on the prospect of modern electric living. Just as banks handed out free toasters for opening checking accounts in the 1960s, in the 1940s the Rural Electrification Administration distributed free vibrators to encourage farmers to electrify their homes. These modern electric devices were not thought of as sex toys.

Vibrating snake oil

In what may sound surprising to 21st-century readers, these appliances promised relief of a nonsexual variety. Users of all ages vibrated just about every body part, without sexual intent.

A 1913 advertisement for the White Cross Electric Vibrator in the New-York Tribune.

Vibrators made housework easier by soothing the pains of tired housewives, calming the cries of sick children and invigorating the bodies of modern working men. They were applied to tired backs and sore feet, but also the throat, to cure laryngitis; the nose, to relieve sinus pressure; and everything in between. Vibration promised to calm the stomachs of colicky babies, and to stimulate hair growth in balding men. It was even thought to help heal broken bones.

A 1910 advertisement in the New York Tribune declared that “Vibration Banishes Disease As the Sun Banishes Mist.” In 1912, the Hamilton Beach “New-Life” vibrator came with a 300-page instructional guide titled “Health and How to Get It,” offering a cure for everything from obesity and appendicitis to tuberculosis and vertigo.

As such advertisements suggest, vibrators were not standard medical treatments, but medical quackery, alternative medicine that didn’t deliver on their promises. Yet the electrical cure-alls sold by the millions.

The classic form of medical quackery in the U.S. market was patent medicine – basically useless concoctions made mainly of alcohol and morphine, sometimes containing downright damaging ingredients like lead and arsenic. After the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, the federal government began regulating the sale of patent medicines.

Vibrators and other electrotherapies were not covered by the new law, so they took up the market share of older medical concoctions. The White Cross Vibrator replaced Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup as a popular home cure rejected by the medical establishment.

In 1915, the Journal of the American Medical Association wrote that the “vibrator business is a delusion and a snare. If it has any effect it is psychology.” The business was dangerous not because it was obscene, but because it was bad medicine. The potential, acknowledged by doctors, for the vibrator to be used in masturbation was just further evidence of its quackery.

The Shelton vibrator’s motor head with various attachments, made by General Electric in the early 20th century.

A cure for masturbatory illness

Sex toy scholar Hallie Lieberman points out that nearly every vibrator company in the early 20th century offered phallic attachments that “would have been considered obscene if sold as dildos.” Presented instead as rectal or vaginal dilators, these devices were supposed to cure hemorrhoids, constipation, vaginitis, cervicitis and other illnesses localized to the genitals and the anus. Hamilton Beach, for example, offered a “special rectal applicator” for “an additional cost of $1.50,” and recommended its use in the treatment of “Impotence,” “Piles—Hemorrhoids” and “Rectal Diseases.”

The two most prominent scholars of vibrator history, Rachel Maines and Hallie Lieberman, argue that vibrators were always secretly sexual, but I disagree. Vibrators were popular medical devices. One of many medical uses of the vibrator was to cure diseases of sexual dysfunction. And this use was a selling point, not a secret, during an era of anti-masturbatory rhetoric.

Special vibrator attachments like the rectal applicator offered dubious treatments for dubious diseases: remedies for ailments purportedly caused by “ruinous and prevalent masturbation.”

Masturbation was thought to cause diseases like impotence in men and hysteria in women. Masturbatory illness was a pretty standard idea in the early 20th century. One of its surviving formulations is the idea that masturbating will make you go blind.

There’s no way to really know how people were using vibrators. But the evidence suggests that they signified medical treatment, not sinful masturbation, regardless of the use. Even if users were doing physical actions that people today think of as masturbation, they didn’t understand themselves to be masturbating, and therefore they weren’t masturbating.

By 1980, vibrators had been rebranded in the public imagination.

Rethinking the vibrator’s history

For most of the 20th century, vibrators remained innocuous quackery. Good Housekeeping even bestowed its seal of approval on some models in the 1950s. When the sexual revolution hit America in the 1960s, vibrators were largely forgotten, outdated appliances.

In the 1970s radical feminists transformed the vibrator from a relic of bygone domesticity to a tool of female sexual liberation. At Betty Dodson’s bodysex workshops, electric vibrations changed “feelings of guilt about masturbation to feelings of celebration so that masturbation became an act of self-love.” She and her sisters embraced vibrators as a political technology that could convert frigid anorgasmic housewives into powerful sexual beings capable both of having multiple orgasms and destroying the patriarchy.

This masturbatory revolt erased the vibrator’s fading reputation as a cure for masturbatory illness and replaced it with a specific, powerful, public and lasting linkage between the vibrator and female masturbatory practice.

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The Best Lubes for Anal Sex

According to Sexperts

Because when it comes to any kind of butt play, lube is non-negotiable.

By Gabrielle Kotkov

Rich in sensitive nerve endings, the butt can give you some seriously mind-blowing orgasms. (Yes, anal orgasms are a thing). What the butt can not do, however, is self-lubricate (like the vagina). And that means, unless you add lubricant, any anal play is going to be…dry.

“The sensation of skin-on-skin creates a lot of friction that can be really irritating and painful,” says certified sex educator Alicia Sinclair, CEO of b-Vibe, an anal play product company. “Lube is what makes the entire anal experience pleasurable,” she says.

Wondering, “What about saliva”? Let’s be very clear: Saliva is not lube! “It dries up reallllly quickly,” says Sinclair. And it contains bacteria that could disrupt the pH of your vagina and/or rectum. Yikes.

Beyond making anal play pleasurable, lube is also what makes it safer! The tissue lining the anal canal is super thin and delicate, which makes it susceptible to microtears if it’s not well-lubricated, explains Evan Goldstein, D.O., CEO and founder of Bespoke Surgical, a sexual-wellness company specializing in anal-related health. And not only can those tiny tears be painful (duh), they also increase the risk of STI transmission if your partner has one, he says.

Convinced you need to buy lube for anal sex or other anal play activities? Scroll down for 13 of the best anal lubes, according to sex educators. (And while you’re adding things to your shopping cart, go ahead and throw one of these anal sex toys in, as well).

pJur Back Door

Anal play enthusiasts to the front! If you’re getting down with a penis, fingers, or fist, this silicone-based lube belongs on your Anal Sex Alter (right next to the nJoy Pure Plug that is). “It’s super thick, without being greasy or sticky,” says Sofiya Alexandra, co-host of Private Parts Unknown, a podcast exploring love and sexuality around the world. It also contains jojoba, which has ~anti-inflammatory properties~ that are good for the bumhole skin, she says.

pJur AQUA

If silicone toys (think: butt plugs and anal beads) are part of your anal play, Gigi Engle, certified sex coach, Womanizer sexpert and the author of All The F*cking Mistakes: a guide to sex, love, and life, recommends investing in this water-based option from pJur instead. “Silicone can degrade silicone toys, so if you’re using silicone toys, you need to stick with a high-quality water-based lube, like pjur AQUA,” says Engle. (See more: What Are Anal Beads And How Do You Use Them?)

It has a moderately thick consistency without being tacky—a very good thing because “you don’t want your lube to wind up like hair gel when you’re trying to have yourself a good ‘ole time,” she says.

Nutiva Coconut Oil

Important reminder: Oil-based lubes degrade the integrity of latex condoms, which makes them less effective at protecting against STI transmission (and in the case of vaginal intercourse, pregnancy). But for folks who aren’t using latex condoms, coconut oil is an anal sex all-star. (See More: Is It OK to Use Coconut Oil During Vaginal Sex?)

“It’s way longer lasting than water-based lubes, which means fewer reapplication interruptions,” says Sinclair. “And it’s compatible with all silicone butt plugs, anal beads, or prostate massagers,” she explains.

The Butters

Rich, creamy, and long-lasting, it doesn’t get more luxurious than The Butters Lube. “It’s the consistency of a thick lotion and far less messy than many other lubes,” says Jamie LeClaire, a sexologist who specializes in sexuality, gender, and identity.

When you get the product you’ll notice that in the jar it looks a bit like hair gel, but fear not. “When you take a dollop of the creamy goodness and rub it between your fingers, it turns into a luxurious oil lather that really easily distributes wherever you want it,” they say.

While it’s not compatible with latex condoms, LeClaire says “I love it so much that I think it’s worth investing in non-latex condoms so that I can use this particular lube for anal play.” Quite the endorsement! (If you’re looking for a non-latex condom that protects against STIs and pregnancy, check out polyurethane condoms like the Trojans Bare-Skin Non-Latex condoms).

UberLube

Dr.Goldstein recommends Uberlube for anyone having anal sex with a penis, fingers, or non-silicone toy. “The silicone in UberLube is well-sourced and the company puts a lot of thought into their product.” Need proof? Just look at the bottle! Pretty damn classy for a lube, wouldn’t you say?

Because Uberlube comes in travel sizes, it’s a great option to bring on the road. And, he adds, “unlike some silicone-based lubes which are a pain to get off sheets, Uberlube doesn’t stain and is super easy to wipe off when playtime is done.” (Speaking of travel: These are the best vibrators to take with you wherever you go.)

Good Clean Love Almost Naked

Only stock your cabinets and “fun” drawer with organic and all-natural products? Good Clean Love Almost Naked will fit right in. “This all-natural water-based lube isn’t made specifically for anal, but it’s definitely up for the challenge of a backdoor adventure,” says Courtney Kocak, the other co-host of Private Parts Unknown. “It’s silky without being greasy, and easy-peasy to clean-up.”

Sociologist and clinical sexologist Sarah Melancon, Ph.D., with The Sex Toy Collective also stans this lube, adding that the aloe can help moisturize your anus, helping to protect it against microtears.

Boy Butter

Don’t let the name turn you off—you can enjoy and use Boy Butter no matter your identifying gender. “It’s one of my favorites on the market right now because it’s extra thick and creamy and stays in place during anal,” says sexpert Daniel Saynt, founder and chief conspirator of The New Society for Wellness (NSFW) a private members club for the sexually adventurous. It’s made of a blend of silicone and coconut oil, so you get the best of both worlds—just note that, since it’s oil-based, it’s not safe for use with latex condoms.

Saynt especially recommends this anal lube for use in showers. “Because of its staying power, it doesn’t immediately come off under the stream of water, so the receiver can fully enjoy the experience,” he says. Just be careful because when it does wash off, the floor can get a little slippery. (Related: How to Have Shower Sex That’s Actually Amazing)

Sliquid Organics Gel

Unlike some water-based lubes which are runny, Sliquid Organics’ water-based gel is thick AF. Since it’s gel-like, “it won’t dry up as quickly as other lubricants,” says Rebecca Alvarez Story, M.A., sexologist and founder of intimate care marketplace Bloomi. Of course, if you plan on going at it for a long time, re-apply the moment it starts to feel a little more “ouch” than “ooh.”

b-Vibe Lube Applicator 

This isn’t lube, but it is a nifty way to apply lube to the (ahem) desired area. “When you apply lube to whatever is going to go inside the anal canal (a penis, dildo, butt plug), as it enters the canal, the anal sphincter can cause a squeegee effect,” explains Sinclair. Meaning, rather than the lube actually getting into the ~hole in question~, most of it ends up on the outside of the bum. 

“Lube applicators allow you to easily lube up the interior anal canal,” she says. Just insert your lube-of-choice into the applicator, use your finger to apply some lube to the applicator, and whammo-bammo, you’re set!

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sex Tech Has Embraced Female Pleasure,

But Lesbians Are Still Being Left Out Of The Conversation

LGBTQ+ women bring skills, experiences, and insights that straight consumers can benefit from, … [+] says Brianna Radar, the founder of Juicebox.
By Franki Cookney

Sex tech entrepreneurs wanting to cater to women, would do well to listen to what lesbians have to say about female pleasure.

Barriers between the traditionally white, straight, male world of investment and the increasingly female-populated worlds of design and production are starting to slowly break down. Women are leading the way in audio porn, sex education, and toy design, and the sexual wellness industry is no longer a stranger to female-founders. But the vast majority of products that come to market are still based around a heterosexual understanding of sex.

Speaking as part of DIVA’s Lesbian Visibility Week schedule of virtual events, psychosexologist Dr Karen Gurney pointed out that there are some key differences when it comes to women who have sex with women. “Research shows that when you ask heterosexual people what sex should look like, there is a formulaic and narrow definition given,” she said in a video talk. “But sexual scripts for women who have sex with women provide more freedom. There’s no typical script for what lesbian sex should look like or who should do what in what order.”

The clinical psychologist and author of of Mind The Gap: The Truth about Desire and how to Future-proof Your Sex Life, Dr Gurney added that women who have sex with women are well-placed to bust myths around female bodies and sexuality. “Women’s bodies are not tricker than mens,” she said. “And women who have sex with women will probably know more about that than a lot of women out there.”

She referred to what is known as The Orgasm Gap, based on a 2016 study into differences in orgasm frequency, which showed that women’s rate of orgasm when they have sex with men is only 65%, while straight men report having an orgasm 95% of the time. However, she points out that the rate of orgasm for women who have sex with women is 85%.

“Women who have sex with women typically report a greater variety and frequency of sexual acts,” she said. “Unsurprisingly, this shows itself in more orgasms, as well as higher reported sexual satisfaction.”

Despite this, marketing in the sexual wellness sector is still largely informed by the experiences of heterosexual women.  “Historically, cis men have been the leaders in the space we now call sex tech,” says Maggie Stiggleman, the senior software developer at Lioness. “When women are thought of it’s often only straight women.”

While there are of course similarities between what straight women enjoy in bed and what gay women enjoy, lumping lesbians in with discussions of straight female sexual pleasure is unhelpful. “It is almost like lesbians get forgotten in the mix of female sexuality,” says Alice Derock, the CEO of Wet For Her. “When it comes to products, it does feel lesbian sexuality is approached in the same way as heterosexual women’s sexuality. There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of lesbian couples’ sex and how this is different. There is a market within the lesbian community and I think this sometimes forgotten. ”

Founded in 2009, Wet For Her designs and manufacturers lesbian sex toys. Derock says that while she’s always found the adult industry to be very welcoming, the startup space is still tricky to navigate as a woman, let alone as a lesbian-founded sex tech company.

“Many people assume when you say you have a lesbian business, that it must be making porn,” she says. “When you search the term ‘lesbian’ on search engines, it is always porn that pops up first, even though the terms ‘sex tech’ and ‘sexual wellness’ have become more mainstream.”

Stiggleman says that gay women also face an extra hurdle when it comes to breaking into the sex tech world, because of the ways that sexism and homophobia intersect. “Sex tech companies have a hard time being taken seriously because of the stigma already associated with sex,” she says. “Women-run ones have an even harder time because society has taught us to trust men with business, not women. So, a lesbian-run sex tech company? Investors don’t come running for something society has told them is deviant in so many ways.”

Both women say they feel completely supported and welcomed in their own workplaces, but acknowledge this isn’t always the case. Furthermore, Stiggleman feels proud to be working on a product—a smart vibrator that allows users to measure and track their orgasms—that is taking the lesbian experience into account. 

“I do a lot of the designing and coding for our mobile app, and I make sure that we do not assume the sexuality or gender of our users,” she says. “It is important to me that I’m helping to make a great sex tech product when I know that lesbians weren’t even thought of during the inception of many others.”

O.School founder Andrea Barrica recently pointed out that in today’s market there is no single identifiable customer for sex tech products. While there will always be a demand for lesbian-specific products, entrepreneurs looking to reach a broader customer base need to let go of assumptions about what kinds of sex their users are having.

Brianna Radar is the founder of Juicebox whose products include Slutbot, a virtual sexting coach. She thinks the future of sex tech will lie in taking a more gender neutral approach. “That’s the future Gen Z is looking for,” she says. “Not necessarily a product that exclusively speaks to queer women but a more gender neutral approach that’s personalized.”

She too thinks that LGBTQ+ women bring skills, experiences, and insights that straight consumers benefit from. “More than any other demographic, queer people are excellent at talking about sex,” she says. “We have to be, as minorities. The goal of our product is to take everything I’ve learned from being in fringe communities and bring the positive aspects to the mainstream.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Coronavirus and Sex: Questions and Answers

Some of us are mating in actual captivity. Some of us not at all. The pandemic raises lots of issues around safe intimate physical contact, and what it may look like in the future.

By Jen Gunter

These are not sexy times.

As an obstetrician and gynecologist in the Bay Area, I’ve been caring for my patients via telemedicine for the past three weeks because of the new coronavirus pandemic. When I ask patients about new sex partners — a standard question for me — the answer is a universal “no.” They are taking California’s shelter-in-place very seriously.

In fact, many of my patients are more interested in updates about the virus than the medical (and often sexual) problem for which they were referred.

The pandemic has most of the world practicing exceptional hand hygiene and social distancing. This coronavirus is so new that we don’t know what we don’t know, and while fresh information is coming at an incredible pace, one medical recommendation has remained constant: the need for social distancing.

This time has been an exercise in prioritizing needs from wants. So where does sex fall on that spectrum?

Are we even wanting sex these days?

It’s hard to know yet. While some people may turn to sex for comfort or as a temporary distraction, these are unprecedented times and we don’t have much data.

Depression and anxiety have a negative effect on libido. Some people are out of work, too, and unemployment can affect sexual desire. The kind of worry people are experiencing crosses so many domains: job security, health, friends’ and family’s health, retirement and the ability to have access to medical care, to name a few.

One study that looked at the effect of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China on the reproductive health of married women found sexual activity decreased significantly, and not just in the week after the earthquake.

Before the earthquake, 67 percent of married women reported they were having sex two or more times a week. One week after the earthquake, that number fell to 4 percent. By four weeks, only 24 percent reported they were having sex two or more times a week, well below the baseline.

While this study is retrospective data — women were asked to recall their sexual activity eight weeks after the earthquake — and an earthquake isn’t the same thing as a pandemic, it seems unlikely that sexual activity overall will increase.

However, trauma — and these are certainly traumatic times for some — can also lead to sexual risk taking, like unprotected sex or sex under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

What is considered ‘safe sex’ right now?

Your risk for infection with the new coronavirus starts as soon as someone gets within six feet of you. (And of course, if you do have sex, your risk for pregnancy and S.T.I.s remains the same, and the previous definition of “safe sex” still applies.)

You’ve read this elsewhere: Covid-19 is transmitted by droplet nuclei, tiny specks of infectious material far too small to see. They are sprayed from the nose and mouth by breathing, talking, coughing and sneezing.

A person contracts the virus sharing the same airspace — a six-foot radius, the distance droplet nuclei are believed to travel (although with coughing they may travel farther) — and inhaling the infectious particles. Or the droplet nuclei land on an object or surface, making it infectious. Touch that surface and then your face and the chain of transmission is complete.

If you do have sex with someone who is infected with the new coronavirus, there is nothing we can recommend, be it showering head to toe with soap before and immediately after sex, or using condoms, to reduce your risk of infection. (The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued these guidelines.)

We don’t know if the new coronavirus is present in vaginal secretions or ejaculate, but it has been identified in stool. Based on what we currently know about transmission of coronavirus, penetrative vaginal or anal sex or oral sex seem unlikely to pose a significant risk of transmission.

Who are the safest partners?

It’s best to limit sex to your household sex partner (HSP), who should also be following recommendations for hand hygiene and social distancing. The World Health Organization currently lists the risk of household transmission as 3 to 10 percent, but this is based on preliminary data. We don’t know what role kissing or sexual activity plays in transmission.

The idea of limiting sexual contact to your household partner and social distancing in general is about ending the chain of transmission to your household should one person become infected.

If your HSP is sick with symptoms of Covid-19, or has been exposed, definitely don’t have sex. They may be too fatigued anyway, but your risk of being infected will likely go up in close, intimate contact. Sleep in separate bedrooms if possible.

If you have more than one bathroom, designate one for the sick or exposed person. Try to stay six feet apart and be fastidious about cleaning surfaces. If they were exposed, living as separate as possible in your home for 14 days is recommended.

What if I’m in a new relationship and had planned to get other S.T.I. testing done?

Many labs are overwhelmed with coronavirus testing, so you may not get results for some S.T.I.s — like gonorrhea, chlamydia and herpes — as fast as before. Given the short supply of test kits for Covid-19, many medical centers and labs are taking swabs and liquid from other test kits to jury-rig testing kits for the new coronavirus, so sampling kits for genital infections may be in short supply.

Ask your health provider because work flows may vary locally and may change day to day. But if you are at risk of an S.T.I., you should still seek out a test as soon as possible.

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What if I don’t have an HSP? Am I now celibate?

Yes, I’m sorry to say, those are the recommendations. For now.

But this doesn’t mean you can’t meet people online — start talking on the phone, have video chats, sext or have phone sex if that’s your thing.

And if someone you meet online is encouraging you to meet in person? That not only tells you how they view their own safety, but, even more important, how they view yours.

What about a ‘Covid sex buddy’?

I’ve heard people talk about this: a sexual partner who agrees to socially distance with everyone else, but the two of you will hook up for mutual release.

I really discourage this (for now): Social distancing means limiting contact with people outside of your household. Each additional person added to the household increases risk. And of course, you are depending on this person to be as vigilant with social distancing as you are — not to mention the risk during transportation between your home and your partner’s. At the moment, the risk is too high.

Might we see people in close proximity hooking up who both tested positive for Covid-19 and are now 14 days post-positive test? It would not surprise me. However, we don’t know much about immunity (protection from reinfection) against Covid-19 after an infection. And because tests are in short supply, many people have presumptive infections but can’t be tested.

With seasonal coronaviruses that cause a common cold, immunity lasts about a year, but with the more serious coronaviruses like SARS or MERS, immunity seems to last longer. But we still don’t know enough to make concrete recommendations in terms of post-illness behavior.

What about sex toys?

Sex toys aren’t likely to be a method of coronavirus transmission if you have been using them alone. However, if you shared your toys within the past 72 hours, make sure they are appropriately cleaned and wash your hands afterward as the virus may stay active of some surfaces for up to three days.

And do not clean sex toys with hand sanitizer or use hand sanitizer immediately before masturbating, because it can be very irritating to the vagina or rectum. Ouch.

Is it safe to buy new sex toys?

Judging from the state of my inbox, it appears that a lot of vibrators are on sale. Is this a good time to take advantage of a deal and the extra time on your hands?

Paying electronically is safer than an in-store purchase: Paying online means no one is physically handling a credit card or cash.

As for the delivery itself, there is lab data suggesting the new coronavirus is viable up to 24 hours on cardboard. Washing your hands after opening and throwing away the delivery box seems like an appropriate mitigation strategy. Letting that box sit for a day (if possible) before opening may be a good idea, although we don’t know how the lab data of the virus survival on surfaces translates to the real world.

Does your online purchase of a nonessential (as much as it pains me to say this, a vibrator is a “want,” not a “need”) put someone else at increased risk? Workers at large warehouses where social distancing isn’t possible may be at increased risk, especially if they don’t have sick pay, so taking time off if exposed isn’t possible.

One option is to consider a local small business that can take your payment over the phone or online and arrange a curbside pickup.

What will safe sex look like in the future?

Right now the only safe sex is no sex with partners outside your household.

If you or your HSP are at high risk, should you take extra precautions to further reduce the risk of transmission — giving up sex and kissing, sleeping in separate bedrooms — in case one of you has an asymptomatic infection? Asking your doctor for guidance here is probably wise.

But what about when we emerge from our homes again — which may be some months away — and start thinking about in-person dating, and even mating?

No one knows if we are all going to have the urge to have sex after this quasi-hibernation. One concern is a potential surge in risk-taking and S.T.I.s. in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. (After all, you can’t assume that if someone was celibate during the pandemic they don’t have an S.T.I.; most S.T.I.s don’t cause symptoms and could have predated the new coronavirus.)

If that all sounds fairly bleak, well, it is. For now, the new coronavirus probably means less partner sex overall, whether that’s because of the lack of a household sex partner for some or a drop in desire for others. Or both.

Hopefully, though, this is just for now.

Because the more everyone commits to social distancing, the faster we can all get back — and down — to business.

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She Bop’s Experts Talk Gender, Sexuality, and Being a Sex Shop for Every Body

by Blair Stenvick

When Tuck Malloy transitioned into their nonbinary/transmasculine identity, they wanted to use their position as a sales lead and in-house educator at She Bop to help other people experiencing their own gender transitions and explorations.

“There were a lot of things I wanted more insight and community around,” says Malloy, “particularly in relation to the fact that a lot of those [gender-related] realizations for me came from sexual or sensual experiences.”

 

In addition to being a sex toy shop, She Bop also offers classes and workshops on a regular basis. So Malloy crafted a class called “Exploring Gender Identity” that centered on “exploring those questions of gender through our sensual experiences.” They built the class around two questions: “How can we heal in our bodies if bodies that are not cisgender are often places of trauma for people?” And: “How can we move towards our affirmations of gender, rather than just moving away, like ‘That’s not my gender’?”

Malloy’s class is one example of how She Bop lives up to its tagline of being “A sex toy boutique for every body.” While gender and sexuality are two different things, gender identity can play a big role in how one relates to their sexuality, and vice versa—and for people who are trans or fall outside the gender binary, navigating a sex toy shop can be alienating. Gretchen Leigh, She Bop’s education coordinator, says sex toys are often designed and marketed with cisgender people in mind, but She Bop’s staff practices “a lot of creative thinking about how our products can be used.”

Tuck Malloy (left) and Gretchen Leigh (right)

“We really try to stay away from saying, ‘This is a g-spot vibrator, and no one else with any other body parts can use it,’” Leigh adds. “We’re always thinking, ‘Who might be excluded by this packaging and this language? How can I create more room for you for the joyful exploration of your body?’”

In addition to practicing generally inclusive practices—like using gender-neutral pronouns for new customers by default and incorporating customer feedback about language and class topics—She Bop also caters directly to trans and nonbinary people by stocking a gender expression section of its store. The section includes chest binders and packers that create a bulge in the crotch area. Transmasculine people commonly use both these items, but they can be difficult to find in a brick-and-mortar shop.

“I think we’re the only place in town where you can actually try on a binder before you buy it,” Malloy says. “That is a really huge loss, particularly because binders can have a big impact on someone’s physiology.”

Like most sex toy shops, She Bop places an 18-and-older age limit on customers during regular hours. But they allow parents with underage kids to make after-hours appointments for binder fittings. Often, kids who experience gender dysphoria but don’t have access to safe binders will bind their chests in unsafe ways, using ACE bandages and other constrictive materials.

“So many kids come in and have been binding in really unhealthy ways,” Malloy says. “We’re able to offer a safe opportunity for them to try it on. It’s very sweet and very rewarding, and very adorable.”

Youth binder fittings are also an opportunity for She Bop’s staff to educate parents who are confused about gender identity and pronoun use. “We’ll get emails from parents like, ‘My kid wants a binder and I don’t know what’s up with that, but can you help?’” Leigh says. The staff will then point those parents toward books and other resources for parents of kids who are transitioning.

While the gender expression section might be separate from the sex toys, Malloy and Leigh make the point that all the products at She Bop can fulfill multiple overlapping purposes: To help someone feel empowered in their identity and give someone the tools they need to feel sexually confident.

“For a lot of people coming in here for the first time and putting a binder on—whatever their gender is—it can make them feel so good and sexy and empowered,” Malloy says. “Gender is a huge part of people’s sexual lives, and it’s a really important part of a healthy sex life—having a good relationship to one’s gender.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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I’ll Handle This

Hey sex fans!

It’s Product Review Friday again.

This week we will feature another product from a swell new company, Kiiro, from Amsterdam.  If you missed last week’s edition, which featured our first Kiiro product, you can find it HERE.

I am delighted to welcome back Dr Dick Review Crew members, Hank & Glenn, for this review.  They’ve been away for a long time, but now they’re back and ready to introduce us to The…

TITAN by KIIROO  ——  $149

Hank & Glenn,

Hank: “HEY SEX FREAKS! We’re back…after a nearly two-and-a-half-year absence. And we’re rarin’ to go.”
Glenn: “I am one of the founding members of the Dr Dick Review Crew. I did my first review in October on 2007. Some of the other members burnt out along the way. Then back in 2014, I think it was, Dr Dick decided to close down the reviews only to revive them again in 2018. It’s been kinda spotty since then, but I think our reviews do a great service to those who read this blog.”
Hank: “I joined the Dr Dick Review Crew in August 2008.
Glenn: “A couple of months ago, Dr Dick asked us if we’d be interested in reviewing a brand-new, fancy-schmancy stroker that he scored from a company in Amsterdam. Hank and I have had the pleasure of visiting Amsterdam a couple of times in the past, so, or course, we said yes. Amsterdam is fuckin’ amazing and is one of the great sex capitols of the world.”
Hank: “You can say that again! We had a blast in Amsterdam. So, we were expecting a great product from this horned-up corner of the globe.”
Glenn: “This here is the TITAN by KIIROO, a high-tech male masturbator. It’s jet black cylinder is sleek as shit and looks pretty much like a Bluetooth speaker. It’s a little over 8.5” tall and about 3.5” wide, and weighs about 2 pounds. Its hollow internal sleeve is 7.5” long.”
Hank: “TITAN is a lot more than just a jerk-off gadget. It’s a toy for both individuals and couples. (More about the couple thing in a minute.) Like Glenn said, the overall design is very stylish. But will it live up to its hype? That’s what I want to know.”
Glenn: “I wanted to know that too. But first, we needed to charge the TITAN. A USB charging cord is included in the package. The initial charge took about 5 hours. Ya get about 40 minutes of play from a charge.”
Hank: “While it was charging, we decided to take a closer look at the

TITAN. The plastic shell has ridges on it to aid you in keeping a hold with lubed up fingers. There’s a power button and three glossy areas (control panel) where you place your fingers to adjust speed and vibration. There’s a side panel on the shell that opens to expose the sleeve. It’s kinda cool just to look at. The sleeve has three rods running through it. These rods have nine vibrating bullets (three on each rod) built into them. The sleek control panel on the surface of the unit controls the vibrating bullets offering a variety of sensations. I have no idea what the sleeve is made of, but it ain’t silicone. It’s too squishy to be silicone. It’s more like the SuperSkin of a Fleshlight. That means it’s porous and contains phthalates. Finally, a really flimsy clear plastic lid, like the kind of lid you’d get on a soft drink cup, covers the top.”
Glenn: “I was disappointed with the sleeve. I know from experience how difficult it is to clean and maintain super squishy materials like this. They feel good the first time ya use ‘em, but if extreme care isn’t used in cleaning it and thoroughly drying it, it will breakdown and you’ll have a huge mess on your hands. Yeah, and what’s up with this ridiculous lid? It doesn’t even stay in place.”
Hank: “The TITAN is pretty light weight and it’s surprisingly quiet too. There’s a bunch of other stuff in the box — user manual in a bunch of languages, quick set up guide, charging instructions, a warranty card, and a free trial for an interactive porn site. (The TITAN can sync with this porn site. It can also sync with another toy using a downloadable app for partnered use.) We didn’t use either of these two features, but they are available to anyone who wants them.”
Glenn: “OK, now that the TITAN is all charged up I offer Hank the first go at it. Nowhere on the box, or in user manual, or set up guide tells you that you can only use water-based lube. But, trust me, that’s all you can use with this toy. So Hank lubes up his big old dick and attempts to slide it in to the sleeve. Hank is heavy hung, so this takes some doin’. But once he’s got his chub situated, he begins to fiddle with the control panel.
Hank: “As it turns out, the three “buttons” on the control panel adjust vibration and speed on the three sets of bullet vibes on the rods embedded in the sleeve. This provides loads of different sensations up and down your pecker. I was impressed. You still have to use it like a stroker though. You have to pump up and down your dick. I got into a very satisfying rhythm while I was watching some of my favorite porn. In no time I was ready to unload a three-day supply of spooge.”
Glenn: “Hank has the best orgasms. He roars like a bear. When he was finished, he pulled the TITAN off his boner and set it down upright on our wooden computer desk. Remember how we said at the beginning that the sleeve was hollow? Well we had forgotten about that. When Hank picked up the TITAN to carry it to the bathroom, we discovered to our horror that all his jizz and all the lube he used ran out the hole in the bottom of the blasted thing. What a fuckin’ mess.”
Hank: “My bad! Now I had an extra mess to clean up and I had to do it super-fast so it wouldn’t destroy the desktop. Speaking of clean up, I suppose you can just run some warm water and soap through the inside of the sleeve, rinse, and let it air dry. But I like my toys really clean, so I had to open the side panel and roll the sleeve off the three rods with the bullets. This way I could thoroughly clean the sleeve. I set it aside to air dry. Because the material used to make the sleeve is so porous, just as we thought, once dry it was really tacky. It needed to be powdered before it could be used again. And, in order to use it again, you will have to re thread the sleeve back on to the rods with the vibes. And let me tell you, that is no easy task.”

Glenn: “If I wanted to use the TITAN, I would have had to use a condom. This material, whatever it is, is not designed for sharing. I thought that was too bad. But just for the hell of it, I went to the Kiiro site to see if they sold replacement sleeves. They do. There are two sleeves (They don’t say what the sleeves are made of on there site either.) and they are $39 apiece. Imagine if you had to replace the sleeve every couple months.”
Hank: “By the way, the whole Kiiro site is exclusively heterosexual. They certainly don’t do anything to welcome the gays.”
Glenn: “So there ya have it. A really great tech savvy stroker with loads of features for your (and a partner’s) pleasure. But there are a number of sometimes glaring problematic issues…I’m looking at you sleeve.”

Full Review ↪HERE↩!

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Sex Tech

Hey sex fans!

We haven’t had a Product Review Friday in a very long time. Let’s make up for lost time in a big way today.

This week (and hopefully next) we will feature a product from a swell new company, Kiiro, from Amsterdam.

Back with us today is one of the newest members of the Dr Dick Review Crew, Trevor, who will introduce us to the first of the Kiiro toys.

Kiiroo Onyx 2  —— $219.00

Trevor

Hello again! I’m here to talk about the Kiiroo Onyx 2.

I confess; I’m a wanker. I know that word is often used as a put down, particularly where I come from.  I’m originally from the UK, Manchester to be precise, but have been in the US since I was 13. But I’m proud of my masturbation skills. I’ve been pullin’ my pud since I was just a lad and I’m now 35.

Get this, my da caught me wankin’ away like the little pervert I was when I was just eleven. Embarrassing, huh? Actually, it was OK. I think he was as embarrassed as me. Anyhow, after that he and I have been able to talk quite openly about sex, which, I think, has been good for both of us.

So, I’m proud to say that I’m a connoisseur of playing with myself. I’ve tried numerous strokers and masturbators in my time. I know what works and what don’t work. With that then, let’s take a look at the Onyx 2. There’s lots to see.

I’m going to start with the box. Onyx 2 comes in a very sturdy white cardboard with a picture of the product on the front. The sides and back are plastered with little icons that tout the many different features of the Onyx 2. Little descriptors come in seven languages. All the packaging is recyclable, which is good and environmentally responsible.

Inside the box you will find the Onyx 2, a USB charging cable (This thing is rechargeable.), a little instruction manual in many languages, a warranty/registration card, a Fleshlight SuperSkin insert (Lots more about this to come.), and a free trial for FeelMe. (Porn that can sync with the Onyx 2).

First things first. Ya gotta charge the Onyx 2 for 4-6 hours before use.  There’s an easy to access covered port near the base of the unit. You’ll get about an hour of play on a full charge.

While the unit is charging you can begin to set it up for use. Here’s where things get a little tricky.

The Onyx 2 has a removable cap on the bottom. Lifting the cap is easy. Once the cap is removed you can see the space-aged innards. It’s very cool. Now ya have to carefully pry off a plastic lip so that you can insert the Fleshlight sleeve. This wasn’t as easy as I hoped. The plastic is thin, and I was afraid I was going to break it if I pried too hard. In the end it came off just fine.

Next I opened the sealed packet containing the Fleshlight sleeve. This is where my problems began.

My experience was nothing like this.

I used to own a Fleshlight. I thought it was brilliant at first. But, after a few uses, the SuperSkin insert began to deteriorate. Unlike silicone, SuperSkin is porous, contains phthalates, and is not hypoallergenic. Cleaning it is a headache and even if you’re careful washing and drying it, it won’t last like silicone. And don’t even think about sharing a SuperSkin toy.

When I opened the sealed packet containing the Fleshlight sleeve I was shocked to discover that the insert had melted into itself. Very disappointing! I know what the sleeve was supposed to look like, a condom sized ribbed insert, because I saw pictures of it online. (See the photo above.) Mine didn’t look anything like this picture. Mine was a white blob. I carefully tried to pull the sticky mess apart. (Had it been in its package too long?) SuperSkin is really stretchy, so I was partially successful in pulling it into shape. I say partially because I tore two little holes in it with my effort. Frankly, after this irritating little adventure, I wanted to walk away from this whole exercise.

Why in the world would a company make a $200+ engineering marvel of a toy and have the use of the toy depend on a crummy, yeah, I’m gonna say it, unhealthy insert? What, a silicone insert, one that would be easy to clean, wouldn’t degrade, and be easy to use over and over again, and that would be nonporous, phthalate-free, and hypoallergenic, wasn’t available? Disappointed!!

OK, so I finally get the sleeve stretched out to the best of my ability and slip it into the core of the Onyx 2. Now I had to arrange the base of the sleeve on the top of the unit so that I could replace the plastic lip. This is supposed to keep the sleeve in place while in use. This step is way easier said than done. The SuperSkin is a bit greasy so it was a struggle to get it into just the right position for the plastic lip to hold it and snap back into place.

Once I finally had the Onyx 2 set up I replaced the cap and let it finish charging. I was glad for this hiatus because my libido was tamped down big time after all the struggle to get this fuckin’ thing set up. No toy, especially a very expensive toy should be this troublesome, if ya ask me.

The next day I approached the Onyx 2 again. I had my water-based lube in hand (You can only use water-based lube with SuperSkin.) and I was ready to bust a nut.

Just so you know, you can either just switch on the unit and use it in manually, (You control the speed and sensations using the touch-sensitive strip on the front.) or you can check out some interactive porn using the FeelMe site.

I chose the first option. I wanted to get a feel, so to speak, for what the Onyx 2 could do on its own. I had to use a lot of lube to get started. This got a bit messy, as I knew it would.  I prepared by having some wipes ready to clean my hands throughout. Otherwise using the control panel, or even holding the thing, would have been difficult.

(If you’re going the interactive route, you have to install the FeelMe app from your app store, pair your device with the app, and then navigate your way to an interactive porn site.)

The Onyx 2, once it is set up, is basically a hands-free device. It does all the work for you. It will literally rub one out for you without even thrusting. Cool. It’s pretty lightweight, comparatively speaking, and quiet too.

I watched some of my own go-to porn and had a very satisfying orgasm. So YAY for that!

After my session was over, I removed the plastic lip which was holding the Fleshlight sleeve in place and pulled out the insert. I had every intention to try to clean it for another use, but to my dismay, there was lube all over the inside of the core. I know, I know, it was my fault. I used the Fleshlight SuperSkin sleeve even though I had punctured it when I was trying to stretch it out. What a bummer. Now I had to clean out the core.

This did nothing for my post-orgasm afterglow.

I looked on the Kiiro site for replacement sleeves for the Onyx 2, but couldn’t find any. There were replacement sleeves available for one of their other products, but not for the Onyx 2. So now what’s a person to do?

Because I’m a plucky little wanker, I didn’t let the SuperSkin debacle get me totally down. The next time I tried the Onyx 2 I wore two condoms on my willy and slipped it onto the Onyx 2’s core so I could enjoy the great sensation it had to offer. This worked out OK, but wasn’t optimum. I don’t think I should have to improvise with a product that costs over $200.

I know that the Onyx 2 has other capabilities, like connecting with a partner and her toy, but I didn’t go there. Mainly because my wife would have had to have her own interactive toy. (Actually, she noticed all the problems I was having in setting up and using the Onyx 2, and she didn’t want to add to my frustration.) And, of course, I had no sleeve.

Here are my final thoughts. I think the Onyx 2, is a brilliant concept. It’s relatively quiet and rather lightweight for the great sensations it can deliver. The SuperSkin insert was a disaster.

Full Review ↪HERE↩!

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(Almost) Everything You Know About the Invention of the Vibrator Is Wrong

A Victorian doctor created the “vibratode,” but it was our great-great- grandmothers who saw its real potential.

By Hallie Lieberman

There’s a longstanding myth that still seems to hold about where vibrators first came from. It goes something like this:

Cut to Victorian England. A mutton-chopped, bow-tie-clad doctor stands in an operating theater, where the silhouette of a woman, legs in stirrups sits before him. He — serious, medical, scholarly — applies the vibrator to her genitals, bringing her to “hysterical paroxysm,” thereby curing her of her “hysteria.” (Perhaps he throws in some disparaging remarks about women’s suffrage, for good measure.)

The above scene, complete with suffrage references, actually appeared recently, in the animated series “Big Mouth.” But that’s only one recent instance. The 2011 film “Hysteria,” starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, centered its entire story around this myth about vibrators. “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” and “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” repeated it. Sarah Ruhl’s 2009 Tony-nominated play “In The Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” focused on it, as did the 2007 documentary “Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm.” Popular books from Wednesday Martin’s “Untrue” to Laura and Jennifer Berman’s “For Women Only: A Revolutionary Guide to Reclaiming Your Sex Life” have retold the story. It’s been cited in the academic literature dozens of times.

Every time I see this myth retold as truth, I sigh. I’m doubly frustrated because if anyone’s to blame, it’s me, not the writers of “Big Mouth” or “Hysteria.” I wrote a 384-page book on the history of sex toys, and I spent only a few pages debunking this story. I thought — naïvely it turns out — that I could focus on my own story and the myth would die. But it didn’t. So I co-wrote a scholarly article with Eric Schatzberg that debunked it again, step by step. When the Journal of Positive Sexuality published the article in August 2018, I declared victory. I shouldn’t have. The myth soldiers on. This is my attempt to kill it once and for all.

Why bother debunking this myth? Isn’t it harmless? Women getting orgasms at the doctor’s office: what’s not to like?

I like the story too. It’s sexy; it’s salacious; it’s doctor-patient porn in the form of serious scholarship that you can bring up at dinner parties. I myself believed it at first.

But the myth isn’t harmless. It’s a fantasy that contributes to the ways we still misunderstand female sexuality and that perpetuates harmful stereotypes that continue to resonate in our laws and attitudes.

Attempts to control women’s sexuality are based in part on the same beliefs that undergird the vibrator myth: that because women don’t understand their own sexuality they should not be the ones in control of it. It makes women seem ignorant, passive and easily duped by manipulative men. In other words, it perpetuates the myth that women lack sexual agency.

The myth can be traced to Rachel Maines’s 1999 book “Technology of Orgasm” (she wrote some earlier articles, but the book is what put this version of the vibrator’s history on the map). Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, “Technology” seemed like a well-researched scholarly book, with 465 citations and a plethora of primary sources, some in Greek and Latin; the problem is that none of them actually supported this story. (Ms. Maines has said she put forth her version as an “interesting hypothesis” and never intended it to be seen as established fact.) Nonetheless, the idea caught on and spread.

If you swap the genders you can recognize how much the widespread acceptance of this story is based on gender bias. Imagine arguing that at the turn of the 20th century, female nurses were giving hand jobs to male patients to treat them for psychological problems; that men didn’t realize anything sexual was going on; that because female nurses’ wrists got tired from all the hand jobs, they invented a device called a penis pump to help speed up the process. Then imagine claiming nobody thought any of this was sexual, because it was a century ago.

The idea that nurses were masturbating clueless men to orgasm as a mainstream medical therapy is obviously ridiculous. But why don’t we think the same story is absurd when it’s about women? In part it’s because women have historically been seen as ignorant about their own bodies, and female sexuality has been controlled and constrained by men throughout history. In contrast, men are viewed as knowledgeable about their bodies — at least knowledgeable enough to know when they’ve had an orgasm.

Yet Ms. Maines’s story was embraced not by sexist men but by feminist women. Why? The story has the benefit of being both sexy and reassuring. It portrays sexual knowledge as marching on a steady line of progress, from clueless Victorians to today’s sexual sophisticates. It also serves as a feminist fairy tale of sorts, in which women subvert patriarchal society by procuring orgasms from their doctors, paid for by their husbands.

Ms. Maines is right about one thing: the electric vibrator was invented by a physician, the British doctor Joseph Mortimer Granville. But when Dr. Granville invented the vibrator in the early 1880s, it was not meant to be used on women or to cure hysteria. In fact, he argued specifically that it shouldn’t be used on hysterical women; rather, Dr. Granville invented the vibrator as a medical device for men, to be used on a variety of body parts, mainly to treat pain, spinal disease and deafness. The only sexual uses he suggested were vibrating men’s perineums to treat impotence. Illustrations in Dr. Granville’s book on the invention of the electric vibrator show him using it only on men.

The true story is that the use of vibrators became widespread only when they were marketed to the general public, both men and women, as domestic and medical appliances in the early 1900s. Ads featuring men and women, babies and older people, promised vibrators could do everything from eliminating wrinkles to curing tuberculosis. When doctors did use vibrators on women, they assiduously avoided touching their clitorises. “The greatest objection to vibration thus applied is that in overly sensitive patients it is liable to cause sexual excitement,” the gynecologist James Craven Wood wrote in 1917. If, however, he continued, “the vibratode is kept well back from the clitoris, there is but little danger of causing such excitement.”

It was female consumers who embraced their erotic potential — covertly at first, until the early 1970s, when the radical feminist Betty Dodson began openly using vibrators as sexual devices in her masturbation workshops.

The myth of the vibrator has real consequences. The harmful idea that women are naturally sexually ignorant and that women who do have sexual knowledge and drives are outliers, has been the basis for repressive laws throughout history: from adultery laws that punished only women to honor killings to recent restrictions on birth control and abortion. All these laws and violence are about punishing women who have sex for pleasure, not procreation.

The myth also reinforces the false idea that the history of sex moves on a straight line from repression to enlightenment. This belief can make people complacent, believing that we have advanced beyond Victorian attitudes. Yet we still live in a sexually repressive era where double standards abound: Sex toy advertising is restricted by the M.T.A., Facebook, Instagram, and other venues, while ads for erectile dysfunction products are allowed. The Trump administration has decreased sex education funding, promoted abstinence-only education, and redirected funds for preventing teen pregnancy to anti-abortion groups.
It’s time to be honest about our past: doctors didn’t invent vibrators because their wrists hurt from rubbing hysterical women’s clitorises. They invented vibrators as cure-all devices; those devices ended up curing very little, until our great-great-grandmothers put them toward their highest purpose. The real story isn’t as salacious as the myth, but it does have one important thing going for it: it happens to be true.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Tech Innovator Fighting to Give Women Better Orgasms:

‘It’s About Helping People Understand Themselves’

The Osé

By Aurora Snow

Lora DiCarlo won the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Robotics Innovation Award for Osé, the company’s premiere product—“a robotic massager for hands-free blended orgasms.” A few months later, CES parent company Consumer Technology Association took the award back, calling it a mistake due to the nature of the product.

“There’s a lot more to that story than, ‘They took an award away and gave it back.’ When they took it away and called it obscene, that was too much. It was shocking. This is sexual health and wellness,” says DiCarlo, CEO and founder of the company. “When we challenged them, we pointed out their gender bias. They had male sexuality representation on the floor.”

Just a few years prior, a Mashable reporter chronicled his VR porn experience at CES. Thousands of attendees reportedly flocked to a well-known adult entertainment company’s booth to test-drive the new tech, and as a bonus participate in an intimate VR experience featuring explicit POV-style sex scenes, all filmed from a heterosexual male perspective. VR porn continued to be made available during the CES conventions that followed in 2018 and 2019, when DiCarlo’s award for her patent-pending microrobotic women’s device was rescinded. In a letter cited by TechCrunch from CTA to DiCarlo, entries judged “in their sole discretion to be immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with the CTA’s image will be disqualified.”

Though the award may have been temporary, DiCarlo’s presence has become permanent, in part due to the debacle. It caught fire, and the amount of support she felt was “jaw-dropping.” When CTA circled back to the company last year to make amends, DiCarlo seized the opportunity to make a difference—not just for her business but also for her industry. “We realize as women in this space, in this sexual space in sex tech, we understand that all boats rise with the tide. So when this happened to us last year at CES, one of the first things we wanted to do was shine a light on the disparities that other women in tech had experienced,” recounts DiCarlo. “We’ve kind of just grasped hands even though we are competitors and tried to raise each other up across the board.

“[We wanted] to take advantage of this opportunity to do right by not just ourselves, but the people who deserve to be at this show, in this industry. There is a lot of tech that is being done very tastefully, very respectfully, that doesn’t objectify bodies or demoralize women and that deserves to be in [this] show,” adds DiCarlo. “They said, ‘What if we give you your own section?’ We were like, ‘NO. You already did that.’” (AVN’s Adult Entertainment Expo, aka the Oscars of porn, began in the 1980s as a part of CES.)

Recognizing sexual health as an unsegregated equal within the health and wellness genre is pivotal to addressing the stigma and bias that shadow it. “If it’s a constant conversation you are having then it’s something you slowly get used to, and the awkwardness melts away over time,” says DiCarlo, who’s focused on broadening our sexual-wellness dialogue.

“I was very surprised by how little we know about our bodies,” says DiCarlo. “In the amount of people we surveyed, we found a staggering amount of women didn’t know exactly where their clitoris was or exactly how to locate their G-spot, and even fewer straight women knew how to identify those structures.”

To develop the ideal product and mimic her experience without a partner, DiCarlo says she “wanted something that didn’t vibrate, that moved like human partners do.” At first she was focused on creating a product to replicate her experience, but as DiCarlo gathered data for the project she began to see this as an opportunity to give back, to create a better society. “It’s become a purpose-driven mission that is much bigger than Lora DiCarlo. It’s about helping people understand themselves and understand others.”

In DiCarlo’s pursuit of a hands-free self-pleasuring product with biomimicry, she made a startling discovery: women had hardly been studied this way. “In order to fit multiple bodies, you need data about multiple bodies. I’m pre-med at the time so I know how to look for that information and I find it doesn’t exist. Nobody’s ever gathered it before, no one’s asking about women’s clitorises,” says DiCarlo. “No one’s asking where they’re positioned on most people’s anatomy, and then half the people don’t even think the G-spot exists. Which is ridiculous.”

Proactively surveying people to better understand not only the issues they encounter in the sexual health and wellness space, but also what motivates or prevents them from exploring their interests, has become a company-wide quest. “It’s data-driven, it’s curious, we’re trying to solve problems that exist within sexual health and wellness by creating and using new technology in order to solve these problems,” says DiCarlo. “We’ve had vibrators for 80 years, we’re due for an overhaul.”

Gathering data only solidified DiCarlo’s belief that sexual pleasure is health and wellness. “We send out multiple surveys asking: What are the problems? What do people want to explore, and what is stopping them?” says DiCarlo. “We asked people, ‘Why do you masturbate? Why do you use toys? Why do you explore your body the way that you do?’ The top three answers were: 1) to sleep better, 2) they wanted to reduce stress, and 3) was better mood in pursuit of pleasure. To me all three of those screamed health and wellness.”

Sexual health isn’t a new concept. The World Health Organization (WHO) implemented the term nearly 50 years ago, which today is defined as “a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Arguing With Your Partner Makes You So Damn Horny. Here’s Why.

Blame it on science. No, really.

By Morgan Mandriota

It’s a classic Hollywood plot: Couple starts an epic screaming match with each other, then mid-fight, one partner pushes the other up against the wall, they kiss oh-so passionately, and things escalate to hot, steamy makeup sex. (I mean, raise your hand if that scene from The Notebook still leaves you hot and bothered.)

The argument = over. Relationship = restored. The end.

You and I both know this actually happens IRL too. Whenever my ex and I would argue, I’d immediately want to tackle him—not in a physical fight kind of way but more in like an I-suddenly-need-to-jump-your-bones way. The makeup sex was always soooo good.

Why is this a thing? Is there a link between being angry and horny? Or are we all just kinky mother-effers? After speaking with psychotherapists, physiology experts, and sexperts, I’ve learned that there is def some science behind this madness. Here are seven solid reasons why some people get turned on after arguing with their partner:

1. Hormones

Hormones like testosterone, adrenaline, and cortisol (the stress hormone) all spike when we fight with someone, including our romantic partners. “When cortisol is released from stress, our bodies and minds may yearn for the closeness that sex provides,” explains certified sexologist Jenni Skyler, PhD.

The relief of orgasm and pleasure increases serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, and oxytocin (the love hormone), explains sex and relationship therapist Andrew Aaron, LICSW. TL;DR: This means that while the hormones released during a fight can rile you up, the hormones released after a fight calm you down, make you feel satisfied, give you feelings of power, and increase your sense of safety—which, conveniently, all magically combine to make you want to bone. A true climax and resolution.

2. Evolution

Banging after an angry fight with your partner unlocks a deep and primal part of your psyche. “Sex after a fight not only provides relief, it also creates excitement. You go from being threatened to feeling triumphant in overcoming the threat by surviving,” says Aaron. Basically, you may feel like you’ve overcome something major, so your body celebrates by getting all excited (read: horny AF) as a result.

3. Anxiety and arousal

Arousal and anxiety are sister sensations that increase your heart rate, blood flow, and breathing. “The excitement from one of those emotions is likely to transfer to another,” explains sexologist Robert Thomas, cofounder of Sextopedia.

“When we’re under stress, such as the stress induced by an argument, our sympathetic nervous system is aroused,” says relationship and sex coach Michele Lisenbury Christensen. (Aka, this is why fights turn you on.) “This also sparks your fight or flight response, which fills you full of energy and makes you motivated to want to physically act in some way,” adds physiology expert Elesa Zehndorfer, PhD. What better way to satiate that need to get physical than with that hot person right in front of you who’s also pissing you off? Sounds like the most logical option, IMHO.

5. You’re into sadomasochism

Did you know that the word “passion” has a Latin origin that actually comes from “patior,” which means to suffer? So, like, “Hurts so good” is a saying for a reason. “There’s a close link between anger, passion, suffering, and connection,” says relationship coach Valarie Merced, founder of Precipice Magazine.

Fighting can stimulate sadomasochistic sexual fantasies (aka gaining sexual pleasure from inflicting or receiving pain), explains Gail Saltz, MD, a psychiatrist specializing in relationships and mental health. But, FWIW, just because you like makeup sex doesn’t mean you’re a hundred percent going to be into BDSM. Although, if you *are* already into it, you might be one of the ~lucky~ ones who get turned on from fighting. (Hi, guilty as charged. Now, handcuff me. JK, not JK.)

6. Makeup—aka “mad at you”—sex is awesome

Wanting to reestablish a connection and forgive your partner (or yourself) is a high-priority post-fight…which is exactly why you may turn to some “Fuck me like you hate me” sex to repair the bond. The evidence:

  • “I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but fucking after we fight is hot. Everything’s heightened and you’re breathing heavy. It’s you and this other hot-blooded person you’re presumably sexually attracted to. That makes me want my man. Like, he is MINE,” says Nicole, 33.
  • “We’re both desperately waiting for the fight to end because we’re still so physically and emotionally drawn to one another as we fight.” says Scarlett, 26.
  • “Who the hell doesn’t love makeup sex? It makes things more passionate and aggressive, which is always a plus,” agrees Kayla, 23. “It starts off with anger and rage but slowly transitions into love and passion and ends up being sweet.”

Clearly, we’re all IRL Sour Patch Kids.

7. It‘s a way to cope with trauma

Traumatic events that contained fighting or intense anger (during childhood or some point of your early years) can sometimes get connected to sexual feelings, says Dr. Saltz. Because of this, it could be that you’re horny whenever you fight with your partner.

“Psychologically, when couples fight, they often instigate a trigger or very scared part of their younger memory system,” explains Skyler. Fear creates a sense of abandonment, inadequacy, or both, so sex can sometimes alleviate that fear by increasing intimacy and reestablishing feelings of safety.

If this is the case for you, you may want to seek therapy to unlearn this type of conditioning and coping mechanism. “Better understanding this part of you will help you to find methods to get that sex-fueled romp that’s less destructive to your relationship than purposely picking fights,” Dr. Saltz says.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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‘Sex tech’ aims to rise above negative image

Sex toys have cautiously been allowed into this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas

Sex toys are for relaxation. For education. For healing after childbirth. For long-term or long-distance relationships. For women’s emancipation.

And also… for pleasure.

But manufacturers aiming for respectability tend to save this argument for last.

“Sex toys have an extremely negative connotation,” said Jerome Bensimon, president of Satisfyer. “So we’ve rebranded ourselves as a ‘sexual wellbeing company.'”

The company has gained attention for its pressure wave technology used for clitoral stimulation, and has plans to launch a smart phone app for controlling sex toys, in particular by using voice commands.

At its booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, vibrators and Ben Wa balls sit alongside mini vibrators shaped like ice cream cones.

After some ups and downs, “sex tech” is testing the waters this year.

As recently as last year the display likely would have been banned.

At the 2019 show, the Consumer Technology Association, which runs the expo, stripped the Ose massager of an award for innovation, saying it was disqualified for being “immoral,” “obscene” and “profane.”

After an uproar, the CTA reversed itself and returned the prize to Lora DiCarlo, the company which manufactures the Ose.

Sex toys “are consumer electronics just like any other but are not treated like that,” said Janet Lieberman-Lu, co-founder of Dame Products, which manufactures small devices for clitoral stimulation.

Given their widespread use, “sex toys are by definition mainstream…. They’re more adopted than a lot of products at CES.”

Her company has taken New York City’s public transportation system to court, complaining that it allows advertisements for erectile dysfunction medications and ads that contain humorous references to sex — but not for sex devices.

Crave shows its wearable vibrators at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show

“When you say that male sexual function is healthy and necessary but vibrators for women are obscene, you’re saying that men are supposed to be able to have sex and women aren’t supposed to be able to enjoy it,” said Lieberman-Lu.

“That’s what leads to rape culture.”

– Starting the conversation –

Entrepreneurs in this industry, many of whom started out in conventional consumer electronics, medicine or cosmetics, say pleasure and health go hand-in-hand.

Given that school textbooks only recently began including information on the shape and size of the clitoris, they say they are on a mission to educate the public.

It is often “much easier to talk about health than pure pleasure, which can involve fear of rejection,” said Soumyadip Rakshit, CEO of Mystery Vibe, which develops vibrators that deal with both erectile difficulties in men and postpartum vaginal scarring in women.

To open up, people often need a catalyst.

“Everyone is keen to talk about it but no one wants to be the first,” he said.

“If someone does that for them, a company, an article, a doctor… it makes that so much easier.”

Ergo-Fit presents its sex toys at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show

Elsewhere on the showroom floor, Gerard Escaler, chief marketing officer at Lovense, explains how a male “masturbator” works.

The tubular objects have internal sleeves and are pink when intended for straight users and translucent for gay users.

The Hong Kong-based company offers several internet apps for use in long-distance relations — with a partner or with online erotic performers like “cam girls” who sell access to live web video.

Lovense also is developing a virtual reality game for the male sex toy with female characters. Visitors have to imagine the contents, however, since the imagery, even if artificial, is not allowed during the consumer expo.

But the “sexual wellbeing” industry, which could swell to nearly $40 billion by 2024, according to a forecast from market research firm Aritzon, may have good reason to maintain an air of mystery and controversy.

Without the storm it created last year, the $300 Ose vibrator might not have taken off quite the way it did, said Lora Haddock DiCarlo, founder of the eponymous company which produces it.

“When we did our presale with Ose, after its long-awaited release at the end of November, we hit our yearly sales goal in five hours,” she said, as she road aboard a transparent mobile showroom plying the streets of Las Vegas during the show.

The roving booth, like a fishbowl on wheels, displayed the catch phrase: “The pleasure is all yours.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!