The Future of Accessible Sex Toys
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When it comes to sex toys, one size simply doesn’t fit all: Everybody is unique. A simple and ergonomic design can make a product accessible for a variety of users, including people with limited use of their hands, mobility issues, or any other physical needs.
Sex, and specifically female sexual pleasure, is a long-held taboo in our society. In recent years, the sex tech industry has had to deal with a range of challenges. It’s not an easy task to break the taboos around sexual pleasure and design sex toys to suit a wide variety of anatomically different bodies, all with different needs and preferences.
When sex toys became popular in the ‘70s, the industry was entirely dominated by men. This made it even trickier for women to enter the design process and try to deviate from the long-established and stereotypical phallic shapes. Now, women-led sex tech companies are finally entering the industry and turning their products into innovative, non-intimidating, and more female-focused toys.
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Last week, TNW hosted an Answers session with Lora Haddock DiCarlo, the founder and CEO of the startup Lora DiCarlo, and Alexandra Fine, the CEO and co-founder of Dame Products, a sex tech company with a range of unique sex toys.
Products should be based on needs, not assumptions
Both DiCarlo and Fine strive to create products that enhance pleasure and intimacy while breaking out of the stereotypical shapes and designs that have dominated the industry for decades. Their companies left behind the mere replication of traditionally shaped dildos and moved their focus to a more scientific, empathic approach to orgasm.
“Female sexuality is often regarded as two parts mystery and one part biology,” DiCarlo said. “That’s why we offer a biomimetic solution designed to simulate the best kinds of human touch. We use compliant materials that conform to an individual’s anatomy, very similar to the way we make prosthetics. We want it to be as human as possible, and the catalyst to the path for each individual’s sexual self-discovery.”
However, it takes a lot of research and anatomical data to design products that aren’t based on assumptions but on realistic human needs. As Fine explains, over 70% of women need clitoral stimulation to reach an orgasm. For this reason, designing sex toys for internal stimulation doesn’t always make sense.
“Eva, our first product, is designed to be worn in the vulva and took a ton of user testing to design,” Fine explained. “We’ve done everything from sending out multiple versions of a product to testers to having testers come in and give us visual data — we’ve paid professionals to take off their pants and test out the fit in front of us.”
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Flavia Pollastrini