LOS ANGELES — A recent Forbes article titled “Sex Tech Has Embraced Female Pleasure, But Lesbians Are Still Being Left Out Of The Conversation," explores the ways in which the sextech industry has opened up conversations about female pleasure, however with a primary focus on heterosexual experiences.
The article coincides with Lesbian Visibility Week initiative, a national campaign designed to highlight issues and personalities of special interest to LBTQ women.
“Barriers between the traditionally white, straight, male world of investment and the increasingly female-populated worlds of design and production are starting to slowly break down,” wrote Forbes’ Franki Cookney. “Women are leading the way in audio porn, sex education, and toy design, and the sexual wellness industry is no longer a stranger to female-founders.”
But, Cookney also pointed out, “the vast majority of products that come to market are still based around a heterosexual understanding of sex.”
A clinical psychologist who spoke as part of DIVA’s Lesbian Visibility Week schedule of virtual events pointed to research showing “that when you ask heterosexual people what sex should look like, there is a formulaic and narrow definition given.
“But sexual scripts for women who have sex with women provide more freedom,” said psychosexologist Karen Gurney. “There’s no typical script for what lesbian sex should look like or who should do what in what order.”
According to Gurney, women who have sex with women are “well-placed to bust myths around female bodies and sexuality.”
“Women’s bodies are not trickier than men’s,” she said. “And women who have sex with women will probably know more about that than a lot of women out there.”
For her article, Cookney interviewed lesbians who are active in the pleasure product industry.
“It is almost like lesbians get forgotten in the mix of female sexuality,” Alice Derock, CEO of Wet For Her, told Forbes. “When it comes to products, it does feel lesbian sexuality is approached in the same way as heterosexual women’s sexuality. There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of lesbian couples’ sex and how this is different. There is a market within the lesbian community and I think this is sometimes forgotten.”
For over a decade, Derock’s Wet For Her has been marketing sex products aimed at the lesbian market.
The Forbes piece also features Maggie Stiggleman, senior software developer at Lioness, who explained she has been working on a “smart vibrator that allows users to measure and track their orgasms” by taking the lesbian experience into account.
“I do a lot of the designing and coding for our mobile app, and I make sure that we do not assume the sexuality or gender of our users,” Stiggleman said. “It is important to me that I’m helping to make a great sextech product when I know that lesbians weren’t even thought of during the inception of many others.”
To read the Forbes piece “Sex Tech Has Embraced Female Pleasure, But Lesbians Are Still Being Left Out Of The Conversation,” click here.
