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Home > Sex Tech > Introducing Fin: Kickstarter’s First Sex Toy

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Home›Sex Tech›Introducing Fin: Kickstarter’s First Sex Toy

Introducing Fin: Kickstarter’s First Sex Toy

By M. Christian
November 8, 2016
4523
2

Meet the finger-vibe that’s broken the erotic crowdfunding ceiling.

Fin is the first sex toy to be featured on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

Here’s a quickie quiz for you: what does Indiegogo have that Kickstarter didn’t, until very recently?

The answer was sex—or, to be more specific, sex toys.

Then the Fin arrived.

Welcome, Fin

The brainchild of Dame Products, the Fin is billed as a “vibrator for fingers”—though its intended purpose, like many sex toys, is definitely much more below the belt.

However, unlike—shall we say—phallic devices, the Fin is worn and controlled by the user’s two fingers. “It seamlessly adds vibration to foreplay and sex, without spoiling the mood,” Dame says on its Kickstarter page.

While other finger-vibrators have hit the market, the Fin is unique for its groundbreaking Kickstarter campaign, if nothing else.

 

The crowdfunding wall

While other crowdfunding sites, such as the already-mentioned Indiegogo, have welcomed sexual devices, Kickstarter had previously kept themselves technologically chaste.

As Lux Alptraum reported, one reason for Kickstarter’s denial of sex aid crowdfunding may have had to do with its original payment system, Amazon Payments, which refused to deal with anything “adult oriented.” That argument doesn’t hold much water, however, as Kickstarter has since moved to Stripe, which doesn’t have any trepidations against sex tech.

It would be nice to report that Kickstarter’s change of conscience in deciding that every innovator, no matter the intended purpose of their products, deserve access to the crowdfunding platform.

Alas, according to Alptraum, the decision may have been more about persistence and familiarity than about Kickstarter realizing the legitimacy of sexual technology.

As Alexandra Fine, the cofounder of Dame Products, put it: “Kickstarter is literally around the block from us. We know them.”

Getting into Kickstarter

Using their Brooklyn neighborliness, Fine managed to secure a meeting and them, eventually, a kink in Kickstarter’s armor—leading to Fin’s placement on the popular crowdfunding site.

But sharing a city in common may not have been the only factor in getting Kickstarter to change its mind. After all, Dame Products is no virgin when it comes to crowdfunding: its first product, the Eva—“the first truly wearable couples’ vibrator”—was immensely popular on Indiegogo. Clearly, Fine and Dame Products know very well how to play the crowdfunding game—as well as Kickstarter’s.

Despite her product’s achievement, Fine still has some criticisms of Kickstarter’s “family friendly” bias. “When you just cut off a whole industry the way the sex toy industry tends to get cut off, you’re just… keeping everybody in the shade,” Fine says.

Alptraum’s article points out that products such as Semenette and Autoblow, both of which should technically qualify to be on Kickstarter, might fail to do so because of their “lowbrow” marketing.

While Dame Products, Alexandra Fine, and the new Fin sex toy deserve recognition for doing what no one else has done before, their victory highlights Kickstarter’s aim to portray a particular image. Agree with it or not, Fine says “it’s really about what lines up with [their] brand as Kickstarter.”

There’s hope, however, that Dame Products has cracked, at least a little, Kickstarter’s barrier—paving the way for other sex tech companies to get their fair share of crowdfunding exposure.

Image source: Dame Products

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.
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