Femtech: The Future is Sexy

Okay, so let's talk about one of my favorite ways to upgrade your solo or partner play. It is the Hera by Jiu. It's a sleek, powerful rabbit vibrator that's basically the best of both worlds. It's incredible for internal stimulation and those rumbly, mind blowing clitor vibes Jaejoo is known for. Here's what I love. The external ears are powered by the same motor as the Mimi, which you've heard me rave about before. I love the Mimi. And the internal arm delivers deep, satisfying vibrations right to your G spot. It's super so soft, ultra quiet and it moves with your body. So whether you're using it solo or with a partner, it has this feel like it's made just for you. And honestly, it's kind of a no brainer. Everyone loves the hera and right now you can get 20 off the hera using code emily20@sexwithemily.com hera that's emily20 for 20 off at sexwithemily.com h e r a so if you've been looking for a toy that delivers powerful blended orgasm with thoughtful design and serious quality, this is it. So go treat yourself. You deserve it. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Today's bonus episode was recorded. A few weeks back, I hosted an incredible panel at south by Southwest in Austin, Texas. If you're not familiar with this conference, it's a massive gathering of people who are passionate about technology, culture, music and film. And there's also really great parties. So I was invited to host the Future of femtech panel by the group behind the Safe app, which is an app that lets you show your verified STD status on your phone. So before you get busy with someone, you can show them your status. So what is femtech, you ask? Well, it's essentially technology products or software that are focused on women's health. And this industry has been booming, it's like at 1.1 billion now. But you know, women make up 75% of the buying power, so it's certainly on the rise. So my hope is that this discussion inspires conversation with your friends, friends, your partner, your family, and even your kids. See, the information age is moving so fast, and female and sex focused technology enables us to manage aspects of our safety and consent, but also pleasure, intimacy, communication, you know, the core relationship aspects that clearly are very close to me. I love being joined by these badass female founders and entrepreneurs, including Christina Kahojeva, founder of keg, the first fertility tracking Kegel device, Lauren Weiniger, co founder of Safe the Safe sex app. Adrian Ashley, founder of Lolli, an AI driven dating platform built on the blockchain. And Alexander Fine, CEO and co founder of Dame Products, a sex toy company focused on partner based sex toys. I'm really excited to share this discussion with you. You'll hear a little background noise as the panel was hosted in a pretty busy space. So I hope you enjoy the show and I can't wait to hear what you think about it. Thanks.

Look into his eyes. They're the eyes of a man obsessed by sex. Eyes that mock our sacred institutions. Bedroom eyes, they call them, in a bygone day. Hey, Emily, you got a boyfriend?

Cause my man E here, he just.

Got his heart broken.

He thinks you're kind of cute. A girl's gotta have her standards. Oh my. Do women know about shrinkage? Isn't it common knowledge?

What do you mean? Like laundry?

It shrinks. Can we not talk about sex so much? Are you kidding me? Oh, my God, I feel so good.

Being bad feels pretty good.

But you know, Emily's not the kind.

Of girl you just play with.

Okay, so, yeah, my name is Emily. Host a podcast called Sex with Emily. And like Lauren said, and I'm so excited to be here with these amazing women today to talk about femtech, the future of femtech. And so I started a podcast 13 years ago, right, when people were just like, what podcasting was first starting. And the whole point was to make sex easier to talk about, right? Because I think that there's just, you know, it's like the one thing we were talking about earlier, like sex and money, and money might be like a little less hard. Like people. Sex is a little easier, but mostly people just aren't talking about it. So we're all here today because we're all in, you know, businesses that are trying to help women, really the business of pleasure. Like, there's not a lot of business that focused on women, their pleasure and safety so we could all enjoy sex more, which is really, really what my show is about. And so what? All these women are here today. And in the last few years, really, there's been such an influx of money and funding to healthcare, to companies that are supporting women, fertility, period, tracking sex toys, dating apps. And so that is why we are all here today. So I thank you to Safe app. You guys check out safe. It's incredible app. STD testing. You can send to your partner, make sure that you're good to go. You can explain that, but everyone you could Go around, introduce yourselves and say what you do, and then we're going to have a lively discussion and be answering your questions in about 20 minutes. So thank you for being here. Thank you. Jimmy too. Okay.

Hello.

Hey, ladies. I make a Kegel device, which, apart from helping you exercise your vagina, also tracks your cervical mucus. So you get an insight about your intimate health, but also about your fertility and where you stand in your cycle. So you know how to conceive or how to ditch the pill.

So cool, right? Hi, I'm Lauren Weiniger. I am, as Emily said, the founder of Safe Safe is a sexual health tech company. We have an app that lets you show your verified STD status privately on your phone. You can import your status for free from anywhere. And it's also the cheapest, easiest way to get tested.

I'm Adrienne Ashley. I'm the CEO of Lolli and it is an AI dating app that matches you based on sexual compatibility rather than just geolocation and photo. And then when it's time to do the dean, we log sexual consent on the blockchain.

Hi, my name is Alex Fein. I'm the CEO and co founder of Dane Products. We make toys for sex. We are a product development focused with partners in mind.

Great, thank you. Okay, I want you guys to start with the basics. What does femtech mean to all of you personally?

Well, to me personally, it means that we never had access to a proper technology like in all the other fields. And very recently, finally, you know, we can make this. And everyone is kind of focusing on what no one was really looking at, and it's very important. So to me, it's my world.

Yeah, to me, it's. You know, healthcare is obviously a massive industry, but there is this huge underserved market of sexual health and women's health, and it's really the intersection of those things of. Of health that's really related to women. So sexual and healthcare overall.

I actually.

Call it sex tech.

Yeah.

And instead of femtech, because I think men benefit too, when we're happier and we have more sex and then they have more sex, and then the world goes around better. So I call it sex tech. I get a lot more shock value out of it when I say femtech, I feel like I'm being too politically correct, which is. Feels weird when I'm trying to start conversations about sex, because I really want people to be more open, transparent, and cool about it.

I think femtech and sex tech are different things like femtech would be the intersection of femininity or female, like technology designed for female identifying folk. So tampon companies like Lola who are disrupting how, how we get tampons, like they're more in femtech and less in sex tech.

Yeah.

And then I would also say, though, for me, you know, it's a big, like, the part of technology. It's like, what is really tech? Like, I make a really simple hardware. It's a vibrator. It's got an on and off switch.

It's not simple.

It's awesome.

It's awesome.

It's amazing.

Simply awesome. Gives you orgasms. It's the real deal. Sure thing.

Yeah.

You know, it's a sex product and I do, you know, we use a lot of tech in it, but sometimes I also struggle with the word tech in there. But yeah, it's a lot of terms.

Well, that's, that's good. That leads me to my next question. How does your company's particular innovations affect sexual pleasure? Female sexual pleasure, if you'd like, or just any sexual pleasure this way?

All right. Well, I make things that vibrate and then you put them on the lady bits. So really, though, actually what we're doing, I think is interesting. So obviously that enhances sexual pleasure for female identifying people, but it's a little bit more nuanced than that because we make toys that are designed with partners in mind. So when we're developing and designing them, we're asking partners as well how they feel about them. And what we want to do is create products that both genders, both sex, can feel great about using. Nobody feels like they're being replaced.

Because you're wearable.

I mean, just so you guys know, if you didn't know this, most women need more clitoral stimulation during sex. No fault of anyone else, any, any size of any other partner. You can wear this during sex, so you get that stimulation and all that.

If that's new to you.

And yeah, there's also like a huge disparity in pleasure. Women are four times more likely to say that sex has been not at all pleasurable in the past year. I think that there's a lot of reason for that. And one way we can fix that is by making products that resonate with them and also help to close the orgasm gap.

I just wanted to say that.

Okay, following on with the orgasm gap, Lolli is an AI dating app. So we have a very smart interface and it matches you based on sexual compatibility, but we make it so that it's not icky sticky, gross, and ew. So if you go to some of these naughty dating sites, you are bombarded by a wall of naked body parts. And that's not really how we decide who we're going to sleep with. So instead we bucket you by ice cream flavors. So if I say a rocky road and a bubble gum don't go together, you kind of instinctively know that I'm right, even if I don't explain to you the naughty reasons why. And then nobody's wrong. There's nothing bad, there's nothing wrong with you. You just need to find a compatible mate. And what we do is we get rid of all of the noise. So rather than swiping through a thousand people where only maybe one or two might be appropriate, we only give you the one or two. Then you can do a chemistry check on a video chat, decide if you like them. And if you like them, either meet them for coffee or say, hey, come over.

And when you come over, it's more likely going to be good. Because ladies, let's face it. How often has a one night stand been like a one or a two on the Richter scale? Or really not worth the knots on the headboard? So that's what we're thinking in the back of our mind, why bother, right? So instead of that, we match you with compatibility in mind. You're more likely to have an 8 or a 9 or a 10.

Tens are great, we want more tens.

So it's interesting. I'm in sex tech, which is inherently sexy, but I'm also in kind of the least sexy part of sex in some ways, which is STDs, which, you know, everybody wants to have sex for the most part, but people don't really want to talk about the STDs, they don't want to think about them. They don't want to get them either. So when you create more transparency and you kind of break down those barriers and the taboo and the icky awkwardness of talking about something that is a fact and that is a part of life and a part of sex. So what save does is it makes it really easy and kind of expected. If you can import your status for free from anywhere, there's no reason not to. And from a woman's perspective, it's empowering to be able to, not only to be able to ask, know that there's a reason that you can ask, but to demand transparency from your partners and know that if someone isn't willing to be transparent with you about their sexual health status, then why would you risk it. And what else are they hiding?

So 85% of women over the age of 35 will blood test positive for each herpes too.

Yes. And I was also going to say the thing about pleasure is that it is true that women who feel in a safe environment they can trust their partner are more likely to have better sex and more satisfying sex. So having those results and knowing that you're with a safe partner, like with your app as well, you know, sex will more to your point.

It's also, it's also about for the many people that are managing a chronic infection, which is a large percentage of the population. It's also that tool that creates. It reduces the stigma and the taboo kind of around it. It's a tool to kind of enable the conversation so that it's not something that people are just afraid to talk about because it's not everything is either treatable or curable. And it's about not being so afraid to even face it that we are passing along so that we can feel really comfortable in our skin, whatever our status may be.

And that's why we add sex ed, because it's totally different than what. How many of you have taken a sex ed class in the last 10 years?

It's totally changed, right? Maybe a couple, but so we do sex ed and as part of the app specifically, so that when you have those discussions, there's actually some underlying education.

Amazing.

Whoa.

I have my own.

Oh, look at that.

No. So like when I talk to my users, like what they think about the cake, I got like very response from women like you that it enabled them to like quit hormones and what happened afterwards. They had a good change in the taste of guys and increased libido. So that's very cool. So I mean like there's so many benefits like going natural, especially when you can go safely natural. And also once you can train your vagina and have like more intense organ. That's also amazing. So I mean we should just really care about not just like our health, but also how we really feel during intimacy and just take it very seriously because it's important for us as women. And yeah, we should just know when and how. So yeah, I love women and I love my product. So I don't know. I hope you can all get it very soon, not just like selected ones.

Okay, my next question. We'll have questions in a minute shortly is. So right now women are experiencing a bit of a revolution with men.

Me too.

And think going on in the culture right now. And I'm curious. What's the impact been of that on your business right now? Is it working for you? How is it working for you against you? Talk about maybe some good news around it. Totally. Where are we going now?

I say that lolly is the cure for the MeToo epidemic. So it gives women the safety, security, and certainty that they need. We need to know you're not married. Like, 30% of the time I get asked out, I find out after words they're married. I'm like, really?

Really? Right.

So we can import background checks. So it gives us those conversations. It also gives us. It gives the men the insurance that they need to know that if they earned that yes the night before and they got that breakfast selfie and everything was good, that yes stays a yes a week, a month, a decade from now. So it's. It works for both people, men and women.

What do you mean? Like, I mean, a yes can stay a yes. I mean.

A yes can turn into a oh, wait, no. I only said yes because I was going to marry you, and now that you're with somebody else, that was rape.

I mean, I guess I would say for me, the Me Too movement has been really, really empowering. I feel like there's a lot of things that we've been saying that are now being heard a little bit more easily. So there's a lot of challenges. We're talking about sexual on platforms. We have a lot of ad regulations, so we can't do ads on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. No retargeting, no mta. There's just a lot of challenges. A lot of things that you would do if you're any other startup. Often we can't. And I've been saying for the past few years that if we don't have conversations about sexuality in the open, we're going to have to have them in dark alleyways. And then that turns out into, oh, I guess I mean, locker rooms is really what I meant. And now it's, you know, closed doors. So whatever it is, we really need to be having these conversations. We need to be creating a dialogue. I don't think any app or any product is going to solve it. But allowing these brands that care about this issue to have a space to talk about them, that's huge. And I see those changes coming.

I also think that the whole Me Too revolution has helped with this. The conversation about consent, yes and no, apparently, are too ambiguous. It's a little dystopian. But we need an app to actually log consent, because a no is really, we'll try harder. Well, no. A no is a no. Right. And it forces the conversation of what do I really want? And what is actually sexually appropriate engagement and behavior on. On both parties. Like, if a guy treats you a certain way, is that okay?

Is that.

Well, that's just how it is. It's like, well, but is that okay?

So.

Right.

So in your app, though, is it. So it's an educational as well. You're saying people are getting. Because I think people. Even the whole thing around consent. I think. I wish there was like, another People don't really.

Conversations.

Right.

It. The whole.

It's.

It spawns conversation. It gets you thinking about what do you really want? And then it gets you thinking about, you know, what. What it. What are you willing to say yes to. Right. And committing to the yes. If it's a yes, then it's a yes. If it's not a yes, it's a no. And being okay with owning that it's a no.

I think.

Yeah. Getting women more comfortable, understanding that women.

Are charging women have the right.

Like, I think that this is what's kind of been twisted. Like, we talk about sex education, how badly we need it. I mean, I. I mean, I started my show because I was having. 13 years ago. I was like, people say sex is amazing. I'm not having the best sex of my life. Anyone else. And so I thought not a lot of great sex education. But still, I find women of all ages are like, there's still this sense of, like, it's not okay to say no, or we feel guilty or we owe it to our partner. And it's just really hard being pleasers if it's society, the way we're raised. So I think it's important we're having these discussions and all these products. Everything you guys are doing are giving women more options.

And what do you really want? I mean, if you're thinking in your head, I wish he would just do xyz and you never, ever say it.

Tell him now.

How about say it.

Her, Him. Anyone? Yeah, say it. I don't know. Well, that's what I think. We all try to encourage that. Like, life's too short for bad sex. Like, if you're having sex and in the moment there's something that you want, or you go home and you're thinking about it, like, there's so much. There's so much to gain by just learning how to even talk about it. And I think that's. That's what we're all doing. It's kind of nine times out of.

100, he's going to be like.

He's like, thank God. Because we expect them to know. They don't know we're all different.

Yes.

Lauren, it has been a huge shift, I think, in what, like the Metis movement, I think is spawning a larger movement and it sort of intersects with the sex positive movement that's been happening. It's an interesting for us, we do these big activations. We did a huge thing at Sundance this year. It's all around empowering women to respect themselves, protect themselves, be safe and feel safe. But it was interesting. All the people coming through, they're like, oh, so did you start this because of the me too movement and time's up and all this? I was like, I mean, no, we've been working on this for a year. It's quite interesting that the rest of the world had. Was realizing that this is an incredibly important conversation to have at the same time. So, I mean, absolutely. And it's, you know, from a, it's interesting working on something from a professional perspective that kind of bleeds into the personal perspective and kind of practicing what you preach and being empowered on the continent, consent side, on the. What you want on sex side, on the, you know, being transparent and requiring transparency from partners and helping the people around you do the same. So.

Does your app. You can mark consent. So you said you can.

It's such an interesting thing. We have. We've debated that point a lot. There's actually been one pretty major dating app that wants to partner that will do it if we add the consistent consent piece in. My issue with it is, and I'd love to talk to you more about this is my, my fear is that it's not always going to be a girl, it's always gonna be a guy. But let's, you know, bear with me here. It's girl consents to guy. He's. It's a really nice date and whatever. And they're gonna have, they're. They're gonna do it. And it's. I don't see a situation where at least in some senses that girl doesn't get raped. And he said, I've already got you.

Yes, I totally agree with that.

That's because that they don't do it.

Right.

So in our app, you open consent, you have your fun, and when you're done, you close consent, you check out safely. So while you're actually having sex, our little Alexa like feature is listening for a safe word. And if there's a Safe word. It's going to call you and say, your cat's in the vet. You got to go and help you get out and extract you. Or call 91 1-Knock on the door, hey, something's not good. It's an interesting take. I have guy friends who are like, oh, hell no. They won't even allow Alexa in their house, let alone listen to them having.

Sex, because you bring up. It's the opposite of the me. I think the me too, has been such a positive thing. But there is this other side of it that from, you know, when it's in the tech field and all the male investors that are saying, oh, I'm afraid to take a meeting with a woman alone kind of thing. And I think it's bullshit, but it is like this counter side of it. So are we creating fear?

I hug them and I watch them, like, the sheer panic cross their face. And these are people that I know, and they're like. Like, I'm hugging them and now I have boobs. So it's like a problem.

It's the strangest thing. It really is a cultural shift at the moment. But we. We consider consent over the entire piece, and you don't get consent logged on the blockchain until there's a safe checkout.

It makes sense. It's. You know, it's. I think there's all of us working together to solve this issue is, you know, how do we create a space where there's so many. Most men are good and most women are good, and how do we create that space but also allow for the bad actors to not.

Well, those are the only people that we allow on the app. We have a no douchebags policy, so that helps. And we start with having the women invite their friends and you're vouched for. And if your friend turns out to be. Not be great and is a problem and goes through our whole grand jury process of getting kicked out, then you get a demerit and you get three strikes, you're out. Keeps people from inviting assholes.

I just want to add to MeToo movement that I think not just about the sexual content, but also many other things that affect us used to be forced in women. Like choice of birth control. Like the way you. You're. You know, you're here, like you're treating your body like no one ever asked us about this. And we were just like, yeah, this is the option. Take it. Or you couldn't even choose, like, your birthing position or whatever. And I'm so happy that finally, it's okay to say, yeah, it's my body. I want to choose my birthing position. Yes. I also, like, I'm not taking pill. Even when my doctor tells me you have to. Everyone is taking pill or putting iodine. No, no. I have this option, like, no, I'm not doing it. So I think it's finally, like, really enabling us to say, like, what? We really want something else and we just don't have, like, this one choice. And I'm so happy that this finally happened because it was so weird before.

We're going to take a quick break for our sponsors. I love them. You love them. We're all in love. Thanks for supporting them. And when we come back, you'll hear the next part of the panel discussion. We talk about. While there are bad actors in the dating relationship world, there are also a lot of really good people with good intentions. Also, why investors are excited about female founders and their innovations and the challenges around that. We also talk about what's next in the world of femtech and sex tech.

Well, I have a question to you guys. Why do you think this is happening now? Like, this groundswell, like, women have always made almost up almost 50% of the population right now. There's been like a billion dollar in funding recently. That's the last few years before me too. But really in the last few years. So why do you think there is this groundswell now where people are really funding and coming towards helping, you know, female femtech sex tech companies? Interested?

Yeah, so, because actually I started to, like, fundraise last year and we started fundraising. And when I was meeting investors, I realized that it's not just MeToo, but they also realize that women are very good entrepreneurs and they are less likely to fail and bankrupt. And so it's actually a good investment and a very good return on your money just to invest in women. So I don't really see, like, it might be connected to MeToo, but I really think it's a monetary change.

I don't think it is because, like, the last two, three years, but it's. Which is great news for women. But I'm wondering what you guys think.

I think that there's been, you know, decades of. And decades of work on human beings trying to expand their awareness, trying to understand that different human beings have different experiences and come from different places and that there's value in that. I think that the civil rights movement as well as, like, earlier feminist movements have really helped build that and that it just kind of feels like A swell right now, but it's been there for a long time. I forget what they call it. But, you know, it's not like me.

Take the tipping point.

Almost like all of a sudden, something just finally catches on, right? And me too, was simple enough to do to state that, like, hey, by the way, this happened to me too. Which, by the way, you know, I've been sexually assaulted. If that happened to me, me too.

Yeah.

And I'm like, me too, badass bitch. You know, I say no all the fucking time.

Say no as much as I should have said no. And that's like, I love little bit of self blame that I shouldn't do. And I feel like whatever it was, that there was just something there that gave people the space to speak up. And now I think people are just hearing it. And I think that there are a lot of really amazing men out there who are ready to hear it now.

Yeah. And I think that, again, it's about education too. It's not like the men are all douchebags or whatever.

Like they're not.

Not at all.

Our society, we were never taught how to interact in different ways. Like, it just. There's a lot of learning, education that's gonna be happening now, which I think.

Is exciting and not just bad. Like we were talking about bad actors. There are a lot of really good people that do have bad moments or.

Don'T know or learning.

Because, you know, we like to pretend that this conversation about consent is so easy, but if it was so easy, we wouldn't be fucking it up all. I'm cursing.

I've, like, really switched it on.

Apparently you can talk.

It's complicated. It is nuanced. And women do want to be polite and caring and loving to their partner. And men are told to be persistent and give it a second go. So that's a problem. And let's talk about it.

And a lot of time it worked, right? With women, we're like, no, yeah, I get it.

It's murky, it's confusing, and political correctness doesn't help. I will just say I was teaching a class for intel and I was taught. I accidentally, accidentally dove into the MeToo situation and I said, you know, you have to treat it like. Like dog training, right? And I was trying to be funny, but, like, you have to do those corrective things in the moment. Like if a guy goes, wow, your boobs look really nice in that dress. That he meant it as a compliment. He didn't mean it as inappropriate, but you need to go, whoa, dude, that was like a little Weinstein and like, something. And the HR people went, absolutely batched it. They're like, oh, my God, we cannot send that out to the anybody, because they know better. They're not allowed. We have rules, and there's. There's protocol, and they are not allowed to say anything like that. And they know better. And I'm like, if they knew better, they wouldn't do it. They really don't.

They.

They don't have the eq. You're talking about a lot of tech guys that. That don't necessarily know where that line is, because they're really not clear. And it's not that they're mean. They just sometimes inappropriate. So you got to correct it in the moment.

Bring it back to kind of, yes, the question and the, you know, the investment into this industry and how this industry is growing.

Let's do that. Why is this such a big investment? Yeah, let's talk about the investment.

But it is because it's growing a lot. But it's still. It's still pretty small. And I think. But what I found interesting, you know, female founders, it's difficult enough. It's what, 3% of overall funding goes to female founders? There's many, many reasons. Many other panels talking about that here. What's really interesting is when you add the sex into that and you're talking to a new investor or whomever it is, and you're already a woman, and they're not expecting the word sex to come out of your mouth. With me, they're not expecting the word STDs to come after that either. But it's almost been, I think, somewhat like of a positive thing. Once I started owning it myself, I think it's almost easier to kind of break down multiple stereotypes in one go, because they don't exactly know how to categorize you.

I mean, when we. We went out and raised a little bit of money, and we weren't really able to raise as much as we wanted at the time, and we had run a crowdfunding campaign at a time that did $575,000 in 45 days. We essentially shipped all of our products on time. And we were running a profitable business that was growing, and we still had a really hard time getting institutional money, even though we had, like. It wasn't just, I was saying sex. I was saying profitable, you know, like, and it was hard. And you know what? My business partner and I, we own 90% of our business, and now we're still profitable, and we're growing and it's awesome. And I'm super happy that that didn't happen for me. I don't have a bunch of white dudes telling me what to do.

That's very cool.

Yeah, yeah, awesome. Wasn't intentional but we'll celebrate it now.

It's so funny how they sometimes doubt like yeah, but you know many people would buy this. Like come on, we are half of.

The planet.

And spending power.

We spend more of household income too. Like it should be way more than the billion. Like there's been a groundswell but there's a lot more that we should be doing actually.

Like they have the access to the information. They know that women are the decision makers of the almost all spending and they're like still like hey, really? You have vagina.

Wow.

I was with them.

I was with about so crazy 50.

VCs this morning for breakfast and I'm, I'm one of a handful of women, they're mostly white guys and, and I ballsy pitched them and like the look of fear, like. And one of them that I was talking to the other day, he's like, yeah, the Saudis give us money. They'll give give us money for self driving cars because they don't want the women driving but they want the women to be able to go out and go to work and things like, but not drive themselves but go be able.

To go to work.

So self driving cars they'll do. But sex, no, I mean they're just. It's so interesting because it's not just the VCs, it's where do the VCs get money?

There's also the morality clause. So there's also something called the sin clause or a morality clause that's often tied into a lot of contracts. It's just, just there because like obviously no one wants to invest in. Right? No gambling, no sex, sometimes no politics, no guns, sometimes no cannabis. Cannabis.

But isn't it interesting that sex is in the same category? I mean I'm a fan of cannabis as in like it's drugs sex. Like drugs, guns and gambling are, those are sins. Like we can agree, we can like our vices but like we all pretty much came from sex here, right?

Sex, if anything has like increased humanity. I don't think people have died, I'm sure someone's died from sex but like.

Moan for them haven't died from sex.

They've gone through the household many a story.

Yeah, yeah. It's crazy to look at that comparison. I often see sex companies being stigmatized a lot more aggressively than gun companies on platforms, which just drives me indignation.

You know, can you guys. Speaking of the other platforms, I'm curious what has been successful for you guys? Because being in this industry, Sex. There are a lot of limitations, like advertising on Facebook or there's like we had. There's a lot of other barriers and hoops we have to jump through. So you could talk about some of those challenges and how you overcame them.

The consent conversation. Viral, everybody loves it. Media going for it. God forbid I match you based on sexual compatibility so you can have an orgasm. Oh, no freaking way. They can't talk about that. Cannot talk about that whatsoever. But consent, we can talk about that.

Facebook, you can advertise condoms, but you cannot advertise condoms ripped for her pleasure.

Right.

So, yeah, it's female pleasure. That's why you can't.

Female pleasure. And they think it's for all pleasure. But if we look at it, there's no way this is not negatively impacting women more than it is negatively impacting men. To me, that seems like a clear thing. That's what's happening from it. But it's, you know, Facebook, I think, has a lot of things happening right now where they're trying to be a little bit more careful about what. What is advertised and what is pushed. And I'm excited about that and happy about that, but I think they need to open it up and be a little bit more nuanced. They shouldn't have just cold, hard. If you sell this product. No. And if it. They're going to do that, like guns. Okay. But things that just make people happy. It's challenging for me.

I don't get it.

I feel for you. I mean, like, it's very interesting. How come social media, they ban stuff? Like, you know, when you talk about your health down there or like about the child labor or something, you know, you're just getting banned and like, wow, that's interesting. We are not even supposed to talk about it in our private groups because it's not appropriate now. It started to change. And I also, like, there was a huge, huge petition on Instagram, like, that Instagram should allow, like, our pictures, like when we deliver babies or like when we take breastfeeding, take care of our vagina. Like that all should be allowed. And I mean, like, yeah, you should support it.

But it's naked.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow.

Everyone was born one day. So what?

Yeah, it's interesting for us because we, like, I think of all of us, like, you have probably the biggest challenge with, like, online marketing. Right. And like, for me, I get to kind of straddle this. It's sex, but it's healthcare and it's this epidemic. So I do. But I have to lean. I mean, I want to lean farther into that because that is like the mission behind our company. But also it's hard to, you know, it's a consumer advertising play and it's hard to really talk to your consumers when you're having to kind of filter it and put the, like, things on. So we're still working out some of it and it's, it's really. How do you allude to it without actually showing and telling? But it's. It doesn't make any sense to me. So I would actually very much enjoy just chatting with you about it later.

I just have to say this. So, you know, our product, it also has vibrations for a good user experience. And of course, I can't say this. Like, we can't. You know, we have to target. Oh, yeah. You know, it's very beneficial for your intimate life and fertility. You have all this information power. But the user experience.

Oh, wow.

No, no, no.

Orgasms are good for women's health, though. I mean, like for depression, it's good for anxiety. You know, it's good for your skin. But you don't look at it like that. That's all legit. What do you guys. Orgasms are healthy. Talk about the vibrations. What gets you guys excited about this industry? And what do you see the next five years years where it's going, like, what's the things that you're most excited about, where it's going?

I mean, it's all happening. I feel like we're here, we're talking about it. Women's Day has been bigger and bigger. There's clearly more space for it. And I, I mean, I can just tell you in the past three and a half years that I've been doing it, the reactions I'm getting, it's just changing. Like, it's so you can just feel it. So I'm so excited to make more money.

Awesome.

I think in the next. You gave me five years.

Yeah, three. Five years. You can do what? Yeah, 10.

Five.

I'm open to wherever you're jiving right now, whatever you're feeling.

Hashtag, brand new congress, female centric. How about having women on the commission on the status of women? That would be awesome. Politically, I think that everything has shifted. I think actually if we can go there with the politics, I think we are now Pissed off enough to. To actually get changes made that we want, that we need, that are gonna benefit all of women. And I think if Facebook will let me. Advertising a dating app, which they wouldn't. It's like trying to advertise a dating app. They're like, nope, sorry, your industry is banned. I'm like, what?

It changes.

My girl was sucking on a lollipop and apparently that was just a little too lascivious for them. So, you know, I would like to see more people be more open and have better conversations and more open conversations and be able to talk about sex. Like they talk about, you know, what are you having for dinner?

Yeah, I'm really excited for the. I think we're starting to scratch the surface of the taboo and the stigma to start going away. It's just starting. I think there's a really long way to go, particularly when it comes to the STDs side of things. I think it really intersects with, well, with the rise of the sex positive movement. And as that's happening and as, you know, safe as a tool is becoming available and women in particular. But all people are being able to actually ask their partners and have an answer that they can actually trust and also have a tool to talk about it when they are positive for something. I think there's like a transparency, empowerment kind of a thing that is really starting. I think in five years, I would just love. And I think we will see where it's. It's just expected and it's normal and it's a conversation that you have just like any other.

Yeah, that's what I think we're all doing. I want to say is that we. I think what we're going to see is that it's just going to become more normal. Like, of course you talk about consent, of course you talk about your STD status. Like you're going to use protection toys or people are going to think they're going to be replaced by toys. They're going to see that it enhances their relationship. So it's all good stuff.

But we can say, yeah, I, like, I'm sorry. So happy that finally, like, as you say, sex tech is getting, like, really techy. And I think it's just like it's not happening, like in five years. It's happening already now. And big pharma companies, they are like, you know, announcing that they have, like, losses and, you know, women are getting off the pill and they want to go natural and know their bodies. And you really think that this field was so neglected and you know, like for example, the chips that we use, like they had been using food industry for ages. Like no one ever bothered to really like provide us with some high tech. So now I really hope it's going to change and the way that we can check like what is the battery on our phone, you know, like how to call an Uber. You could also manage your body this way very naturally high tech and finally very cool. So I really hope the change is already here and we just don't have to wait five years.

I also feel like, you know, it's interesting because they had the cryptocurrency was right before us. So I feel like that just the decentralization of power in general of money will definitely be helpful for the sex toy industry because while institutions don't really like to talk about sex, people really like to have sex.

So that's.

That'S the standard. I was gonna say your, your product and your product need to go together so, so that you're rewarded when you successfully squeeze it the right way and that vibration stops. Then your vibration starts and then you get the. I think that's a thing. I think it's a thing.

Thank you everyone. Thank you again to the SAFE app for asking me to host and all of the female founders who joined me. Also thank you to River Ecosystems for additional support. The SAFE movement is supported in part by the American Sexual Health Association's Yes Means Test campaign and Trojan Condoms. These organizations have joined forces to address the STD epidemic which has reached an all time high in the United States with 1 in 2 people getting an STD by age 25. Thank you also to my team for producing and editing this show. Was it good for you? Text ask Emily to 797-979.

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