At the glitzy 2020 XBIZ Awards, held this year at the J.W. Marriott in downtown Los Angeles this past January, winners were announced on stage with several titles scrolling through towards the end of the evening.
It was then that Chelsea Downs, co-founder of New York Toy Collective, saw the company’s name flash on screen, right underneath the title of LGBT Pleasure Product of the Year. They’d won; a prestigious award for any company to pick up, the honor marked the first for Downs and NYTC.
Even just in the few years that I’ve been in the industry, we’ve seen a huge shift and I think we’re going to see a lot more.
“It came as a total shock,” she gushed, “and when I saw my name I just lost my shit. It was my first trophy as a grown-up and what could be a better one.”
The story of NYTC is inextricably tied to the ongoing story of a changing world.
“What’s happening now is that we’re in a place in culture and time where the visibility of queer people is, for our generation, at an all time high, and we’re kind of seeing that bridge over into mainstream,” said Downs. “That’s what I read and thought was so beautiful about the award — I viewed it as a kind of welcoming, as like a ‘we want the future of the adult industry to be more inclusive and more welcoming.’”
A self-described pop culture junkie, Downs recalled her days as a recent college grad, relating her journey working first in the now defunct off-air creative department at Viacom before transitioning into a position in the niche advertising department at MTV during the channel’s Golden Age, denoted by the likes of Tila Tequila and “Jersey Shore.”
“That was a dream job of mine,” she mused. “We’d sit around all day coming up with cool things to sell to boring clients. It was great, but then the world changed.”
Facebook opened its doors, eventually killing off Myspace, and the debut of YouTube was sudden death for MTV.
“There was a huge exodus and about half my department left and went to Myspace,” said Downs. “A lot of people went to Yahoo too, which is like, so odd.”
She lets out a hearty laugh before continuing on. “All these things were happening, but I’d always been an entrepreneur, I’d always been an out, pro-sex, liberal person and I’d always been into the queer subculture in New York City,” meaning, the time was ripe for NYTC to take form.
Officially founded in 2012, Downs and her co-founder Parker have been producing a lineup of quality packers, dildos and other gender-affirming products, sharing their wares and growing their brand via a grassroots community effort. The impetus to begin NYTC, like many boutique companies, was born from a need. Struck with an idea that Google couldn’t confirm already existed, Downs went about creating her ideal dildo.
“I’m a really big believer in putting your money where your mouth is, so with $8,000 I tried to create something and it just kind of spiraled from there.”
Entrenched in the queer subculture of New York, Downs found herself frequenting sex parties and taking note of the distinct dearth of products in the corresponding market sector.
One of her favorite parties, she explained, required train travel. “I hated carrying bags,” she explained, “so I wanted a dildo I could wear in a harness on the train without looking like I had an erection.”
In the age of internet in everyone’s back pocket, Downs lamented, “I found it really aggravating that we had an iPad with a camera on both sides but that there hadn’t been any dildo innovation. But if you think about the people who are making dildos, they’re more inclined to just continue making the most profitable items, which are usually your rabbits and other vibrators.
“We’re a smaller part of the market,” she admits, but with a clear demand at hand, perhaps the world was ready for a little dildo innovation.
“There’s a part about sex and the adult industry that’s still really taboo, but I think there’s something also really amazing about being visible and vocal and owning your sexuality and space,” said Downs. “That’s something we really latched onto and so did our fans.”
NYTC’s first product, and to this day, bestseller, Shilo, as it would come to eventually be known, is a dual-density silicone pack-and-play, complete with a posable core that can be worn casually and then adjusted accordingly for play.
Downs shared that, like any good entrepreneurs, her and her partner Parker cast a wide net with their trial-by-fire R&D.
“We hit the internet and went to Home Depot,” she related. “We were just determined to figure it out in any way possible.”
First came the idea to cast a human model, which, “was a horrible nightmare and didn’t work,” Downs admits.
Then came a “Frankendildo” iteration, crafted from various elements of favorite dildos, which too was ultimately a bust. A Sculpey model followed and came closer to perfection than the others, but still wasn’t quite right.
Turning to “the Reddit of our time,” otherwise known as Craigslist, the duo put out a call for a 3D printer, and found an unconventional friend who made the first-ever Shilo. It was a success and NYTC was officially on its way.
Continuing the talk of pop culture, queer identities and the vibrant, underground subcultures of New York City, it’s clear that the origin and ongoing success of NYTC is deeply connected to that almost indescribable pulse.
Pre-Instagram, Downs took to her local community to spread the word and share her product. “It was at the time when the internet was sort of just at its beginning, so you’d have a lot of groups who’d make a very base-level website and then host weekly and monthly events that held space for people to explore their sexuality. Those were the first people who said yes to us — that’s really where we got our start.”
Armed with a folding table and basic banner, Downs would frequent parties and events, noting, “If there was a space where the promoters would let us have a table, we were there.”
Now, NTYC products can be found not only on their own website and with smaller, specialty stores, but also on big-box retailer shelves. Nevertheless, the company hasn’t lost sight of their original goal and the community they first set out to serve. Their grassroots strategy paid off and is still very much at the core of the their spirit.
“It was a really scrappy approach and that just resonated with people — it still does today,” said Downs.
From custom colors to entirely new items, a large majority of new products actually come from popular demand requests, Downs revealed. “There’s a tipping point where it’s like ‘OK, we need this’ and then we make it. And because we make stuff domestically and we make it by hand, we can make just one or two and then test it from there.”
NYTC has evolved from its early days of creating custom items for individual customers to manufacturing products for an audience that was, and is, only continuing to gain visibility and momentum.
From foldout tables at queer sex parties and live, 3D scanned penis-replica dildos made in a New York apartment, they always have and always will cater to a unique market and clientele.
But, as Downs puts it, “I love culture because it’s so flexible: it changes and grows. The way we feel about Tila Tequila is probably the way that someone feels about whatever shows are on MTV now. That same sort of love, it’s so transferable.”
Likewise, we’re at a time when the culture is palpably shifting — where folks are starting to demand that products for all genders be available and that companies take greater care to acknowledge everyone who buys and uses their products.
“It’s a great time to be in this industry,” said Downs. “Even just in the few years that I’ve been in the industry, we’ve seen a huge shift and I think we’re going to see a lot more, especially [with regards to] fluidity in the way people think about themselves and sexuality and their bodies.
“We have this entirely new generation and I think that’s really going to force the whole industry to step up to the plate.”
In terms of what’s next for NYTC: “We haven’t hit our wall or our peak yet,” said Downs. “We grow every year, and as we continue to see culture shift, I think we’re going to see a lot more growth — this is just the tip.”
