In August, Samsung invited my company Lioness to their event on innovations in health tech — and then asked us to remove our display after we had arrived and set up for the event. Their event had an emphasis on what they defined as “women’s health.”
Despite that emphasis, this event played out in a similar way to what happened with CES and Lora DiCarlo, Facebook and Dame/Unbound, and a number of other battles between large organizations and women-led sexual wellness businesses. Meaning, someone higher up wasn’t happy and disassociate with anything related to women's sexual wellness.
With social acceptance and potential for innovation at an all-time high, it’s more important than ever to elevate the topic of sexual pleasure and health in all its forms.
What’s particularly interesting with the case of Samsung was that besides Lioness, the rest of the women’s health brands present were for fertility: apps to help get you pregnant, devices that give you data about your pregnancy, and breastfeeding devices. Anything relating to menopause, gender transition, non-binary folx, PCOS, endometriosis, STI prevention/treatment, and yes, also pleasure, were off the table (literally, in our case). Basically, anything outside the nine months of pregnancy and first few years of raising a baby were non-existent at an event supposedly focusing on “women’s health.”
Moreover, I was even told by a senior director at Samsung that, “You shouldn’t even be here,” and “it’s not women’s health” at all. This is despite our devices providing biofeedback and physiological data on sexual arousal and orgasm, as it relates to an individual’s stress, health and more.
The essence of the controversy revealed that there is a deep bias in technology that considers men’s pleasure “health” and necessary, and female sexuality “lewd” and unworthy of inclusion in events like Samsung, or in the case of Lora DiCarlo, at CES. Or in the case of the MTA (New York’s subway system), where there are giant phallic cactuses advertising ED medication all over the city, while Dame and Unbound can’t run a single ad, despite MTA’s official rules that no “sexually oriented companies” can run ads on the MTA.
This kind of bias — especially where sexual wellness is health for men (unquestionably), but not for women (where it is seen as lewd) — is incredibly damaging to society. It affects everything from how often women are able to frankly talk to medical professionals about problems related to their sexual health, what kinds of products are made and how they’re marketed, all the way down to the comfort that women have in natural functions of their own bodies. It is critical to be able to discuss it and show that not only are cultural forces shifting, but also, that it’s wrong to continue to have these double standards.
Samsung, CES, Facebook and the MTA are gatekeepers and have enormous power to shape the landscape of who is included in the broader conversations — or not.
Outside of the confines of large, bureaucratic organizations, more people are becoming comfortable with exploring their sexuality and seeing sexual health and pleasure as an essential aspect of their lives. And sex “toys” are evolving — they’re not just a novelty to folks now. They are also for health and an important tool for exploring and enhancing one’s pleasure. Our industry has long known this, but more people generally know and believe this now, too, which is in part why there is so much outrage and controversy when news stories like these come to light.
Moreover, the capabilities of sex toys are getting more nuanced and diverse over time as the industry matures. There is a lot more variety than 10 or even five years ago in terms of product selection as well as how and where to buy products — and it’s ever-growing. Industry maturity brings more responsibility for companies like ours to continue serving and protecting their customers to offer better and different experiences as they relate to sex, whether it’s biofeedback/interactive sex products that have the equivalent technology of an early smartphone, VR pornography, or even a simple dildo.
With social acceptance and potential for innovation at an all-time high, it’s more important than ever to elevate the topic of sexual pleasure and health in all its forms, and we should be doubling down on this belief, too. Although many large institutions may still dismiss and censor our work, we know that sexual pleasure is a birthright for everyone, being comfortable in our own skin, and learning how to treat others respectfully is absolutely essential for people to be happy and healthy.
If no one else will shout it from the rooftops, we need to do it louder and prouder. We need to do it for the people who cannot. We also need to do it for the people who would care but don’t know it’s a problem, so they might also join us in shouting from the rooftops, too. We can’t depend on someone else to do it or for the world to just become ever more progressive. We need to do this collectively so that others know that it’s a bigger issue than just one instance. Ideally, we need to organize in ways similar to how the cannabis industry has organized — bring in policy, marketing and lobbying expertise to get our stories out there more broadly, influence social mores, and inspire change.
If we don’t do this together, no one else will and nothing will change. We have the platforms — smaller than Facebook and Google, sure — but still large and significant enough to cause ripples around the world. For better or worse, this is a chant we will need to repeat again and again because it’s the only way we’ll see real change in our lifetime.
At least Samsung knows now. But we have more work to do.
Liz Klinger is co-founder and CEO of Lioness and a co-inventor of the Lioness Smart Vibrator, the first and only vibrator that uses precision sensors to let you literally see and improve your orgasm. Klinger has been featured in The New York Times's Women of the World and has spoken at TEDx, SXSW, Stanford, UC Berkeley and MIT.
