Sexual Healing
Gone are the days where purchasing a sex toy was seen as seedy, now it’s considered a form of self-care. We look at the changes in the industry (and attitudes) that have lead to this sexual awakening…
her Instagram about her thoughts on the Kama—a clitoral stimulation and powerful internal vibrator that’s already being touted as the sex toy of the year. Overseas, celebrity-endorsed sex toys may just be this year’s answer to the celebrity perfume. Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson is an investor and co-creative director of Maude, a sexual wellness brand known for its sleek, sculptural sex toys and organic condoms.
Lily Allen, on a quest to open the conversation around masturbation, partnered with German brand Womanizer to create her own vibrator, the Liberty. And model Cara Delevingne is now the co-owner and creative adviser of award-winning sex toy company Lora DiCarlo. It’s the latter that had a lot of press when its Osé device (a vibrator/dildo that creates the sensation of stroking and sucking for external stimulation) won an innovation award in the robotics and drones category at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2019. But two weeks, later the award was rescinded because their product was deemed immoral and obscene. The company’s founder wrote an open letter accusing the show of sexism and stifling innovation (the show had featured a sex doll and virtual reality pornography in the past) and eventually, the award was reinstated. It’s clear celebrities and influencers provide a familiar and trusted face when talking about a topic that perhaps some are not yet comfortable articulating. And because celebrities have so many fans and followers, they’ve helped to open up conversations around self-pleasure. But it’s more than that—they’ve normalised it.
SEX TOYS THAT WERE ONCE CONSIDERED ILLICIT OR TABOO ARE NOW BEING SOLD IN ICONIC STORES LIKE NEW YORK’S BLOOMINGDALE’S.
A WOMAN’S TOUCH
It’s not just the conversation around sexual pleasure that’s changed, the industry has too. Sex toys that were once considered illicit or taboo are now being sold in iconic stores like New York’s Bloomingdales who last month became the first major department store in the US to launch a sexual wellness shop. Now, the market has shifted to be more female-focused, with the spotlight on products designed by women. These items, with their Instagramable packaging, resemble high-end beauty products. Relph, who started Adult toy mega store in 2009, has witnessed the changes first hand.
“When I started, adult toys were imported in pretty unsavoury packaging. And you would have to buy them in what I’d call seedy-looking adults stores,” she says. “Back then it was sort of an old boys’ network—the manufacturers were predominately run by men and therefore the products had a male viewpoint to them. Now, with this whole gender equality, we’re seeing really amazing companies, manufacturers, and retailers, all run by women. So you’ve got women producing toys for women, which has just seen the rise of beautiful packaging and beautiful design. It’s made a massive change in the industry.”
DISCRETION FIRST
A few days after my chat with Relph, I meet Ella JaggarMcLean, at a PR showroom in Auckland’s Freemans Bay. At 26, she looks too young and too green to be the owner of an online sex shop, but that’s exactly what she’s about to launch in October. Her company, Hello Lover, is set to be part e-commerce platform (selling a range of global sexual wellness products), and part information platform to help facilitate healthy conversations around sexual pleasure. Like Adult toy mega store, Hello Lover will only bean online store, which provides a discreet shopping experience.
When I ask what Hello Lover will stock, JaggerMcLean smiles—”I can show you if you want?” She brings over a large duffel bag filled with sex toys and other sexual wellness paraphernalia and places them between us on the white couch. There is a slew of vibrators—in inoffensive colours—purple, teal and bright orange. Surprisingly though, nothing looks too garish, too daunting, or too phallic. A bottle of lubricant from natural Australian brand Figr in a frosted glass bottle seriously looks like an expensive skincare serum you might display on your dressing table.
“This one is Lora DiCarlo—by Cara Delevingne,” she says pointing to a teal vibrator that looks more like a squiggly line than anything penis shaped. “It’s innovative because it has warming technology. And it’s very versatile as you can use it on the vulva and the anus as well.”
Jaggar-McLean shows me a remote-controlled couples toy, Kegel balls, penis rings, and a penis stroker. She talks me through her products with such unflinching maturity and honesty that instead of feeling uncomfortable, I start to wonder why my group of friends don’t talk about sex toys in this same way? Perhaps it’s the Catholic guilt, or maybe it’s because growing up, masturbation was seen as something we shouldn’t be doing.
This rhetoric is something Jaggar-McLean is particularly interested in changing. “We are being told that it [masturbation] is naughty and that it’s a guilty pleasure but that’s far from the truth—you’re not being naughty by doing something that’s good for you and you shouldn’t feel guilty about that,” she says. “It’s about eradicating those outdated statements and making it really relatable for everyone.”
Where has the stigma surrounding self-pleasure come from? I go back to Vranjes for some answers, and she tells me she believes religion has a lot to answer for.
“It [religion] taught human sexuality from a negative and hostile perspective as evil, dirty and harmful behaviour,” she says. “It didn’t help that neurologists at the time linked masturbation to insanity. Couple that with the suppression of women and their expected role to please their husbands—no wonder it was never seen as a part of women’s health. Society is slowly dismantling the beliefs created by religions and forming new healthy beliefs around sexuality. I see women feeling more confident to speak up during sex, I see social media normalising all types of sexual preferences, and I see women investing in their sexual wellness as a priority for their health.”
Something else that’s normalising the process and
opening up discussion? The Satisfyer Pro 2 . Nearly everyone I interviewed for this story mentioned this particular clitoral stimulator, and there are countless reviews and articles written on the subject, with women saying it brings them to orgasm in less than two minutes. In the last year, Adult toy mega stores old 55,000 of them—that’s an average of more than 1000 per week. It’s still one of their best-selling toys. And when I sheepishly tell Relph I’ve never tried it, she gasps.
“You must,” she says, adding, “I think it was such a mind-blowing experience for people that they just wanted to tell someone. So they were telling their girlfriends, and those girlfriends were like ‘Really, did that actually happen?’ And they were like, ‘Yes, go and buy it and see for yourself’. It was sort of like a selffulfilling prophecy because more people were talking about it and then all of a sudden multiple people around the table had it. So now, having wine at the end of the week, women are just more open to chatting about it. We now see those conversations happening all over the place.”
So what does the future hold for the sex toy and sexual wellness industry? Relph predicts it will continue to grow and that we will see more products in places like pharmacies and hairdressing salons.
She offers some final parting advice to those who haven’t yet ventured into the adult sex toy market, saying, “You can be safe in the knowledge that actually everyone is doing it”.
Emboldened by our chat, I compose a message to my school friends on our WhatsApp group. I timidly open a dialogue that, for one reason or another, was previously completely quiet. “Has anyone tried the Satisfyer Pro 2?” I venture. I wait… and then watch as the responses enthusiastically roll in.
SEXUAL WELLNESS IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR WELLBEING THAT IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED.