Can You Sell Sexual Wellness Without Sex?

0:07Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion, where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm executive editor Brian Baskin. And I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. From positive to prudish, that's how some are casting the beauty industry's attitude towards the sexual wellness category in recent months. The once promising sector that broke taboos and captivated consumers is now facing a wave of setbacks in the U.S. Mainstream retailers are pulling back and stricter social media censorship is placing roadblocks in the way of digital marketing.

0:42The result? Brands touting sex toys, massage oils, and other bedroom aides are feeling compelled to rethink their approach. But how can you sell sexual wellness without sex? To answer, we're joined today by BOF editorial associate, Yola Mzizi. Hello, thank you for having me back. I'm very excited for our conversation. I want to take us back a couple years ago. It was just 2023 when I moderated a panel at our Global Beauty Forum about sexual wellness. At that time, it felt not tone deaf at all, but exciting and interesting. The category was having a boom. It was lucrative. Yola, what was driving that a couple of years ago?

1:20Yeah. So one thing we first have to understand is that the sexual wellness category has always existed, or at least has existed for as long as I've been alive. And it was mostly dominated until now by legacy players like Trojan and Durex. and all of these players sort of had a few things in common. A lot of them were focused on the male consumer. They were very gender normative and they viewed men as sort of like active participants and women as sort of like passive recipients in sex in general. And a lot of them mostly just sold condoms or lube. And so with this new wave of sexual wellness that we started seeing about seven or eight years ago, a lot of these brands were singing a different tune.

2:02A lot of them were founded by women and were mostly primarily concerned with women's pleasure and women's concerns in the bedroom. A lot of them had like sleek packaging that could fit in a Sephora, but could also work in a Target. And they were all in muted colors that were not hyper-sexualized in a way that say a Trojan or a Durex were, and they viewed sex as wellness. In that, they didn't just focus on pleasure, but they also focus on other health benefits that can come from engaging in sex. This is a big deal because attitudes around sex were changing. And therefore, we're seeing all of these brands come up during this time to reflect that change.

2:40We're seeing a lot of resources being thrown at them. This is when we started seeing a lot of venture capitalist firms coming in and providing these brands with funding. And it really seems to be this is an of the moment thing. So attitudes around sex and sexual wellness were changing. And these brands reflected that change. So much so that we also started seeing brands targeted at men come out using very similar branding and very similar messaging. They were thinking more so about the definition around masculinity was changing. It was no longer being a man means dominance of being aggressive and more around being a man in a sexual act is all about consent.

3:19And we also saw Trojans sort of adopt this kind of messaging as well. So we saw a lot of enthusiasm from retailers, from Target and Walmart, but also from more specialty retailers that you wouldn't really think of when you think of this category, like Bloomingdale's, Revolve, and Sephora as well. Yeah. I also want to mention that panel that I hosted had, as two of the panelists, August, which is known for its pads and tampons, and then the Honeypot, which has the wipes and the sprays and all that stuff. And it was interesting because typically you would call those feminine care or feminine hygiene.

3:51So you also saw brands trying to straddle the fence a little more and maybe be beneficiaries of that boom around sexual wellness and kind of use that categorization? Yeah, I mean, it makes sense to some extent, because when you add the wellness bit, as we've talked about many times, wellness can encompass anything. It could be a mattress, it could be going for a run, it could be taking a supplement. So when you add that wellness bit, it kind of makes sense for menstrual care brands to also be folded in, but also a bunch of other reproductive healthcare brands, for example, Hims and Hers, what's also folded into this conversation because they offer supplements and they offer prescriptions around erectile dysfunction and other kinds of care.

4:29So that makes sense. But when we're talking specifically about sexual wellness, I want to focus on the brands that are selling the lube, the condoms, the sexual toys, because that is true sexual wellness. And so then what changed? I mean, we've been hearing a lot, especially around the election about a conservative cultural shift, especially among these young consumers who these brands are presumably targeting. I mean, is that what happened here or is there more to it? I think it's a bit complicated. So the sexual wellness openness, like the sexual openness of the 2010s and 2020s is seeing a lot of regulatory pushback and cultural pushback too.

5:07So we've seen a lot of stricter laws around gender identity and expression, the restriction of abortion access, and a pullback in DEI initiatives. And generally, there is a big swing towards conservatism. But when we talk about young people, I want to make a clear distinction. Even though we are seeing in surveys that Gen Z is indicating that they're having less sex and less interested in sex than, say, previous generations, this does not necessarily mean they're more conservative. We know that Gen Z is a very liberal subset of the population and not engaging in sex or not being interested in sex as much does not necessarily mean they're now politically or culturally conservative.

5:46And I can use myself as an example, being a Gen Z person here about how I'm understanding this change. So a lot of Gen Z grew up at a time when the internet had not necessarily been regulated or content on there had not yet started being moderated. So you couldn't really spend two hours on the internet without encountering like a sexually explicit video or an ad. And so being around all of this unfettered sexual messaging at a young age is probably cause for this pullback. We're seeing this with Gen Z sort of not necessarily being interested in sex scenes on TV, but also romance novels that a lot of Gen Z are readers of.

6:23Their covers have become less raunchy and are now leaning more towards illustrations. So while millennials and Gen Xs may have seen this wave of like sexual openness as revolutionary, Gen Z is not necessarily seeing it as such because this is just something that we grew up around. So it's not so much that there's less demand for the products. It's that the way they were being sold is out of step with this new generation of shoppers. Precisely. Yes. And we're seeing that across the industry, as I mentioned, with books, with TV. It's just the way that we're talking about sex is changing. But that's actually showing up in how these brands have to shift course in marketing and in how they sell sex, they kind of can't say or depict the idea of sex.

7:10So how are they doing that now? So a lot of these brands have faced some restrictions, especially when it comes to marketing on social media. So even as the social media ads become cheaper, it's quite difficult for sexual wellness brands to get their messaging out there. For example, if you just look at Meta, which owns Instagram, they have very clear policies that their ads cannot promote the sale or use of adult sexual arousal products or services. That can mean anything from like erotica to fan fiction to sex toys. But what they do allow are ads centered on reproductive health and sexual health, but only if they're shown to users 18 years or older.

7:50So that's like ads for contraception or like erectile dysfunction meds that I talked about earlier. And that's just for ads, just to begin with. That's just for ads. So say a brand doesn't want to run an ad and just wants to create content. That's also a bit tricky because Meta, for example, has very strict policies, like very similar policies that you cannot post content that implicitly depicts sexual activity, unless if it's in like an educational context. And in that sense, it has to come with a warning screen. And that warning screen is like a black screen that shows up before you see an image or a video that lets users know that they're about to see sensitive content.

8:29So this then makes it very difficult for some of these brands to, first of all, reach and let alone engage some of their would-be consumers. It's interesting you say that because I was on my favorite website, which is the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive. And I was looking at some of the old websites for these brands back in that peak era of 2023, around when Sheena was doing that panel. and it's exactly as you describe it. So I'm looking at Playground, which is a brand that was founded. I think Christina Aguilero was one of the founders of that one. And it was very, you know, everything we were just talking about, very sex forward, very playful, very sexy, although it still had a lot of that millennial pink kind of branding to it.

9:10And the website back then had this looping animation of a woman squeezing lube into her hand. And their slogan was fun, fantasy, full sensory. You go today, there is a static photo of their products, which could just be any type of skincare. They're completely generic packaging. Their tagline is now better intimacy, better health, more fun. It's a total pivot. And I'm sure that's driven by these social media restrictions. If they can't get the message out the way that they used to, they have to make a full pivot into science and wellness. Yeah. And that's especially interesting because Playground does count Christina Aguilera as a co-founder.

9:50So Christina, who has a large following, could just talk about these products very openly on her own channels. But they're still seeing the need to sort of shift towards more health-focused messaging and position their brand as sexual health instead of sexual wellness in order to be able to advertise and target these new consumers. This could also just be that this is where a lot of the growth in this industry is coming from right now around the health messaging. So in the next couple of years, your monitor expects to see a lot of the growth in this industry coming from pharmaceuticals. And we've already started to see a few brands move in that direction.

10:24For example, Hello Cake launched their version of Viagra, but targeted at their female consumers last year. And that resonated very strongly. And that's definitely something they plan on pursuing in the next couple of years. Yeah, and we mentioned HIMSS and HERS before. I mean, they're one of the survivors here. They, I mean, they're doing just fine. like their market caps over$8 billion. They had this big spike and crash because of getting into Ozempic, but their core business, I think is still very much tied into this. And that kind of like clinical medical approach seems to have some legs to it.

10:57Yeah, definitely. But I do think it's a huge deviation from say three, four years ago when the messaging was all around pleasure and there was centering, like a lot of these founders were seeing sexual wellness as like the new quote-unquote feminist category like women deserve sex toys too we need to focus on women's concerns etc etc but like moving towards like the more medical or like health focused messaging may dull that a bit and it doesn't really have the same bite as like say a feminist founded brand that's here to sort of quote-unquote liberate women this just seems like oh it's just something i could get at my doctor it's not as exciting Yeah, I was going to mention that I think that there was such value in shifting the narrative arc around how you sell sex and the messaging to women and having it be more embracing of them not being on how you described earlier, the receiving end and being passive.

11:50I wonder what the impact of that is culturally. And you also think about some of the changes in laws around abortion. All of those things I think are more concerning here than maybe some of the marketing shifts and maybe you can't put the lube in the ad. I think it's some of that that we really have to worry about. Oh, yes, definitely. But it is still very important to see some of these brands on the shelves because that's also saying something. Because even if the message is changing and we are, it's like, oh, we have bigger fish to fry. We need to focus on abortion access. These things do matter.

12:24What you do see in store is indicative of what is considered culturally appropriate. it. So if, for example, in the story that I wrote, which is, can you sell sexual wellness without sex? One of our sources, who's someone who's familiar with Sephora's decisions, but not was not necessarily involved in the decision making, told us that Sephora by the end of the year will be removing sex toys from their offering. So currently Sephora offers body oils, massage oils, lotions and potions and lube on their dot com as well as in store. But they're completely getting rid of the sex toys. And that's very interesting because anyone can sell lube.

13:01Like brands have been selling lube for a very long time. The way that these new sexual wellness brands that have come to market have been able to differentiate themselves from the legacy players is by creating devices that are primarily focused on the quote unquote woman consumer or the feminist woman consumer. So without that, what's left of this category? Although in a way, they're almost a victim of their own success because, for example, you can buy sex toys at Target or even CVS now. And that was not true even three, four years ago. If you told me that 20 years ago, that would have blown my mind.

13:36Like you just did not see any of this stuff in public, essentially, unless you went to a store that was dedicated to it. And in a way, like the openness has stuck around. It's just, it stopped being cool and new. And I think the brands that were built around, hey, this is the hot new thing are suffering, but the ones that are just saying we're happy to sell sex toys at Target, even though it's not the chicest of environments, are probably doing just fine. Yeah. So again, I spoke with Mitch Orkus, who is the co-founder of Hello Cake. And Hello Cake sells mostly at Target, Walmart, and a few other drugstores.

14:12And they told me that they're doing fine. The only big thing that's an issue for them right now is for some of these retailers, a lot of their products are behind glass. So we've seen Target and CVS implement sort of these theft prevention strategies of like putting their products behind glass. So now what they are doing to adapt, since they no longer have the luxury of, say, having a consumer strolling down the aisle, picking up a product, reading the back, thinking about it a little bit more, and then putting it in the cart, is they've put all of the information about what a product is on the front.

14:43And it's in bold colors so when you're walking down the aisle you know exactly what you're getting but also because it's behind glass no one really wants to call a shop attendant to like open up this little box with their key to just stand there for two minutes and reading and deciding what it is that you want especially in this cultural environment people will find that quite embarrassing so you don't necessarily be like oh i'm getting loom but i need to like find out if this is the one for me you just need to know that this is the one for you and get someone to open it and you take it and you leave.

15:11I have selected my loop. You don't trust the CVS clerk. You don't trust the recommendation for loop. I feel like some of the attendants are like overworked and too tired. They're probably not even judging you. They just want you to get it over with. They're not there for you to like peruse. We'll be back with more of the debrief right after this.

15:37I want to talk about funding. Funding is another area of pressure now that the cultural conversation has shifted and also the guidelines appear to be stricter on social media and elsewhere. How is this category faring from a funding standpoint? Are brands being able to get more or less? Yeah. So when this category was coming out, we did see a lot of invested enthusiasm. But I also do want to add the caveat that this is not necessarily a category that was exceptionally easy to get funding for, for a number of factors. Firstly, a lot of these brands are woman-led and woman-founded. And we know that women receive a drop in the bucket when it comes to venture capital.

16:18So from the outset, that's immediately a disadvantage. And secondly, sexual wellness falls under vice categories for a number of investor firms. So vice category is basically business segments that investors will not invest in or put any money into because it does not align with our quote unquote moral values. So other vice categories tend to be like cannabis or gambling. And because you're the investor, you're not obligated to invest in sexual wellness. So they were already having a tough time. But being in this sort of environment where there is sort of a shift towards cultural conservatism, this has just compounded on that.

16:54And let's not forget that these brands all came up during that period in the late 2010s, early 2020s, when all sorts of personal care, beauty, fashion brands were getting just massive amounts of funding. So they had a harder time, but they certainly had an easier time than they would have had in any period before or since. And I think they're not the only category that's having trouble getting funding now. And that's probably playing a big role in the decline we've seen in some of these brands that they were just like any other money losing DTC brand. You know, not that we know they were all losing money, but, you know, just it's sort of typical of the category, like securing that next round of funding has gotten a lot harder for everybody.

17:35And in this, they have other headwinds here. Yeah. And they definitely have to be bootstrapped. And in order to keep making money and keep reaching the consumers, a lot of them have to adapt, especially if they see that the messaging around sort of the girl boss feminism of take charge of your orgasm isn't necessarily working. And the health focused messaging is, it's understandable that they would pivot. Why don't you tell us about contact sports, which I think is a great example of this. I mean, that was, I think one of the first stories you wrote for us was probably about the store that they opened in New York.

18:06And then a year later it was closed and they'd moved on to other things. And I think they kind of encapsulate everything you just talked about in a way. Yeah. So Contact Sports was the specialty retailer in New York that was dedicated to only housing sexual wellness brands. Like the whole thing was just sexual wellness brands. And it was really favored by brands who didn't necessarily want to be in Target, like who still wanted to have like that prestige sheen on them. And it was just dedicated to that, but didn't necessarily want to go into Sephora either because they're not beauty because that didn't necessarily make sense.

18:37So Contact Sports was sort of the perfect solution. And then a year later, it shut down. I was walking past Soho and I started to close down. And so I reached out to the founders and they told me that the store shutting down had nothing to do with how sexual wellness brands sell or whether or not it's easy or difficult and more so that they wanted to move on to other ventures. But the store's closure is still indicative of a larger issue because sexual wellness brands already have a hard time finding shelf space. And with one less retailer, it's a lot harder. I mean, they could go to traditional sex shops, but it would partly dilute some of their own messaging in terms of like being a feminist brand.

19:16If they're going to sex shops, which aren't always good to don't always have like very strong feminist messaging. So those still exist like traditional sex shops still exist. But the closure of contact sports is definitely felt in the sector. Yeah, you talked about not wanting to dilute your brand identity if you're truly in the sexual health or sexual wellness category. So there are brands that want to do that. They want to be out there and bold about emphasizing sexual wellness. What is the value of doubling down right now and how are brands doing that? There's a lot of value in doubling down, especially in the long term.

19:53So if we look at Emily Oberg, who founded Sporty and Rich, she's launching a new sexual wellness brand in the coming weeks called Sensual Sport. And she will be using OnlyFans, the adult social media site, to promote her brand. So she knows that the people who are coming to her brand already know what it's about. And they're not confused about what this brand is. And Ulta Beauty, as well, another retailer, which is part of their overall wellness offering, will be including and bringing in more sexual wellness brands this year. So by doubling down, brands can rest assured that they're not diluting the message.

20:28The customers who are coming to shop with them know exactly who they are, what they stand for, and what they sell. Because if you position yourself as, say, I am a healthcare startup and then you're selling lube, it may be very difficult to get someone to click purchase because they were duped into getting there. Yeah. And if you want lube, you may not go to a certain kind of website. I'm not going to think that a healthcare, pharmaceutical, whatever categories brands are using to define themselves because they're avoiding some kind of cultural conversation, they probably are going to take a loss because I won't go there to buy that particular thing.

21:04Yeah, it feels a little muddled. And I think the ones that are just going all in, like Emily Oberg is, are the ones that have just sort of said, we're going to be in Target and you'll find us right next to all the old stuff are probably best positioned here. And the ones that keep having to pivot and find their message maybe are a little lost right now. Yeah. A brand that I spoke to for the story that I thought was really interesting was Wooj Pleasure. It's in the pre-launch phase and they're launching an app controlled vibrator, but they're positioning themselves as a tech company. And so instead of looking at Target, which would not necessarily been in the price range of, say, a Target consumer, especially for that category, they're looking at Best Buy because that's where you shop for tech.

21:48So they're positioning the whole category as tech. That's amazing. sheena is losing it i'm sorry you all can't see this right now no i i just thought that was very smart personally i thought it was very smart especially if it's an app controlled vibrator and it works in the same way say as a fit fit would like it tracks everything it makes sense for their consumer because sephora wouldn't necessarily make sense in that regard i think there's a lot going on with brands trying to figure out a way to talk about something that is historically taboo in a way that is culturally normative, shall we say.

22:25And so I see the value, but I also see the challenge. It's not dissimilar than Target. Like earlier when you're talking about Target and I pictured that aisle that I know where that stuff is. And like you go in there on the weekends with your kid and this is not, it's fine, but it's like, that's the idea that people would have. Like they would go into the aisle and suddenly grab the lube and say, Hey mommy, what's this? I'm picturing Best Buy with the gaming toys going in that direction. I'm sorry. Well, I think honestly, you know, we always like to end these episodes with a little note of hope after being really bleak for 25, 30 minutes.

22:55And I think that Best Buy example is shows that you can't put the lube back in the bottle. Like, like once this stuff is out there, I don't think it goes away. Even if there is a like, quote unquote, you know, cultural shift with, with Gen Z, like people still want this stuff. And the norms have shifted enough that you can sell it at, apparently you can sell it at Best Buy. So like, I think that's just going to continue. And, you know, the marketing might change, but the availability of these products and success of some of them, I believe it's only onward and upward. Yeah. Catherine McGee, who's the co-founder of Playground, has spoke to her for this story and she made a really important point.

23:33She said this category in its current iteration is quite young and is going through a lot of growing pains. and maybe isn't as predictable as investors or brands or retailers thought it was. So at this point in time, I guess it's just we'll wait and see how things continue to unfold. But the best thing brands can do to better position themselves is to be malleable enough to adapt as the winds change. Absolutely. And we can all take a BOF group trip to Best Buy next quarter and see how this is working out for all parties. Coming to the debrief in Q2. Thank you. Yola, this was so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us.

24:13Thank you. This was definitely a very interesting conversation because it really speaks to what we're seeing on the shelves, but how it translates to the broader culture. Absolutely. Please be sure to check out Yola's article, Can You Sell Sexual Wellness Without Sex? at businessoffashion.com. These and other stories are available to BOF professional subscribers only, and you can find the links in the episode notes. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies, mixed and mastered by Eric Bria. And I'm Brian Baskin. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thank you so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.