Have Technology-Riddled Sex Toys Taken the ‘Sexy’ Out of Masturbation?

When I open the box from Babeland, The Womanizer looks like a cross between a Clarisonic Mia and the airbrush that Sara tried out a few days ago. If there wasn’t a giant fake jewel on it, I could’ve told you it was used as a vibrator during the times of Hysteria, and you probably would’ve believed me, because it’s that non-sexy looking. The press release guarantees women will orgasm in “60 seconds or less” and honestly, it scared me.

Sex toys of past, the ones you think of immediately when talked about, have been recognizably sex toys. They’ve been in the shapes of the genitalia that we all know and love. They’ve been a bit tacky but also endearing. They’ve also been luxury items that you feel fancy owning. They haven’t looked like Das Sound Machine from Pitch Perfect 2 would carry them around on their belts like gun holsters.

“We work with a European designer to design all of our products so that from a visual perspective, the products are visually appealing…and feel even better,” Dunham says. “In the last decade or so, due to the Apple design phenomena, consumers are expecting and wanting high design in all of their consumer goods and that has impacted our industry as well. Design has also been influenced by the changing cultural shifts and the stigmas associated with this industry, as more toy brands are striving to break into more mainstream channels. A softer, non-phallic and approachable design will help support these channel opportunities.”

 

After deciding to go down this road of conversation, I was sent the Eva, a handsfree vibrator that is the #1 crowdsourced sex toy out right now. And to be honest, I was a little confused. The toy itself looks kind of like a small frog, where the “leg” parts are supposed to fit into the folds of your labia majora. It literally could be mistaken for anything else except a sex toy, but it was created because someone (probably multiple someone’s) wanted it.

“I don’t think most sex toy users are attempting to replace genitalia and therefore aren’t interested in these toys resembling genitalia,” says Alex Fine, the cofounder of Dame Products who manufactures the Eva. “On the flip side, I feel that luxury designer toys have gotten so preoccupied with looking like luxury ‘pleasure objects’ that they often put form before function.”

“Designing luxury sex toys is like designing smartphones or luxury cars: everything needs to be considered and tested and tweaked,” says Steve Thomson, LELO Director of Marketing. “In the end, if the customer doesn’t even notice how much work went into a product, we consider that a success.”

 “There’s a temptation in the pleasure industry to assume that more gadgetry, more functions, more flashing lights and more gimmicks all equal a better sex toy,” says Thomson, “but our experience has taught us just the opposite: simplicity and fine design are what really matter.”