Dildo It Yourself: Open-Source Strap-on Project Targets Ecosexuals

Become your own sex toy maker with newly launched crowdsourcing platform.

Last December, Nadejda Kadar of the Open Design Sex Toys blog kicked off Dildo It Yourself with the Hong Kong sex toy manufacturer Love Flower Bud. The new site's aim is to become an open-source platform for sharing strap-on dildo designs, and already features several downloadable files to help you create your own sex toy. We spoke to Nadejda to learn more about her project and its focus on ecosexuals.

FoS: Why did you decide to launch an open-source, strap-on dildo project? I'm particularly interested to know why you've opted for it to be open source.

Nadejda:

We initially started this project, not with the intent to make a sex harness, but rather with the intent to make a harness that combines a fall protection function, with a chastity belt function. The climbing/fall protection function would be useful when constructing ecological buildings/small-scale power plants, and the chastity belt function would be useful for women to protect them from rape, particularly in developing countries.

The latter function is only possible if the harness is cheap enough (since poor women would need to able to buy it for this). So, we thought that in order to allow reducing the costs of the harness, adding the ability to also attach a dildo would certainly allow us to increase sales (and mass production allows us to reduce the production cost per harness), and it also makes the harness again a bit more useful. In addition, due to the strength of the harness, it can even provide functions regular sex harnesses don't have, for instance allowing it to be used to suspend people in the air (i.e. for BDSM).

Now for why we intended to make both the harness and the dildos open source. The harness took some time to design, and we wanted our design it to be usable by other organizations (that build ecologic buildings, address violence against women), too. We also wanted our dildo designs to be 3D printable, by anyone, without many restrictions. So we decided to make both our strap-on attachments and the harness itself open source (GPL v3).

FoS: On your website, you mention meeting the needs of ecosexuals. Who are ecosexuals and how does your project cater to them?

Nadejda:

Ecosexuals are people who practice sexual activities in natural environments (forests, waterfalls, etc.) They often also practice naturism, and try to experience sexuality in a way that does not harm nature (for instance by avoiding of having offspring). As known, sex harnesses are particularly useful aids for lesbian couples, so this along with its ability to secure people working on ecological constructions, made us also target the ecosexual movement with our product.

FoS: What do people need if they want to create their own dildos from home, based on your designs?

Nadejda:

Generally, they can just download the 3D file from us and have it printed by a 3D printer. 3D printers can be found in a fablab, hacker- or makerspace, but due to privacy concerns we think that most people just use an online printing service like makexyz or 3D Hubs and have the finished attachment delivered back to them.

FoS: Since you said the harness is open source, does this mean you are able to 3D print it? Or is it simply one can access the design files to make their own?

Nadejda:

Yes, they can access the design files to make their own. That said, the harness is made mainly from nylon webbing and leather, so it's difficult to make it at home. They can always order this from Love Flower Bud too, of course

FoS: You offer designs for both “simple” and “complex” dildos. What are the differences in what they offer?

Nadejda:

Just as the name implies: simple strap-ons are simpler in design than the complex ones.
The reason why we make a distinction is because the first type of strap-on (which contains designs like the “standard dildo”) can be printed easily by an online printing service. The complex ones, however, may consist of much more parts and even electronic components (that need to be added separately). So, making these require you to have more skill in this sort of thing. If people don't want to go through the hassle of printing any attachments (simple or complex) at all, they can also buy an attachment ready-made from Love Flower Bud (or another company).

FoS: What are your most popular strap-ons under each the simple and complex categories?

Nadejda:

So far, I doubt the strap-on attachments have been viewed or even been downloaded by people. The DildoItYourself site is still quite new (odsextoys.blogspot.com -or ODST- has existed for much longer). I made the DildoItYourself recently to make all attachments easier to download/view, and to have a harness product page made (that didn't fit well with the ODST site). That said, I think the standard dildo will probably have the most success in the beginning since it's the easiest one to print.

*Interview slightly edited for clarity

Image sources: Dildo It Yourself