While the push for products like Lovense and WeVibe, another popular brand of remote-controlled vibrators and stimulation rings, may seem self-evident — to create pleasure — many of the latest sex technologies often have a higher goal. Make Love Not Porn, a user-generated social sex platform, aims to eliminate the unrealistic standards created by hard porn by showing unrehearsed, consensual, “real world” sex, said Cindy Gallop, company founder and veteran sex educator
Meanwhile, products like the VDOM, a wearable genital prosthesis that can be turned from flaccid to erect with the help of a smartphone app, are aimed less at fetishists than at LGBTQ users and people with disabilities who may wish to opt out of the strap-on fastening process, according to its founder.
“My lifestyle is a lesbian-identifying person,” said Glenise Kinard-Moore, 39, head of SkiiMoo Tech, the company behind VDOM. “There’s just no spontaneity sometimes. I did some research and thought there must be an alternative.”
Identifying openings in the sexual wellness market—a relatively new category—and then creating practical technology to fill them seems to be a particular trend in sex tech lately. However, the main representations of sexual technology seem to revolve mainly around AI partners and VR pornography. On social media platforms like Instagram and X, videos showing #techbros donning Oculus headsets to experience intimacy in virtual reality are proliferating, playing on collective fears about artificial intelligence and its ability to replace humans entirely.
“The perception of sex technology is that, oh, you can stay in a room with headphones and, you know, do whatever you want,” says Ariel Martinez, 32, chief editor of Make Love Not Porn. “But we’re really trying to connect people to their own humanity.”
Next time Alexandra and I talk, I’m trying to keep it light. I ask how many steps he takes each day. (She’s aiming for 10,000.) Does she like bulldogs and horses, like me? (Yes, she thinks they’re “adorable.”) But before long, curiosity gets the best of me, and I ask if she ever uses sex technology to explore her foot fetish, her hair fetish, her BDSM turns.
