Sex toys designed for women by women

Ann Summers’ website describes the project as;

A variety of 8 real women chosen to help us design and develop an innovative range of orgasmic toys

Now leaving aside what constitutes a “real” woman, much was made in the show that the sex toys should be designed by women as many sex toys designed for use by women are in fact designed by men.  I understand the premise but are Ann Summers really telling us that they don’t have access to any professional, women product designers in the industry?

While I don’t doubt that product design in the sex toy industry is weighted towards men I find it hard to believe that there are no female product designers.  If there are so few, why not recruit some?  By asking these women to volunteer their ideas and time in exchange for the experience of being involved in a TV show, as oppose to serious work experience in product development, what is the message? That although there are no women designers women’s ideas are cheaper, less valuable and more easily exploitable than mens?

I do not doubt that the experience of being involved in the show was something that these women may not have otherwise had and that experience was valuable to them, my question is with the initial premise of “by women for women”.

What didn’t we see

Given that the documentary was filmed over a year and was cut down to 45 minutes there was undoubtedly much that wasn’t included.  What was included gave the impression that the women submitted their product pitches and these were then taken away and worked into 3D computer designs and in some cases prototypes.  Nothing of the development was shown, which is a shame because it suggests that the company took the eight ideas and then developed them with no input from the women participants, the result was that for those whose designs were completely changed it looked as if their concepts were thrown out.

What would have been more interesting would have to been to understand why those particular concepts were changed in a particular way.

For example, the suggestion of the leather bondage harness became a ride on vibrator.  Why?

Was it too risque for Ann Summers? I doubt it, after all they’ve got a bondage section on the site.

Perhaps it was as simple as the idea didn’t fit the brief, the brief being to develop a vibrator – but without the development process being shown we’ve no idea.

Innovation vs saleability

Ann Summers are a commercial retail organisation.  They are successful because they know their market and which products people will buy.  When it comes to new product development their main goal is to create and stock products that sell.

I understand this and up to a point I don’t have a problem with it, it is a commercial decision, while I expect the company has a research and development budget I don’t expect they have a budget called “crazy innovations which we are happy to lose money on if they don’t work” but maybe they should?

If you only create products that are a tweak away from your existing best sellers then you are playing it safe.  There are new ideas in the range and sometimes innovation takes the form of applying a new idea to a familiar design, such as the expanding rabbit vibrator, but when I looked at the page of products I was disappointed, most of them were working on familiar ideas and familiar perceptions of how women should orgasm – clitoral and g-spot stimulation – two points out of an expanse of nerve endings and sensation points on a woman’s body.

Perhaps we need to re-invent our notion of the orgasm not just of the vibrator?

Getting off risk free

Ann Summers clearly knows what they sell and sells what they know.  It is a good enough business strategy but rather risk averse, my reading was that the show was a PR strategy.  The real test of the products will be in continued sales after the show has been forgotten about.  Overall I felt the show lacked any real risk or innovation, they weren’t solving a problem or creating anything new – they were slotting in “real” women and their ideas into a corporate product development plan with the risk free bonus of a guaranteed sales boost on launch.

Women don’t all look the same inside and out, we don’t have the same desires and we don’t all come to orgasm in the same way and with the same stimulation, if you are a sex toy company and you tell us that you are selling us “innovative” sex toys please don’t just give us longer, wider, buzzier.

Perhaps the real innovation will be a company that instead of doing more of the same with quieter motors, longer shafts and scarier rabbit ears, will take their time, listen to women, explore their bodies and understand what gets us off.  It is what women expect from our sexual partners so perhaps it is time we expect it from our sex toy producers too?

::

For another post on the show visit Behind The Chintz Curtain.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

Love me

No

Love me

No

LOVE ME

NO

I’m fucking her and I don’t know if I’m closer to coming or crying  because this is what I want but not what I want.

I want her to love me and she wont.  She denies me even as she digs her fingers into my arse and pulls me deeper into her.

I don’t know what I’m doing here or why I’m begging for something she doesn’t want to give me, but I can’t keep away, heh, more likely I don’t want to keep away.   What am I doing? Do I really think that if I show up and fuck her enough times that somehow I’ll break her, changer her.  Overwhelm her with my emotions until they are hers?

What kind of fool am I?   Don’t answer.

If you saw her you’d maybe understand, there’s something about her that  makes my cock twitch when she looks at me.  Something about her mouth, that makes me want to fill it with my cock to replace the expletives she knows I hate.

And her voice, is it normal to get a hard on just from a phone call?  It isn’t like we are talking dirty, it is small talk but every time she picks up, every time she say’s “hello” the blood rushes to my cock.

For all my desire I can’t make her love me, though she sure as hell knows that she owns me.  What am I doing?  I’m buried ball deep into a woman, a woman who is coming underneath my touch, a woman I am trying to break with my lust.

I come, growling my love for her into her shoulder and she holds me.  She whispers nonsense into my ear and it feels like a consolation prize.  No matter how much I fuck my love into her, she’ll never love me.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

The Product:

Silver Swan from Swan Vibes

What they say:

“The award winning Swan collection is the worlds’ first range comprising of completely silicone-covered products that offer 100% end-to-end usage with approximately 70% more play area than traditional vibrators.  That means a more deep and powerful vibration spread over a greater surface area, leading to a more flexible product with a greater range of possibilities for pleasure.”

What I say:

It is pink.  Very pink.  I have no idea what the optimum colour for a sex toy range is, but cerise pink isn’t my personal favourite.  That said, once you’re busy enjoying the product you aren’t really worried about the colour of it

The packaging is great, a sturdy, glossy white box with a simple product shot on the outer.  Inside there is the vibrator with draw string bag, charger with multi-territory adapters and an instruction booklet.

The Swan takes about three hours to fully charge and on first charging I found the jack a little difficult to plug into the vibe, but that’s soon got used to.

It’s outer is phthalate and latex free, being as it is 100% silicone. Its measurements are:

• Length: 7 inches
• Insertable Length: 3 inches
• Circumference: 4.5 inches

Once charged the Silver Swan delivers powerful internal and external stimulation.

The vibrators contoured shape sits nicely in your hand while in use.  While I may not be keen on the colour I do like the shaping of the product, the smooth swelling of the shape means that it fills with volume not just with length.  The smoothness also means you can use any part of the product to stimulate externally, none of that pointy jabby rabbit ear nonsense, which makes using it feel more intuitive and body responsive.

Each arm has a motor in it controlled by an on/off button, continual pressure on the button increases the power of the vibrations.  Due to the delirious haze of pre-orgasmic enjoyment I did sometimes get a bit confused as to which button drove which motor.  The motors vibrate at different frequencies; the smaller external arm at a high rate buzz and the internal arm at a low, deeper throb.  You don’t have to insert the longer arm all the way into your vagina to enjoy the vibrations, playing with a shallower insertion stimulates the nerves around the vaginal opening and anal wall which means you can have plenty of fun working up to insertion.

The vibrations are very powerful yet quiet.  For me it delivered fantastic internal and externally stimulated orgasms and think it is a brilliant product to play with alone or with a friend.

Conclusions:

Fantastic if you like powerful vibrators, great all over surface use.

Retailing at just shy of £90 I would recommend that you look at the full range of Swan Vibrators to find one that suits you and your body.

Any downsides:

It is very pink.  If it isn’t fully charged the batteries can cut out mid wank, which means you’ve to wait 3 hours for a recharge.  Frustrating,  but avoidable if you recharge after each use.

If you like your vibrators long and thrusty this model isn’t for you.

Where to buy:

The Silver Swan retails at £89.99 at Lovehoney.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

But there are lots of people who don’t value them or only value them for what they can do for them, making it a rather one sided equation.

Guest bloggers on commercial sites that don’t get paid and are asked to post duplicate content – why?  What does the blogger get out of this?  They run the risk of Google penalising their blog for duplicate content and they aren’t getting paid for their time or work.  Are they doing it for the exposure or for the traffic right?  Both of which are fine, but you  need to be able to measure the traffic and exposure – how will you know when this is working for you and if and when it stops working for you.

I’m always suspicious of folk who want to do me a favour by hosting my content.  I don’t need them to do me a favour, I’ve a blog, I can host my own content.

Which isn’t to say folk shouldn’t guest blog, but always be sure that you know exactly why you are doing it and to what benefit, sometimes the best benefit is the joy of sharing your words with another writer or blogger you respect.

Voting competitions, these are a bugbear of mine; I’ve written about blogging charts and metrics before and you can apply the same to voting competitions and blog awards.  It is perfectly fine to want to join in, but again, please be sure you know why you are joining in and to what benefit.  More often than not the plugging away for votes to win means that the only people really winning are the people running the contest, you’re spending your time begging your readers for votes to send them to someone else’s website.  If you see me joining in with such things it is as likely as not because I want to see how they work, I’m nosey like that.

What I’d rather see is people taking the time to stand out, hone their blogs and their writing, be confident in who they are and what they have to say.  Read and recommend based on what moves you or inspires you, what makes you think or what makes you angry, not on the possibility to have a blog badge and a basket of sex toys.

As your reader I’m worth more than that.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

I don’t usually write sci-fi stories (hell I’m hardly writing at all at the moment) but I love the perverse effectiveness of this parasite and wondered how that could translate into a fiction.  This is what I’ve got so far.

He fucked her hard and when he came he grunted and said a prayer to his personal gods.

His seed planted he slept until the dawn and slipped out of her apartment and into the grey noise of the wakening day.

Solar woke with a dry mouth and a wet cunt.  The ache in her thighs reminded her of the male she’d brought home from the bar.  She felt down between her legs, feeling the slick mess of her juices mixed with the thick ejaculate of whoever she’d been fucking with.  She didn’t remember his name but that wasn’t a worry to her what she was more interested in finding out was what she had fucked.

Sniffing her fingers the sweaty stench of rotting vegetation told her that although her bedfellow had been human in shape it had not been human in design.

“Fuck” the word plopped swollen and profane out of Solar’s mouth as she forced herself out of bed and to the bathroom.

She swabbed far up into the wetness of her cunt, thankful that the alien hadn’t been a species with more invasive preferences, securing the swab in its plastic jar and dropping it into the samples bin.  This done Solar douched herself and showered.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

As I wrote of hopes and fears the salt water lubricated the out spill of words, the slippery sliding of pain out of me.  An envelope addressed and stamp bought, a bundle of nerves, doubt and loss dropped into the post box.  Weightless to the postman but  heavy to my heart.  Yet the pain hasn’t gone, not exorcised for being bled out but like blood remaking itself, flowing again and cluttering up my heart with what ifs and if onlys.

My lips are dry and cracked, the tears don’t water them and you tongue doesn’t penetrate them, nor fingers nor cock.  Nothing enters me, it only leaves.  The shopping list of heatbreak; salt, water, pain, words.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

Thanks to fellow author Aisling Weaver for inviting me to participate in this event. You can click the following link to learn more about Aisling and her work. http://www.aislingweaver.com

In this blog hop, I and my fellow authors, in their respective blogs, have answered ten questions about our book or work-in–progress (giving you a sneak peek). We’ve also included some behind-the-scenes information about how and why we write what we write–the characters, inspirations, plotting and other choices we make. I hope you enjoy it!

Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts and questions. Here is my Next Big Thing!

1: What is the working title of your book?

Pressed Flesh

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

It is a book about journalism and sex, inspired by conversations with a journalist friend and the ongoing Leveson Enquirey.

3. What genre does your book come under?

If there was a genre for Erotic Satire, it would be that, but as there isn’t it will  be erotica.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Robbie Coltrane as the moral-less tabloid editor, Mark Williams or Timothy Spall for the reporter and Rebecca Hall as the dominatrix.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Corrupt tabloid editor outwitted by professional dominatrix and lowly reporter.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?

I’m going to submit it to an independent publisher.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I’m still writing, actually I’m not writing at all at the moment, I’m in the last month of planning Eroticon, the UK’s conference for sex bloggers and erotica writers.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don’t think you get much satire in erotica, though there is certainly an echo of Tom Sharpe in my head when I write.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The inspiration came from a journalist friend and their tales of the newsrooms of Fleet Street and Wapping, as ever the truth that never gets published is much darker than the fiction that does.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I had the opening scene and the closing scene in my head before I had anything else, the latter involves a curly pig tail butt-plug.

Below you will find authors who will be joining me by blogging, next Wednesday. Do be sure to bookmark and add them to your calendars for updates on WIPs and New Releases! Happy Writing and Reading!

MK Elliot : http://www.steamy-spice.blogspot.co.uk/

Guy NewYork : http://quickienewyork.com/

Lucy Pireel : http://lucypireel.wordpress.com

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

This year the conference is  bigger and, I hope, better.  Two days of workshops and discussions dedicated to encouraging attendees to write sex right.  After all if we as bloggers and writers don’t lead by example what hope do we have of influencing the discourse of sex in the media and our communities.  But that’s another rant for another day.

Today’s post is a little introduction to me to encourage a little introduction from you.

To join in – cut and paste the questions into your blog and replace my answers with yours, then head back here and drop your blog post URL into the linky widget.  Don’t forget to link back to this blogpost so we can all find each other:

<a href=”http://eroticnotebook.co.uk/blog/eroticon-2013-meet-and-greet/”>See who else is coming to Eroticon 2013 in the Meet & Greet link up</a>

Name: Ruby Kiddell

Twitter id: @eroticnotebook @writesexright

Must attend Eroticon 2013 session: Opening plenary by Brook – our conference charity.

Bloggers you’d like to be trapped in the lift with: I’m going to cheat and choose four – Remittance Girl, Harper Eliot, Zoe Margolis and Lori Smith

Erotic writer you’d like to write dramatize your life story: I’d like Guy New York, as long as he transposed the action to New York.

Expected biggest fangirl / fanboy moment: Cindy Gallop’s closing plenary on Sunday.

What keeps you awake at nights? A child that doesn’t sleep, a cat that bites my nose and worries that I’ve forgotten an unspecified but VERY IMPORTANT piece of admin.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x

It has been a hot, busy day, preparing for the birth of our child.  Your belly rises under the covers, full of the life we’re yet to meet but has been ruling our lives these last nine months.  I’ve never loved you more than in this moment though I know tomorrow and every day after I will love you in greater increments of today’s love.

The three of us, two without, one within are all waiting, poised on the verge of a new path.  New life brings new ways of being as a family and as ourselves.  The thought of the bloody passage of our child to meet us alarms me, a journey so violent and filled with pain I’ll never comprehend, I am in awe of you for your courage.

It is, I guess, the courage of millennia of women.  The force of life, my own small part a seed planted and grown in your fertility.  An almost careless, thoughtless act of chaos that your body has shaped into order and form.

This then is sex brought to life.

A humbling deed.

Thanks for reading,

Ruby x