Episode: Putting Sex Toys to the Test

Suzanne Noble: I'm very excited to welcome our new sponsor, Higher Nature, who have created Rekindle, which I'm currently trying out and is working a treat. A 100% natural libido-enhancing supplement for women, which contains clinically backed ingredients to give your sex life a boost. And who doesn't want that? This week's episode has been sponsored by Oh My Bod, shifting the evolution of pleasure. Hi, this is Suzanne Noble, and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. And today I'm back with Suki Dunham, who are from Oh My Bod, who you may recognize because every time somebody receives a newsletter via Substack, there is a little plug for Oh My Bod in the header. And that's because Suki has very kindly been sponsoring Sex Advice for Seniors for quite a while now, which— for which we are incredibly grateful. And one of the reasons why I wanted to catch up with her— well, because I hadn't caught up with you for a while— was just to really talk about why it's so important for women to understand that using sex toys when they're older isn't anything to be ashamed of. Suzanne Noble Noble.

Well, first, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be back. We're very proud to be a sponsor of your podcast. For people that don't know me at all, so I'm, I'm one of the co-founders of this business. My husband and I started it together 18 years ago, and I now pretty much fall into the seniors category, I believe. So if you can't— if you don't know what I look like, just know that I'm not some 30-year-old that's talking to you about vibrators. I'm actually your peer. And so, yeah, I'm excited to be on here. As far as females using vibes, you know, it's very interesting because I've been doing this for 18 years and I think we were talking before we started this that I feel like we've made progress, but I also kind of feel like we're in the same place. So it's, it's very interesting. When you start talking to people about vibrator use and kind of all of the, um, things that kind of stick to that or come with that, with that discussion. And people carry a lot of societal, um, you know, issues around it or feel awkward or whatever. And I have to say, like, I was one of those people. So I don't even know if you know this, Suzanne Noble Noble, but Um, I did not get my first vibrator until I was 35.

No, I did not know that.

Yes. Yeah. And my husband bought it for me, which, God love him, thank you, um, Brian. And, um, and so I, I kind of fell a little bit into that category. I was raised Catholic, so I always say it's hard to wipe the Catholicism off the bottom of your feet. And that and, and other things. I just wasn't— my, my parents didn't talk to me about sex, you know, wasn't really exposed to a lot of things. So all of that came when I met my husband and we started to explore things together. And we're college sweethearts. So we've been together for a long time. And yeah, that's when I got my first vibrator. So it's not surprising to me that there are many people older than I am that maybe haven't owned a vibrator. And, you know, my recommendation is just go out and buy one and give it a try, you know. And it doesn't, it doesn't have to be that you're using it every day or whatever, but just see, start to explore, and, uh, you, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I think also There's so much choice. There's so much choice that people can get slightly overwhelmed when they go on a website and they just see so many different types of vibrators, so many different shapes, colors, waterproof vibration, USB rechargeable, battery operated, all this, you know, all the— all that's out there. There's so much out there. If you are getting started, what's your recommendation?

Oh wow. Um, I would avoid websites with like tons of products on it because it— I think it is overwhelming. I think the first step for anybody, um, is if you happen to know what makes you happy, pleasure, brings you pleasure, then you kind of narrow it down, right? But we all know that women or people with vulvas need clitoral stimulation. That's just a given. So maybe you start with something that's just outside your body. I, I can remember like feeling a little awkward at the very, very beginning. I'm like, I don't know if I want an insertable toy. Now I love insertable toys. Well, I loved insertable toys for a while, but at the beginning it was a great stepping stone. So I say in a way, like instead of buying that big vibrating dildo, or buying that big vibrator, maybe it's just something that works on the outside of your body.

Yeah, I mean, I'm still an outside of the body kind of person, I must admit. And one of the, one of the things that I really like that, that Oh My Bod produce, and I plugged it, is the couples toy, the, the Next 3. That's got, it's like a with an outside vibrating pad on it. I think also the nice thing about that is I've been in relationships where my partner didn't want me to bring toys into the bedroom, because especially insertable toys that look like the shape of a penis, frankly, no way you're bringing that in because you got me. What do you need that for? So, you know, he definitely felt there was some sort of a competition going on there, whereas with the couple's toy, I thought, well, here's an opportunity to go, this is something that we can do together. This is something that's going to enhance our lovemaking, make penetrative sex potentially more pleasurable because it's going to give you some clitoral stimulation. So I, I really like that one as well. I mean, admittedly, it probably wouldn't be the first one that I buy, but I like it for the fact that it involves to people. And so I think there is something nice about that.

And I think, um, the Love Life Rev 2 is a great product. So that's a finger vibe of ours. So your partner or you can slip it on your finger, and that way when you're, when you're in the midst of, say, having penetrative sex, your partner or you can put that on your body and you don't kind of have to hold it. It just slips onto the finger. So it's, it's really easy to work and maneuver.

Yeah, and I like that one for the fact that if you've got mobility issues in your hand, it's also something that's really easy to use. I might, you know, you mentioned before that, that women require clitoral stimulation. And for me, that's, you know, that's the thing about vibrators is that they deliver the strong vibrations that a lot of older women especially need to be able to orgasm. And it does You know, it's just a biological fact that it gets harder as we get older, and it might become a source of shame that it's not taking the same amount of time as it did when you were younger. I mean, I know that sometimes I think, oh God, can I even be bothered?

Right? I hear you.

This is taking so long. I'm like, oh God, I think I'm just going to go to sleep now. But, but one of the advantages is that when those smaller nerves are not so sensitive anymore, and the larger nerves in the clitoris sort of take over the ones that are delivering all the pleasure, that's where those intense vibrations can really enhance those pleasurable feelings. And, and when you think about it like that, rather than thinking about it as it's replacing someone's, you know, their anatomy or something, and it's actually just doing an extra job of helping you, then I, I think it, it's like, well, why wouldn't you want, want something that can just make life a little bit easier?

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's also funny you're saying that because that's why we named Love Life Rev Rev. It's like to rev the engine. You gotta, you gotta get it going, you know, you need a little help. So, you know, that, that was actually exactly how that name came about, you know, because you do need— and sometimes maybe it happens at the beginning of your, your session, your lovemaking session warms things up, and then maybe you bring it back at the end. I mean, it doesn't have to be there the entire time either, depending on, you know, what you want or how your partner feels, that sort of thing.

Yeah. And also the other thing that I think is very important that you— that's integral to good products for me is the ability to switch them on and off easily. I have been in circumstances where everything was going and I was like, I don't need this anymore. I'm going to— I want to stop it now. I want to shut it down. And then everything stopped while I tried to find the off button. Because it wasn't immediately apparent where it was, you know, or that you hold it down or that you had to do something. So making these things like user-friendly, how do you— do you have a team of testers that go, no, there's too much going on here, Suzanne Noble Noble? Or is that you and Brian?

It's really Brian and I, but it also actually comes back to kind of my, my days at Apple, to be honest with you. So I, I worked at Apple for nearly a decade, like 8 years, in worldwide product marketing. And I wasn't a product marketing manager, but I worked closely with them. I was in the kind of the business management of marketing. But in any case, the one thing that I, I learned in that company and learned from Apple is this idea of ease of use and user interface. Like, those two words, you know, those two phrases are just so important. And I think that, um, product designers or, or product people in general, people like me, you can lose track of that. And you always have to kind of come back to, you know, what's this all about? Like, I think— I know we'll probably talk about it later, but we have this these app-controlled vibrators, right? And when we first started to develop our app and like what it could do, because there are lots of different things you can do with the app. Yeah, I would say to my husband, because he was kind of driving the app development, but I was inputting on user interface, user experience, etc. And I would always say to him, let's get back to this. The whole purpose of this is so that somebody can have an orgasm. So let's talk— let's not like overcomplicate things. Like, we want it to be, you know, easily understandable, usable, that sort of thing. So intuitive. And, um, so yeah, I think that that's a really important piece of the puzzle, is that you always have to remember what is the purpose, the main purpose of the product that you're producing.

So yeah, although my friends loved— my friends loved the nipple clamps where they set it to their favorite playlist, and then they— their nipples vibrated to their favorite songs, which was something that they'd never experienced before. Well, you gotta have a—

throw a little fun in there, for sure, for sure, for sure.

Yeah, they said that was really super fun. So creativity is definitely at the cornerstone of so many of your products, and I'm really curious to know, where do you get your inspiration for these things? And innovations?

You know, they, they really— most of our innovations have been born out of personal experience, to be honest with you.

So they come to you. Haha.

Yeah. Yes, yes. Oftentimes in the shower.

Fair enough.

But yeah, no, they Like, let's take this app that we developed. You know, at the time when we developed our app, we could see what was gonna happen with the entire ecosystem of the iPhone, as an example, and then the prominent position that this device, these devices were playing in all of our lives, right? And it was starting to, you were able to do everything with it. You were able to find your recipes, you were able to communicate with somebody, you were able to do your banking, everything, right? And so it was like, okay, why not? Why can't sex and intimacy be a part of that? And also during that time period, that's when we were seeing like a change in younger generations, right, where their phones were like an extension of of their bodies, just about. And it— and you were also seeing the divide, the, the intimate divide that the devices were creating, right? Because you imagine, you know, get into bed with your partner, you're both staring at your phone reading the news, reading a book, whatever. And so we're like, okay, maybe it's time to use these devices for good. For the good of the world. And so, yeah, and that's how the idea of an app-connected product came about for us, was really seeing kind of what was happening from a society perspective. Also, people were not together. Like, I think about, you know, when I was younger, Brian and I spent a lot of time together, but now people are like my own daughter. She's 24. She had a remote relationship with her boyfriend for over a year. They're together now physically in the same place, but a lot of people are living in the world differently than we did, right? And so this addresses a lot of those things.

Yeah. And, and, you know, there's a saying now, living apart— living, is it Living Together Apart, where— or Living Apart Together, um, Living Apart Together, where people are, are consciously choosing to live not with each other. And that's where something like this can really come in handy, these remote devices. And I know that even amongst older people, this idea that we don't have to live with our partners anymore is really starting to take hold because some of us have a degree of financial security where we don't have to. So thinking about how we can be intimate when we're not together in this more modern way is really interesting. And of course, your remote apps do some pretty crazy things, I have to admit, you know, like for instance, Hook Up to Playlist. And I know that's your own personal passion about making love to music that you really like, and whereas I'm I'm a very much a, um, I'm a very much either a no music person or a completely unobtrusive sound, because once lyrics enter my brain as a singer, I just, I just get completely distracted, and I'm just, I'm just, I'm just singing the song in my head. It's, it doesn't really work for me. So it's interesting, um, going back to sort of innovation, you were one of the first sex tech exhibitors at the Consumer Electronics Show back in 2011. I bet you were probably one of the few women there as well, I'm guessing. What was that like then? Are you still exhibiting at CES now?

We're not anymore. Basically, after COVID, we didn't, we didn't return. We didn't return back. But yeah, we were the first sex toy company to exhibit there.

Amazing.

Like, it was very exciting. You know, we got a lot of attention because we were the only ones. So that was, that was from a, from a PR perspective, it was amazing. I will say, but also funny because a lot of the pieces that were written at that time were very kind of tongue-in-cheek. We weren't taken that seriously in a way, you know, it's just like, you know, so it, it, it was exciting. It was exciting that the people that did— there were lots of people that came to our booth, but the people that came to our booth that were really interested in talking about sex, you know what I mean? And I'm sure you know this. That given the opportunity, people do want to talk about it, like, because they don't necessarily have people that they can talk to about it, even their friends or whatever. Like, it's, it's amazing. Brian and I sometimes, like, uh, I'll never forget this time we're sitting at a bar, we're just in, in the town that we were living in and, and sitting in a bar having dinner, and then somehow You know, of course, what do you do? Okay, we make vibrators, you know. And then once that happens, you just hear people's deepest secrets that they've never told anybody else. It's, it's actually amazing to me. And so this person was telling us all these things about themselves, and I was like, wow, you know, it was pretty incredible. And that showed me that people were really dying to have an outlet or a way to communicate and ask questions and, and talk about things. So, um, yeah, but CES was, was interesting. It was, of course, extremely male-dominated. Um, the majority of the people walking through, uh, the halls were men. Um, and that was interesting being there as a female because It was really interesting. Um, a lot of the men had very, I would say, for lack of a better way to say it, immature responses to us being there. Was almost like 10-year-old boys were walking through the hall, you know, the giggling, the— and, uh, and so, you know, that was interesting. And that changed over time. There was definitely some education even in our presence there of people being. But it was funny, we'd say like, Brian and I named the people that would walk by our booth. Like you had the people that really wanted to come in and they would look to the side with their eyes, but they were with their colleagues and then they'd circle back later. We had the people that were like, very uptight, and, you know, it was like a wall there. And then you had the people that like rushed in and were like— and, and as we started to show up, they're like, oh, so glad you're here this year, you know, people that would come to our booth every year. So yeah, yeah.

And obviously we are seeing so much innovation now in the sex toy market.

Not—

I think not so much with some of the vibrators, which We, you know, are— they vibrate. Although we were talking about some of the different types of vibrations that people can be aware of. But I think, you know, have you considered the future, any of the stuff that's happening around AI, for instance? Are you, are you looking at any of that in terms of all the weird shit that's going on with, with, you know, sex, certain robot people and all of, you know, all of what, what do you see as the innovations in the industry that are actually positive?

I think AI is definitely going to play a part for us. It's not clear to me yet because our approach to tech in sex has always been to bring two humans together, even if they're not physically in the same place. And, um, I definitely believe that, um, rope sex robots— I mean, we already have them, right? They already— the sex dolls exist. And, and I think there are like essentially like robots that exist that are like $150,000 each or something like that. Um, so I definitely believe that that will, you know, be a part of the, of the, the world of sex. Um, so yeah, AI is definitely going to be, you know, a big part of that. Um, but for us, for Oh My Bod, Um, I think it might be more of a kind of a back end, more of a, you know, the back side of things come into play. Um, because, you know, things are changing with app development because of AI. I mean, there's all, all kinds of things happening. So I think that that's where that piece will maybe touch us, but I mean, it's moving at lightning speed, so we'll see.

Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just crazy what's happening at the moment. I mean, but on the flip side, of course, we've still got bans by Meta in promoting these, these products. And somebody posted on April Fools' a few days ago that, that Meta had lifted the ban on female sexual health and wellness products and was now going to let them advertise. And I looked at that, I was like, oh, about time, that's amazing. And then someone said April Fools. Um, so I mean, that's got to still be a massive challenge for businesses like yours, is just how to reach consumers.

It, it is. It's always been a massive challenge. Um, I don't get it because the whole idea and how Facebook built their advertising was that you could target people based on age, you could target people based on where they live, um, what they're looking at, right? So I don't understand the harm in serving up an ad to somebody who's 45 years old who's been reading articles uh, related to sex education or that, like, why would you have a problem serving that up? I mean, I have children— well, they're not children anymore, but children of my own— so I 100% am down for protecting people that shouldn't, aren't appropriate to be exposed to certain things. But like, you know, the fact that these platforms were built for targeted marketing makes absolutely no sense to me. And then, you know, also when I see all the crazy sexual content that's there anyway that people are promoting, and you're like, and you're worried about my little vibrator here? Like, it's, it's fascinating. As I, you know, I always say, it's like we take two steps forward and one step back. That's That's what these last 18 years have felt like. Like, yes, is CES different, you know, in 2011 than what it was in 2019? Sure, 100%. But at the same time, there are still all the same hurdles.

So yeah, look, I think there's, there's always— well, you know, for the foreseeable future, certainly in my lifetime, I don't see that suddenly culturally self- pleasure for women especially is going to become a commonplace discussion, right? I mean, I know women that don't self-pleasure. I know women that will only have sex, you know, with a penis and all of this kind of stuff. And, and that's, and that's just the way it goes. And so By extension, using vibrators and things seems— it's all part of the same conversation, right? And it's, it's not easy to— it's not easy to break those taboos because they're so entrenched in society. And I think I always think respect to anyone who goes into this industry because, because it's not an easy industry to work in. You know, it's really, really not. And I really think you— you're you. And the fact you're still with your husband and working together in this amazingly difficult industry, I'm desperate to know what your secret is here.

Oh my gosh. Well, a lot of product testing. That helps. That's a good one. I would say we created certain rules like no talking about work after like 7:00 PM. Anytime we would talk about work kind of after that, it would go haywire. So we did that. And we also had, and this is just a general business tactic that we have a friend who's like a business consultant and she walked us through this and this idea of people owning decisions. So you, you have alignment decisions and agreement decisions, and you only have like 3 things you can do for alignment where both people have to— and then, uh, or agreement, I should say. And then alignment is if I make the decision that we're gonna stick the Oh My Bot logo here on this box, then you gotta line up and be like, okay, good. So, okay, yeah, so those were some of the things that helped us navigate.

It wasn't easy, but, um, yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, I, I worked with my ex-husband for over 10 years and that didn't, that didn't go very well. And I think the, uh, yeah, the explanation is in the word ex.

Yeah, it was, it was tough, it was tough, but we've gotten better and better at it now, so Yeah.

So if you were to give one piece of advice to other people that want to start businesses and innovate in taboo or underserved markets, what would it be?

Oh, wow. That's— I think you just have to— the advice is to just— I think mentally you have to be ready for the challenge of it and know, like I said, Here I am 18 years later and the same obstacles still exist, you know, so you just have to be ready for the fight. I mean, and I say fight because sometimes we had a, it was a learning platform that we wanted to use to have videos for our retailers so that we could you know, if you owned a shop, you could have your salespeople come on and learn about Oh My Bot products and have a training or whatever. We could see who completed it and that sort of thing. And so we reached out to them and they rejected us because of the content of what we were doing. And, and, you know, you have to decide, okay, am I going to go to the mat on this? One. And then you write the email and you're like, we sell our products in Target, we've been at CES for, you know, it, you know, you lay out, we're both corporate America kids, I came from Apple, my husband, you know, you have to like justify that this is a legitimate business. We're not doing anything crazy here, we're just trying to teach people how our vibrators work and the benefits and da da da da. And, uh, yeah, it's just, it's just fascinating. We actually lost that battle, um, but yeah, you know.

Well, I had a discussion today actually with somebody who— talking about how to work with pharmacies on something else that I work on, and, and it was around male sexual health. And, and his— he said, well, we'll How are the people that find this topic really difficult to talk about and usually work in pharmacies? How are, how are they going to do that? How are they going to upsell something related to a topic that that's really not something that they're used to talking about? And I suspect that's part of the problem is it's not just about teaching staff how to use your product. It's about, it's, it's about changing their entire attitude towards this whole sector, right? So, so you're doing like a much bigger job than just going, oh, here's a vibrator and this is how you use it. It's like, no, I need to understand like why I would even want a vibrator, like what all of that sort of stuff. How can I get that into my consciousness and feel comfortable about it? And I think that's really difficult. I can understand. When he said that to me, I was like, oh God, that's gonna be so hard. Yeah.

Yeah.

'Cause you're not gonna have any direct contact with any of these people. They're just gonna watch a video, right? So their discomfort, going back to your first CES, I think that sort of says everything to me, right? Your first time at the Consumer Electronics Show, some people just wanted to walk by your booth as quickly as possible. Some people wanted to walk by your booth and were curious, but they couldn't quite bring up the courage to do it. And some people, which I suspect was a small minority, were the ones who went, "Ay, this looks so cool. Tell me more about it," right? But that's what you're dealing with. That's the representation of society, right?

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I think, you know, you bringing up the point about like drugstores, you know, when vibrators started to kind of show up a little bit on the shelves of drugstores. There was a lot of talk in our industry about whether sex toy shops would kind of go out of business because big box, but it's not going to happen because the good shops, the shops that train their staff, their staff has some sexual education training and that sort of thing. Really, that's the only place somebody can get that kind of in a live way, right? Where you go in and you're like, hey, um, I've never had anal sex, but I'm kind of interested in it. What would you recommend? Like, you know, you're not gonna find that really, um, at CVS, right? At Walgreens. Yeah, nobody's gonna be there to tell you you really need a dual stem, you know.

No, they're not. No, they're not. I mean, it makes me laugh. So, so just, I should, I need to wrap up, but just, just my funny little story is that back in 2002 or 2003 or something like that, I decided with a friend of mine in a drunken evening that we were going to set up a sex toy shop called fucktheshop.com. And, and we were both very drunk. And my colleague owned a web design company and we made an absolutely beautiful shop that basically just aggregated. But before most people knew what aggregating was, took things from other people's shops and we hosted just images and then we sent the orders back to them to be fulfilled. Right. This was over 20 years ago.

Wow.

24 years ago. Right. 24 years ago. And, and, and through that process of launching that shop and starting to get friendly with some of the manufacturers and everything, I started saying, well, why couldn't we try and get these things into Boots and into the big pharmacies, right? But people just said that's never going to happen. Back then, everybody said to me, that will never happen. You're never, ever going to do that. So don't even try. And And I, and I think, you know what, it hasn't been that many years since I've seen sex toys in pharmacies. It's, I mean, it took like nearly 20 years from that point.

Yeah, I, we got into Target in 2016. And that was because of CES, actually, we got that account from CES. Target was walking the floor. And that's how we got that.

But yeah, So that was not even 10 years ago. So sex toys have only just now entered mainstream kind of retail less than 10 years ago. And I started working on this stuff like over 20 years ago, and it's taken all of that time just to get the most basic vibrator on a shelf, right? So this industry works incredibly slowly. Yeah, and all I can say to everybody is that if you don't own a vibrator, why not?

And exactly, give it a try, give it a whirl, give it a try.

You know, you got nothing to lose. And Oh My Bot make awesome products that are safe, that are all not made of harmful materials and all of that kind of stuff, which is really, really important. Um, and you are You are doing great things for the world, Suzanne Noble Noble.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be on. And I wanted to tell you, for your listeners, I have a code for them. They can get 20% off on lovelifetoys.com. That's the Oh My God official website. We, we, everybody's like, why Love Life Toys? And I'm like, it's easier to spell than Oh My God. So that's how we ended up with it. But The code is SAFS, so Sex Advice for Seniors 20. Easy, easy.

SAFS 20.

Yes.

Thank you so much for being on the show, and it's absolutely lovely to see you again.

To see you.