MysteryVibe Takes on the Orgasm Gap, Reaches $4M Investment

April 25, 2018

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Move over Wonder Woman. Feminist superheroes battle inequality with sex tech.

Image of Close the Orgasm Gap campaign

You’ve likely heard about the gender pay gap. But what about the orgasm gap? If you’re a straight woman, you may be all-too-familiar with this loathsome sexual disparity.

On average, women will experience just one orgasm for every three a man has during heterosexual encounters, explains sex tech company MysteryVibe as part of its Close the Orgasm Gap campaign.

Recent studies back up the fact that there’s a pleasure imbalance in the bedroom. One also calls out the bogus claim that women have “lower orgasmic potential.” It’s just not so.

Time to close the gap

Something’s gotta give and soon. MysteryVibe has decided to push this process along, launching an ad campaign in London this month.

On billboards across the city, cheeky posters with illustrations that look like vulvas share disappointing stats: only a quarter of men know how to find the clitoris, three-quarters of women have faked an orgasm, and just 38% of women masturbate on a regular basis.

“When it comes to the orgasm gap, there’s a lot of work to be done,” said MysteryVibe co-founder Stephanie Alys in a press release. It’s “not just in raising awareness, but in exploring the reasons why it’s so hard for women to demand orgasms during sexual relationships.”

Funding success

Moving on to some more encouraging news: congrats are also in order for the London-based company.

At the beginning of the month, MysteryVibe announced it had raised a total of $4 million in outside capital and a $13 million valuation. This comes after gaining a $1.5 million investment in its latest funding round.

The trend of venture capitalists snubbing sex tech ventures seems to be turning around, at least a little.

“We’re finding investors to be increasingly bullish about sex tech. They are now far more willing to back us than even a couple of years ago,” said Myster Vibe co-founder Soum Rakshit in a press statement. “In a few years, this is going to be a $50 billion market, and there’s been relatively little outside investment. There’s huge potential, we’re excited to see what’s next.”

Before I go, suffering Sappho! Please, no one send me hate mail about the Wonder Woman comment. I was just joking around.

Image sources: MysteryVibe

Jenna Owsianik

Jenna Owsianik is a Canadian journalist and sex tech expert. Since 2014 she has been Editor-in-Chief of FutureofSex.net, the world’s leading publication on how technology is changing human sexuality, today and tomorrow.

Jenna is the primary author of the Future of Sex Report (2016).

Her expertise covers state-of-the-art sex technologies and the major fields driving innovations in intimacy: robotics, virtual reality, remote sex (teledildonics), immersive adult entertainment, human augmentation, virtual sex, and sexual health.

A trained journalist with a Masters of Journalism from The University of British Columbia, Jenna’s reporting has appeared on Futurism.com, Al Jazeera English, CTV British Columbia online, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS 60 Minutes, Global News, and CKNW Radio in Canada and the United States.

As a sex tech industry consultant, she is especially passionate about helping companies deliver accessible services and products to people with disabilities and other underserved communities.

Jenna also runs the sites SexforEveryBody.com, a sex-positive, body-positive online magazine that promotes inclusive sex education; and DisabledSexGuide.com, an adult resource on sex, disability, and erotica.

In 2013, Jenna won two Canadian Online Publishing Awards for her work on The Pain Project, a multimedia site on global access to palliative care.

She won second place at the 2011 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism’s Public Health category for her participation in the documentary Freedom From Pain.

Jenna has an Honors BA in Women’s Studies and Feminist Research as well as a French minor from The University of Western Ontario. She spent a year studying at L’Université Lumière Lyon 2 in Lyon, France.