Cyrus Langhorne
Vixen Amber Rose and 50 Cent have made it known there's nothing wrong with a little self pleasure behind closed doors. With Muva Rose recently partnering up with sex toy company LELO and Fif having a knack for talking about self-pleasure - plus getting called out about his bedroom skills by Vivica A. Fox, SOHH reached out to famous adult device creator Brian Sloan to get his take on a grip of steamy topics.
1. Is the adult toy industry still thriving in 2018? With adult content all over the Internet, is this a Golden Era in the market?
Our industry continues to grow for one important reason: the taboos against masturbation and specifically using sex toys to enhance masturbation is slowly fading away. The more we see sex toys in films, on the websites we read everyday, and in stores that are clean with nice lighting, the more we are apt to buy our first one. My experience in this industry over the past decade has shown me that when someone buys their first sex toy, it is almost always never their last.
Think about people who pick up tennis. First they buy 1 racquet, then another, then some special adapter for the racquet, and a case to store it in, and some special strings, etc. It’s the same way in our industry. Once someone experiences enhanced pleasure from their first sex toy, they become interested in other sex toys and end up experimenting.
The growth of adult content and the growth of the sex toy market are not related. People often make the mistake of linking the porn industry with the sex toy industry but they are completely different and completely unrelated. Porn is videos of people having sex. They have their own websites, industry events, sales channels. Sex toys are physical products (often high tech) designed and manufactured before being sold via online and offline retail. The only similarities between the two industries is that they are both somehow related to masturbation.
2. What’s your take on Amber Rose partnering up and showcasing her own self-pleasure products? Specifically, how much does a celebrity endorsement do in this field and is this a growing trend?
The products that Amber Rose is holding in those videos are not her own products. This is a commercial for a brand called Lelo. She stars in the commercial.
I don’t have any take on it, Lelo spends their marketing budget as they want, and they have a lot of money to spend. It’s not how I would spend my marketing budget, but their marketing department must have information suggesting that people who like her might also like Lelo products.
Based on what I know, they would have paid her at least $40,000-50,000 plus they spent a decent sum to produce such a polished piece of video.
As far as I know, this is not a trend in our industry, but a tactic used in all industries.
3. Is there a distinct difference in male versus female self-pleasure sales?
Yes, the industry is heavily tilted towards women’s products. I just checked one of the most popular US sextoy websites and it had 800 female products for sale but only about 300 male products for sale. The same goes for space in most sex shops. Most sex shops are geared more towards female products. If I had to guess why, it might be simply because more women need to use a product to reach orgasm whereas almost all men can reach an orgasm using only their hands.
But companies like mine are closing this gap by offering new high tech solutions to enhance male pleasure. This is attracting many male first time sex toy buyers who understand that there may finally be products to make masturbation feel more realistic than the same act with their hand they’ve been doing for many many years.
4. With the health benefits and safeness behind self-pleasure, should more celebs like Amber Rose get behind companies like AutoBlow?
Well, they don’t do it for free. Everyone has their price. Whether or not celebrities take money to endorse certain products is not at all related to the benefits of using sex toys. I prefer when my competitors hire expensive celebrities because we can freeload on the publicity, overall.
5. What is the future of the market with things like sexbots seemingly dominating the past few CES events?
Sex robots are not really happening. The media loves sex robots because they get clicks. But even the most advanced “sex robot” is just a sex doll with a head that talks to you like Siri. Talking is probably not near the top of the list of activities that sex robot owners would like to perform with their robot friends, but it is the easiest thing to make a sex doll do. What people would like sex robots to do is to actively have sex. But as dolls alone weigh around 100 pounds, can you imagine how heavy a doll would be if could move and execute certain sexual positions or acts? It would need a system of hydraulics that could turn it into a 300 pound device.
The future of sex robots is not in life sized robots, its in small devices that mimic the feeling of sexual acts, like my Autoblow 2 and the new version we’re working on that will come out later this year. I hired 3 PhD’s in robotics to use the latest robotic technology to perfectly replicate the feeling of a blowjob given from another human being. Devices like mine that can make a human being experience sensations normally only caused by other human beings is the future.
6. Is the self pleasure market a safe investment for celebs and would more celebs benefit from getting behind companies like AutoBlow?
It depends what kind of celebrity and what that celebrity wants out of their career. There are certain celebs who don’t need a squeaky clean image and for them, working with sex toy companies can give them an extra revenue stream without affecting future prospects.
I think it also matters whether the product is a male sex toy or female sex toy. There is still a stigma in society against male masturbation.
For example, male masturbation products are not sold next to female masturbation products in chains like Walgreens & Target which now stock small vibrators. My experience leads me to believe that while this particular celebrity may be looked upon positively for working to promote female masturbation, a male celebrity who promotes a male masturbation product would be seen by most in a more negative light.
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