Resensitize your love buttons.

INSIGHT

Over-stimulation might be numbing our ability to heighten our senses for more subtle sexual responses.

Sex toys are to sexual connection as fast food is to culinary artistry or gym equipment are to natural movement; a barely adequate, sensorially-numbing alternative to get a certain job done (satiation or pump) but missing the intricacies necessary for developing a nuanced and sophisticated connection with the whole body. Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for a little fun in the bedroom with playful gadgets. Consider, however, that the stimulating effects of sex toys often create a distraction to connecting with your partner at best, and contrary results of desensitizing at worst. Apart from the different shapes, vibrating modes, colors and display-appropriate design innovations, not much has changed the landscape of the sex toy category. Or in the innovation of sexual stimulation as it relates to brain activity differently in women vs. men.

When the act goes well, both parties are relaxed but stimulated in the right ways and feel a deep sense of connection — perhaps even an altered state where you lose track of time, space and all dualisms. Though of course we can have physiological impediments, if you’re ripe and ready, what actually gets in the way are our minds and psychological hangups; triggering a stress-response in the body and then stunting the act. In our stressful, busy lives of go-go-go performance, it’s almost as if the sex toy industry has evolved to meet the needs of that plastic, high-vibrational buzz, forgetting to slow down to listen to our biology rather than dictate it. Step in many insights from the tantric sex movement, sensual breathing exercises and a reintroduction of an older kind or foreplay: heightening one’s sensitivity in a relaxed state in order to prime it for sex. What would it look like to design for that phase if we look beyond awkward creams, feathers and spicy lubes?

INSPIRATION

One Taste: OM

Nicole Daedone was doing her thing for years even before Tim Ferriss’s provocative chapter in 4-Hour Body about the 15-Minute orgasm. What he broke down into technique, she billows out into a deep philosophy on how to engage sexually with another from a place that is therapeutic, sensuous, meditative, and intent on activating the limbic depths of the brain to release a flood of oxytocin, trembling nerve-endings and an orgasm on a different plane for both men and women. One time celebrated author, speaker and sexual wellness innovator, she became well-known after her TedXSF. However, things took a turn the following years as her community began to veer into cult-like behavior; later featured on Netflix in a documentary called Orgasm, Inc.

Regardless of the character turns, she was onto something with the therapeutic benefits of orgasm and the need to innovate our sexual culture around how to harness this innate biochemical gift nature gave us for a reason.

INNOVATION

“Upper Left”

A small, jewel-like sex primer for women to use 15 minutes before the act to get in the mood for love-making by stimulating the nerve bundles in her vulva responsible for heightened sexual brain activity while in coherence with the beating of her heart.

• A tool that allows for sexual meditation; putting focused concentration on parts of the body a woman has neglected and "triggering" or "priming" a zone that is physiologically proven to entice the nervous system connected to sexual impulse.

• Discreet, easy, non-invasive, and tucks easily into most vulva shapes. Pulsing activity is not as disturbing as a vibration; and is used to soothe the body as opposed to "stimulate" it.

• Safe silicon and stainless steel parts, non-BPA plastics and non-irritable coatings.