Page 41 - AVN Intimate Winter 2020

comfortable with sex toys, are embracing the normalcy of their
monthly cycles. The topic of menstruation was covered in the
2019 Oscar-winning short documentary titled “Period. End of
Sentence.”—which brought the once-taboo topic even further into
the mainstream.
For the last several years, more environmentally friendly
alternatives have come onto the market for use during that time of
the month. Menstrual cups in their modern form have been around
since the 1930s, when Leona Chalmers patented a design. But it
wasn’t until 2012, when Intimina introduced the Lily Cup, that
new ground began to be broken. These cups and other menstrual
products commonly find shelf space alongside more traditional
products in drug and general merchandise stores. But now that
pleasure product manufacturers are designing their own versions of
the cup, it seems inevitable that sex-positive stores will stock period-
related items.
In the summer of 2017, German adult pleasure products company
Fun Factory created their own line of silicone menstrual cups:
flexible receptacles inserted into the vagina against the cervix to
create a mild seal to prevent period leakage. (A quick educational
sidebar: The cervix is at the top of the vagina and is rounded like the
tip of your nose. The hole in the center of the cervix is called the “os,”
which is where blood from the lining of the uterus comes out during
menstruation. The os is also the hole that dilates during labor and is
measured by centimeters’ width indicating when a baby is ready to
be born. Ah, the miracles of women’s bodies!)
Sonny Farnsworth, sales manager of Fun Factory USA, shared
the company’s strategies and beliefs in normalizing what is, yes,
a woman’s normal bodily function. “Fun Factory has always been
dedicated to sexual health with our focus on body-safe materials
and ergonomic designs. The Fun Cup [the company’s name for its
menstrual cups] was a natural addition to our line. We recognize
the ways in which menstrual products affect sexual empowerment.
Dryness, increased risk of infection, and gendered marketing all have
an impact on women with periods’ health and happiness.”
She continued, “We don’t think that wellness and pleasure should
be held apart, and the design and messaging of the Fun Cup took
pleasure and inclusivity into account from day one.”
Jimmyjane, a leader in the sexual health and wellness field, has
been manufacturing its own line of silicone menstrual cups for
several years. Sunny Rodgers, who has worked as a sexual health
and wellness educator for the brand, takes a more serious approach
to menstrual cups’ use. She shared “Intimate self-care is important to
maintain a healthy relationship with yourself as it produces positive
feelings and boosts your confidence and self-esteem.”
Sales staff at adult stores are also more open and accepting of
the demand for high-quality sexual health and wellness products
which now encompass silicone menstrual cups. Generationally,
young women and men are less “icked out” talking with customers
about the use of silicone menstrual cups than perhaps a generation
before. Since adult store staff are often considered educators as
well—answering customers’ questions such as “Where’s the G spot?”
“Where’s the clit?” “What’s a good lube for anal sex?”—educating
their clientele about silicone menstrual cups and silicone toys is
simply a natural progression of what they are already doing.
Fun Factory’s Farnsworth continued, “Curiosity around
alternative menstrual products and awareness of cups has definitely
been on the rise in the last few years, so even if the staff at a store
are new to this product category, most of them at least have a basic
understanding of the concept, which makes them more open to
learning about them. I always ask staff in trainings to imagine that they were
a customer who was interested in learning more about menstrual cups. They
wanted to ask a real person rather than just Google it so would they rather
come into an adult store environment and engage with someone who they
know is comfortable discussing personal or more socially ‘taboo” topics and
products with folks already, or would they want to ask the kid stocking the
shelves at a drug store?”
Farnsworth summed up, “I certainly know what my answer would be,
and I think framing it in that way helps win sales staff over who perhaps
were previously uncomfortable or who didn’t see the reasoning for a product
like the Fun Cups being offered in an adult store.” Continued on page 43
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