IO
Sex Toys Are Finally Getting the Update They Deserve
The Womanizer has an awful name, but it may have changed an industry
Walking into a sex toy shop for the first time can be overwhelming. You’ll find dozens of products, maybe hundreds, all in different sizes, shapes, and colors. It’s a buffet of erotic options. But the seeming abundance is misleading. Beneath their exteriors, the vast majority of sex toys are all pretty much the same.
Most sex toys — especially sex toys designed for vulvas — are designed to do one of two things. There are vibrating devices, which use unbalanced motors to generate pleasure, and there are penetration toys, which stimulate internally by creating a delightful feeling of fullness. (And, of course, there are some toys that do both of these things.) These two stimulation modes have long been the unquestioned defaults in the world of sexual stimulation, even though there’s no proof whatsoever that the human sexual pleasure response is fully encapsulated by just vibration and penetration.
Over the years, some innovative companies have attempted to shake up the duopoly of vibration and penetration, debuting toys that stimulate through pressure or mimic a flapping tongue. But most of these products have remained niche and relatively unloved — until the…
