Women in Sex Tech: Are Things Getting Better?

September 27, 2019

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Recognition is well-deserved and long overdue.

Want some good news? Of course you do, especially as it seems we often hear mostly the bad variety—especially when it comes to sex tech.

Specifically, women in sex tech. Beyond the struggle developers continue to face in getting their technology to market, there’s also previously been a noticeable lack of acknowledgment for their contributions and innovations.

But, and here’s where the good news comes in: that there are signs this is changing—and that sex tech is even becoming the place for female entrepreneurs and innovators.

One step forward

A perfect example of bad news was covered in our reporting of when the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organization running the famed Consumer Electronics Show (CES), gave the women-run and women-focused company Lora DiCarlo their Robotics Innovation Award—only to revoke it almost immediately thereafter.

CTA’s hollow justification was that Lora DiCarlo’s Osé device was in conflict with their Terms & Conditions: “entries deemed by CTA in their sole discretion to be immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with CTA’s image will be disqualified.”

Fortunately, after a massive backlash, CTA finally did the right thing and returned the award to Lora DiCarlo, even apologizing for their blatant sexism in regards to it.

More recently, the “Approved, Not Approved” campaign revealed the sexist double standards that block social media ads from female sexual wellness companies while accepting similar, or even more sexual, advertising from companies targeting male consumers.

We are able to unite ourselves

Despite the embarrassingly clear examples of sexism and bias, we’re also witnessing great examples of how women in sex tech are making inspiring and well-deserved leaps forward.

A great case in point is our interview with Ola Miedzynska, the CEO and co-founder of the exciting Sx Tech Conference that was recently held in Berlin.

Miedzynska points out that things aren’t just improving but that women in sex tech are going through a real renaissance. As Miedzynska says:

We have women in powerful important positions these days. We have CEOs. We have founders. We have designers. We have product designers. We have marketing specialists. We have tech influencers. We are able to unite ourselves and we are able to forward their investment.

Technology is the future of sexual health

Further evidence of this growing power and recognition is a series of articles on The Next Web specifically about women in sex tech and how their contributions are bringing the industry into the future.

In the one featuring Dominnique Karetsos, the Chief Marketing Officer of MysteryVibe, she spoke about the importance of sex tech as not just a profitable enterprise but more as a powerful force for female empowerment:

Working in sextech is such as empowering opportunity, but it does come with having to strike taboos. Technology is the future of sexual health and it’s really important that we focus on it because with tech, it’s not just the product and solution that’s the greatest part. It’s the technology that busts the doors open and creates a new conversation about sex and sexual health.

Time to break out the champagne

Back to our own coverage, we’ve also lauded the changing landscape of women in sex tech with articles such as feminist Director Erika Lust’s new VR film project, the women-led PussyTalk project, as well as a look at the 10 Female Founders Who Are Revolutionizing Sex Tech.

What with all this coverage, plus more female-run and female-focused companies and products being released soon, it’s obvious we should be celebrating

More importantly, all this progress shows that while we still aren’t quite there yet that with full recognition and total acceptance, it’s only a matter of time until we do.

So let’s start now: here’s to all the female sex tech innovators, developers, researchers, academics, companies, and journalists. You are the ones taking sex tech into the future—thank you!

Image sources: Steve Johnson, Pixabay

M. Christian

M.Christian (they/them) loves nothing better than exploring the intersections of sex and technology—and speculating on the future of both. A highly regarded erotica writer they have six novels,12 collections, 100+ short stories, and 25 anthologies as an editor to their name. Their non-fiction regularly appears in many sites, but they're most proud of being a regular contributor to Future of Sex.

Of their erotic fiction, Tristan Taormino said that “M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy—there's nothing [they] can't write about… and brilliantly.”

Reflecting their unique ability to sympathetically and convincingly write for a range of genders and sexual orientations, their stories have appeared in multiple editions of Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, The Mammoth Books of Erotica, and others. Their collection of gay erotic fiction, Dirty Words, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

While a majority of their stories have been collected into books like Dirty Words, their fondness for combining sex and science fiction is clearly evident in collections that include Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, Skin Effect Effect, Bachelor Machine, and Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian.

As a novelist, M.Christian’s versatility is on full display with Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes, Painted Doll; and the somewhat controversial queer BDSM/horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth, and Me2.

M.Christian has worked on the industry’s production side as an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books and as a Publisher for Digital Parchment Services. The latter dedicated to celebrating the works of science-fiction legends such as William Rotsler, Jerome Bixby, Jody Scott, Arthur Byron Cover, Ernest Hogan, and James Van Hise.

Covering topics like BDSM safety, sexual education, senior sexuality concerns, queer and gender issues, plus reviewing a variety of sex tech products, M.Christian’s non-fiction has appeared on sites like Kinkly, Tickle.Life, Sexpert, Queer Majority, Sex for Every Body, and—of course—their ongoing work for Future of Sex.

If there’s anything M.Christian enjoys more than writing, it’s teaching. A featured presenter, sometimes with their friend Ralph Greco Jr, at national sex and BDSM events, they have lectured on kink play (with an emphasis on safety), polyamory, boosting sexual creativity, and erotica writing--for beginners or those wanting to go pro.

M.Christian is a cohost on two popular sex-education podcasts: Love’s Outer Limits with Dr. Amy Marsh and Licking Non-Vanilla with Ralph Greco, Jr.