Feature Articles
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Kix'ies Founder Samantha DeMartini Aims to Revolutionize Sexy Fashion
“I was 17 years old and getting in a boy’s truck for a ride home,” she recalls. “The most popular boy at school! But as I climbed in, my skirt got stuck in my backpack, exposing my ‘nylon butt.’ You know, when a girl’s rear end is smushed into a pair of high-waisted nylon tights.”
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Dr. Picolya McCall-Robinson Aims to Improve Oral Sex With SugahLipz
Dr. Picolya McCall-Robinson first conceived her idea for an oral-sex enhancement product through her work as a licensed psychologist. She observed that many of her clients, individuals and couples alike, were struggling with questions, concerns and discomfort related to their sex lives — particularly oral sex.
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Elizabeth Thomas Details Inspiration Behind Lovgun Massager
Before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lovgun CEO Elizabeth Thomas was in the midst of a career transition. She had recently left a job in the medical operations field and completed a training program led by author, clinical sexologist and AASECT-certified expert sex counselor Dr. Ava Cadell.
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Hamed Bossett-Allen, Jorge Solorzano Take Sink or Swim Distribution to New Heights
Seven years ago, two dudes were marveling over the impressively giant cheese-and-crackers spread at the ANME trade show, eyes wide like a couple of teen boys walking into an adult store on their 18th birthdays.
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Family Keeps the Kink, Commerce Coming Behind the Scenes at XR Brands
As company founder and CEO at kink- and BDSM-focused manufacturer XR Brands, Ari Suss has built his one-room-office ecommerce outfit in Maryland into a national household name in pleasure products.
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Ken Lassiter Celebrates 40 Years With Adam & Eve
These days, working 40 years at the same company is almost unheard of — but this year, Ken Lassiter celebrates that milestone with adult retail industry pioneer Adam & Eve. Lassiter’s four-decade career began with what was initially supposed to be a temporary job while he figured out his next steps.
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Carly S. Serves Up NYC-Style Sex Education, Toy Expertise
New Yorkers have a reputation for not f-ing around, and pleasure advocate Carly S. brings that no-holds-barred NYC attitude to her unabashed brand of sex education. An adult industry freelancer-of-all-trades, Carly is brashly unafraid to throw the realities of sexuality straight into your face.
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Kimberly Ardwell Discusses Mission Behind Glyde, Union Condom Brands
From plant-based meat at Costco to cruelty-free beauty at Sephora, today vegan options are accessible via most mass-market retailers. Things were dramatically different in 2010, when Kimberly Ardwell’s vegan condom brand, Glyde America, debuted in the U.S. market.
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CC Wellness Marks 20th Anniversary With Fresh Outlook, Amplified Strategy
On Jan. 1, the team at CC Wellness rang in more than just another new year. The start of 2023 marked a huge milestone for the veteran lubricants manufacturer: the company's 20th anniversary.
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Beloved Entrenue Frontman Joe Casella Announces Retirement
Somewhere in Arizona, there’s a newly retired guy buried in a pile of books, trying to hold an awkward yoga pose while contemplating which hiking trail to hit this weekend. To the surprise and sadness of many pleasure industry veterans, that guy is Joe Casella.
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Romantic Depot CEO Glen Buzzetti Lays Out Retail Chain's Tenets for Success
In 1999, Romantic Depot CEO Glen Buzzetti was living in South Beach, Miami when he befriended a man who owned three flourishing upscale adult stores in South Florida.
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Bria Brown Advocates for Sex-Positivity With Handmade Kynx by Brynx Goods
Bria Brown was completing her last term of college when lockdown began in spring of 2020. With a toddler at home and no promising job prospects, Brown needed to find a way to work remotely for the foreseeable future.
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XR Brands President Rebecca Weinberg Keeps Kink, Curiosity at the Global Forefront
Full-body restraint benches, handcuff-bedecked sex couches and dragon-shaped dildos once seemed like the stuff of dimly lit, back-alley porn stores, but not so much anymore — and definitely not if XR Brands has anything to say about it.
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Adam Lewis Reflects on Vision That Spawned Hot Octopuss
Of all the homemade masturbation devices created by many a crafty young lad, very few have what it takes to see the light of day as a viable consumer product. Luckily for the men’s pleasure product sector, one such lad had business chops to match his teenage experiments.
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Shani Hart Talks Passion for Wellness Behind 'The Noir Leaf' Brand
Those familiar with Shani Hart likely associate her with Hart’s Desires stores, which she co-owns with her husband Mike. What some might not know is that Hart is also the owner and founder of The Noir Leaf, a curated line of CBD products developed to support whole-body wellness.
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Kit Richardson Creates Interactivity, Intrigue at NYC's Museum of Sex Retail Store
As 2022 has become something of a Grand Reopening for store owners across the globe, retailers have understandably faced new anxieties. Kit Richardson, however, remains undaunted.
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Bawdy Bookworms' Thien-Kim Lam Elevates Erotic Books With Pleasure Product Pairings
Romance novels enable readers to indulge in escapism, vicariously experiencing passion and lust with a guaranteed happy ending that real life doesn’t always offer. But what if you simultaneously gave those same readers products to help them explore their own physical pleasure?
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Casey Kaminsky Shares Vision for Barnaby Ltd.'s Retail Brands
The Kaminsky name is a very familiar one in the adult retail industry, associated with not just one, but two iconic brands: Babeland and Good Vibrations, under the auspices of Barnaby, Ltd.
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EP Products Takes Pride in Focus on Canadian Retailers
Yet another “accidental sex toy career that spun itself into an industry success” story? It’s beginning to seem like the best way to create a thriving pleasure products business is to avoid trying too hard to make it happen.
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The White Unicorn's Zoe DeVine Adds Personal Style to Business
Back in 2016, Zoe DeVine was working in the fashion industry. After a particularly difficult day, while venting to a relative, she said — half joking — “I am just going to quit and sell dildos online.”
