Sex Talks With Emma-Louise Boynton - Can a smart vibrator improve your sex life? With Anna Lee, co-founder of Lioness

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

In this episode we're putting a quick pause on agony aunting your questions and instead turning to sex tech founder, Anna Lee, for a deep dive into how she's deepening our understanding of female orgasms with the world's first smart vibrator, the Lioness, which allows users to track their orgasms using biofeedback data. 'Why would I want to track my orgasms?' you may be wondering. Well, for far too long sex science has focused almost exclusively on the male anatomy, while overlooking the intricacies and specificities of female sexual function and pleasure. This dearth of research into the female experience of sex has led to numerous misunderstandings and oversights when it comes to our understanding of sex. Anna and the Lioness team are seeking to address that by helping women and people-with-vulvas better get to know their own bodies, while also contributing to broader research studies around female pleasure and sexual function. As it turns out, there's a lot we can learn about our overall health and well-being through our orgasms. We'll be returning to your questions next week, so if you want to send your own agony aunt question to the podcast, head on over the sextalks.co.uk. This episode was sponsored by dating app, Feeld. If you want to spice up your summer, all while supporting this podcast, then please do download Feeld using the exclusive download code: feeld.co/sextalks.

Hello and welcome to the Sex Talks podcast with me, your host, Emma Louise Boynton. Sex Talks is dedicated to engendering more open and honest conversations around typically taboo topics, specifically sex, relationships and the future of intimacy. In this Agonyan-style podcast, I'm putting your sex, dating and general life woes to a guest agony on each week, from how to avoid losing yourself in love, to top tips for exploring kink for the first time, love when you're feeling hopeless, to overcoming sexual shame. Whatever you're struggling with, we got you. Submit your Agni-Anne questions on the Sex Talks website. That's at sextalks.com. Okay, I hope you enjoy the show.

All right, so welcome to the latest episode of the Sex Talks podcast. Now, this one is going to be a little bit different. So usually we are obviously Agniant, your sex relationship and general life woes with my guest Agniant. But today's episode, episode, I am going to be speaking to a wonderful woman called Anna Lee, who is a co-founder of the data-driven sexual wellness company Lioness, which has created the world's first and only vibrator to improve orgasms through biofeedback and data, something we will delve into during the episode. So with Anna innovating in a sexual wellness space in the way that she is, I really wanted to use this episode to actually just deep dive into how she started with

lioness, the kind of founders, how she started with lioness, how the company has evolved and how she and her other co-founders are really innovating to improve our understanding of female pleasure and sexuality, which has been so under-research for so many years. So today, Anna and I are just going to nerd out on one of my favourite topics. So we won't be agony-aunting today, but trust me, we have all got a lot to learn from Anna and her career story. So welcome to the podcast, Anna. Yay, thanks for having me. I love nerding out about sex.

It's the sexiest way to talk about sex. It is the same. Where are you speaking to me from today? I'm always curious. You're traveling all the time. So where are you today? I am finally back home in San Francisco in the great, gloomy, foggy. I'm watching the fog roll in right now, so it's really lovely.

Oh, my goodness. Well, London is exactly the same. I was just saying it feels like we've kind of bypassed summer. It's just really gloomy and cloudy and horrible. Yeah. So you're in still a convention. So you are in the heart of the startup tech sector, which I'm incredibly curious, but I listen to all the podcasts. I listen to it always about, yeah, innovations in the tech sector.

And I just, I basically feel like I want to be this like fly in the wall in Silicon Valley. So I love having you there. I'm going to, I'm going to mind you for all the Silicon Valley gossip whilst we do's interview. So Anna, I want to begin with really the origin story of Linus. I know in the pandemic, you did a video on TikTok, the end. end up going viral and really blew you up on social media. I think you were responding to like a TikTok trend of people talking about their slightly more out there career pivot. And your career pivot definitely is one that is pretty noticeable. So Anna, tell me, why did you leave your job working as

a mechanical engineer at Amazon to start up a sex toy company? How did that happen? Yeah, that's such a good question so about eight years ago i so i grew up in korea um till i was seven years old so i grew up in a really conservative religious family like we never talked about sex growing up like i was very much like if you have sex you're going to go to hell like all these like very concepts you know and then we moved to the u.s my mom wanted to give my brother and i better opportunities in america and like really fulfill this idea of the american dream which was you go to a really good college, you get a really good job in a corporate America, and then that's it. Like, that's the life you live.

You buy a house and all this stuff. And so I really, like, stuck to that. And that was really ingrained in my brain for so long. And then I went to UC Berkeley and I studied mechanical engineering because one thing I learned was, like, I loved the idea of, like, thinking about how things are made and then kind of using your hands to build it or, like, thinking about how you can build a product like that. And I, so I joined Amazon after I graduated.

And then I think, like, I was there for a couple years. And I just remember, like, just this feeling of, like, sitting in my cubicle one day and being, like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm supposed to do this for, like, 30 more years. Like, I can't imagine this is what all, like, life was meant to be. Like, I built up this entire idea of, like, I have to go to a good college. I have to do all these things. And then I just remember being, like, I don't know if I'm, like, super passionate about building candles for a living. Like, you know, e-readers are cool, but at the same time, I just, like, wasn't passionate.

And then at the time, at the same time, this just beautiful, like, this collision of sequence of, like, events was that my, I met my two co-founders now. And then, so they were introduced to me with my roommate at the time because I was like, oh, I just really want to work on a project that's, you know, really fun and super spicy. And, like, maybe just something that, like, I feel really passionate about. And she was like, oh, my God. She's like, I know these two people working on a sex toy. And I, like, because of my. like background growing up in a really conservative family like sex toys was never in my like vision of things that I was ever going to do like I was horrified and then actually like when I was

growing up I had actually experienced sexual trauma for a couple years and so I really had this feeling of like that I didn't like and I think a lot of people can relate to this of like you don't feel like you really like deserve pleasure in your body or like that something yeah and like this feeling of like oh like when I have sex it shouldn't like or masturbate like it shouldn't be this thing that I enjoy or like this thing that I deserve to give myself and that's what where I was coming from so like sex toys like I maybe own like one cheapy $10 bullet vibrator that like it's probably like not safe materials to use and then even with my partners at the time like I just had a hard time communicating things I like didn't like all this stuff so but it was just

one of those moments where my roommate was like oh my god can I introduce you these two people, they need an engineer. And I was like, oh my God, I want to work on this. And so I met my two founders now. And I just like was like, hey, I just wanted work on this for fun. And at the same time, it was when I met a founder of a different sex toy company. The company doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. And he was a CEO of this company. I have one of his products still. They discontinued it. But I remember just being like, how do you know what you're building for women or like people of vulvas? And he was like, oh, yeah. know there's this industry standard where you put the vibration on your nose and that's what a clitoris

feels like wow but they do it to this day right like if you go to sex toy shops they always are like oh put it on your nose and i just remember being like i just know for a fact my clitoris does not feel like my nose like it's just that just doesn't correlate to me at all and i just remember just being like i think all products in this space is like designed in this way it's like mostly a male dominate it's historically extremely male dominated industry and it's for a product that's so intimate and you know like for me coming from a place where it felt so scary and it felt like something like maybe something's wrong with me and and then having these toys that don't work for you i was just like this is just like a whole societal issue it's like it's it's like this realization that's

not a me problem this is a society problem and so that's when i decided to like quit amazon and join full time and work on building a smart vibrator Oh my gosh, there's so much there that I want to delve into, Anna. But first, just listen to that. What really struck me is you said that you grew up in a household in which sex just wasn't discussed. So it wasn't some of the entrenched taboo around sex was kind of ever present in your household.

And I'm really sorry to hear that you had to go through sexual trauma. And I imagine the taboo that exists around sex, coinciding with then experienced sexual trauma, it makes it very hard to then know how to process. sex sexual trauma and I just wonder how you got to from that place where there was such a deeply entrenched taboo around sex coinciding with what I've know you've described before is kind of the guilt and the shame that surrounded sex as a result of that and the result of the trauma you experienced to then being able to overcome that taboo in order to build a company that focuses

entirely on sex and and sex toy products. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I tell this now, like, a lot of times when I do talks, like, I have to remind people, like, six, seven years down, like, before. Like, I was, so when I joined the company, my co-founders make fun of me to this day is, like, I would always be like, I will never do any of the interviews. Like, I don't want to be on any of the pictures. Like, I don't want to have to say the word clitoris or orgasms. Like, I'm just here to be a really good engineer is really how I started kind of the career in this company. And it is really funny because, and I think about it now of like, okay, so what change in this from then to now? And it is really, and it's why I'm so passionate about our company is like, I think there's so much power.

One in therapy, like I got therapy for years. Like, I would never knock therapy. But I think the second part that was so powerful for me was like learning about sex, like learning about it in such an education space from such a science space, from such a research space of why does our body do this? do other people experience this kind of stuff like all these different factors that was really like an education basis and giving myself time to like and for us because we have a smart vibrator like masturbating with such a sciencey kind of experimental thing of like oh i'm like just experimenting with how my body changes over time or like why my orgasms might have changed if i had a cup of coffee and so it gave me kind of vocabulary to feel so comfortable in my body of like oh that's just how my body happens or that's how search is in this space and it it gave me the power to feel so normal in my body and I think that's the question that every person has is am I normal? Yes actually Emily Nagoski talks about this in her book Come as You are aka the like seminal text on on female pleasure which I'm sure lots of people listening have already read she says right at the staff of the book that being a sex therapist means getting

asked lots of questions by lots of strangers about desire, arousal, kink, vegetables, everything. But she says, what underlies all these questions is one central question, and that is, as you've just said, am I normal? The problem as she describes it is that we've been sold a bit of a lie when it comes to sex and sexuality, not intentionally, but because sex science was historically dominated by men. We've long had a pretty one-size-fits-all model of sex and desire based on the male experience. I mean, most obviously the fact that sex has been understood as penis in vagina, because that's how men come. I mean, not only is this a really heteronormative model of sex, but it's one that places a primacy on male over female pleasure, because, as we now

know, women only orgasm reliably through intercourse 30% of the time. Now, I know this is something you speak about a lot, and I wonder whether you could explain for us now where we see some of the most notable gaps in research when it comes to the female sexual anatomy and female pleasure specifically. Yeah, I think because, and I talk about it a lot because it's just, to me, it's just every time I learn a little bit more about how much discrepancy there is, it just blows my mind every single time. And it's, you know, there's the stats of like, for every seven papers there are about male sexual function, there's one paper on female sexual function for research. And usually that paper is about, you know, something in the process of fertility, making babies, which is a really

crucial and important part, but the fact that there's just nothing on sexual pleasure, right? Like, the clitoris really hasn't been understood until really recently. And even to the clitoris being like, we used to think, if you look anywhere, I'm sure right now, even to the day, if you Google how many nerves does a clitoris has, like you'll see tons of videos, you'll see tons of articles that all say 8,000 nerve endings. And it was actually just in 2022, a researcher or doctor, Dr. Blair Peters, actually researched the clitoris and was like, actually, it's over 10,000 nerves. And because he took a real sample of a human clitoris versus the 8,000 nerves is from a book

in the 1970s where they took a sample of a cow's clitoris. And the cow's clitoris had 8,000 nerves. And that's been a known number from doctors, researchers. Everyone references it, but it was never from a human clitoris. And so the huge implication here is that when you're doing even things like surgery or procedures in that area, you might be cutting a nerve that you're not aware of. And so when people are saying like, hey, suddenly my sexual function totally changed. And it happens a lot for like post-pregnancy.

Like, oh, my, you know, my pleasure is totally different. And it could be just because we don't know anything. about it. And so it really just goes back to like even from like a medical standpoint where there's so much funding and so much research in these kind of things. Like we don't know anything about female sexual pleasure. And it was just and it for us it was like the funny thing of we originally when we started the company, we were trying to make an AI vibrator. So the more you use it, the smarter it gets like it moves in the same like it just learns like how to please you basically. And we realized like we couldn't even do it because there wasn't research papers. There

weren't enough data points to even base their AI on. And so that's kind of us working backwards of like, okay, so we need to put out our own research or we have to know our own information about how to even make this work. But it was just like, I think people a lot of times think we're exaggerating when we're like, oh, you know, there's still little papers on women and all these things. But it's like truly like horrendous how little research we have in this space. Let's move now on to the vibrator, move on to line S, because I am really kind of keen to deep dive into what you, how you are addressing this dearth of research into female pleasure with a product that is kind of first of its kind. As I said, the start, it's the world's first smart vibrator that is giving people biofeedback orgasm data so we can collect data as we masturbate. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

First up, what is biofeedback? Yes, that's a good question. It really is a, it's a new, it's such a strange concept because it's so new. But so what we're measuring, it looks like a rabbit style vibrator. So one part is inserted vaginally or anally. And then there's a little nub that's meant for the clitoris. It can be placed on the prerineum if you're going to use it anally. But what we're measuring is involuntary pelvic floor contractions.

And in the little research that is there, what we know is that involuntary pelvic floor contractions are one of the best indicators for arousal and orgasms. Because during an orgasm, you see a really rhythmic pattern that happens right during the orgasm. That's really distinguishable from the rest of the data. So what we're doing is you would use the vibrator completely like normal, but there are these four sensors on the shaft. And so what we're looking for is those involuntary pelvic floor contractions. And those happen, whether you inserted anally or vaginally. and then you pair it to your phone on an app and just like a sleep tracker or a fitness tracker, like a fit fit, like you'll get all that data for each of your sessions.

And so you can start seeing what factors change over time, like what made it better, what made it worse. So the whole idea is like we know biofeedback helps people understand more about their body and what factors are changing. Like for sleep, for example, I know for a fact if I drink, you know, three tequila shots, I'm going to have horrible sleep over the night. yeah you may like but tequila is my go-to drink you know but yeah same but it's just knowing these little tidbits about yourself and so in it unveils i think something about sexual function that we don't you know i don't like have sex or masturbate i'm not thinking about like self-reflection of well how was that for me like what worked for me and so we're a little bit taking that that difficulty away and just giving people this data so that it gives them a time

to self-reflect and we know that in sex therapy that's like such a powerful thing is to self-reflect on your sexual experiences and so the idea would be I would begin tracking my orgasms and I would be able to essentially compile like a graph in the app doesn't it that basically shows you the strength of your orgasm is that right so the strength based on those contractions of the pelvic floor muscle and there's the idea then that I would log kind of the context in which I'd masturbated in that time so if I'd had a glass of wine or I'd had a a giant coffee or I just had a long bath, for example, so that over time I can better understand the context that works for me

to maximize my orgasm. Is that correct? So it's exactly just figuring out what factors. And it could even be factors that you don't even know. And it's just taking that moment to be like, why does my data look so different versus this past couple weeks? And it's the way that we had an athlete, we have an athlete who has been a long time line as user. And she sent us like in her data one day and she was like, dude, I think my vibrator is broken. Like, the data is looking super odd. And, you know, we were like trying to work on the hardware, the software, trying to figure out if there's something that went wrong. And then we're like, does something

happen on this day? Because like, maybe it's a physiological data change. And she was like, oh, she's like, yeah, I had a sports injury. She's like, I had a concussion. And all of us were like, I think this might be related to the concussion because we couldn't find anything wrong with the vibrator itself. And she took a pause from her sport, but backed her to her. doctors and was like, oh, I think this is a bigger concussion than I thought that it was going to be. So she's like, I'm going to get physical therapy. And over the months, we see the data come back. And so it's just even seeing moments like that of like there might be correlation to overall wellness, traumatic brain injuries, like all of that to your sexual function that we might

not even know is like happening to us. I find that so interesting and such an under explored a facet of our overall health and well-being that are kind of the strength or the vitality of our orgasms. I know just totally anecdotally, but personally, when I'm super stressed, when I'm tired, when I feel just disconnected from my body because I'm just living in my laptop

and in my kind of frontal cortex, I know when I then go to masturbate, it's just that my orgasms are so lackluster. They are so, like, tepid. And it feels, I always think, like the circuit is broken, there is a missing piece that means there's just something not connecting

and I kind of feel like I've lost a lot of sexual energy. I know stress has a massive impact, typically on our sexual function. So to be able to better understand the factors that contribute to that like circuit breaking or being weakened, I think is huge and it's super exciting. And as I said, just not information I would have thought I needed

because I didn't think it possible to get. Yeah, exactly. And it's like sometimes I track my own stress because of my orgasm data. I'm like, oh, dang, I must have, you know, really high cortisol levels more than I think. Because I've noticed over the years, like my orgasms become like little tiny blips on the graph, like little, little, when I'm really stressed about something or I'm just not really in the mood. And it's even like, I guess I would have, I could have maybe guess that could have been a thing but it's just even having that moment of like oh stress really does affect it and it's like when I have partners yeah I can actually have that communication of like hey I just

when I'm stressed like it's just not like I'm not in the mood you know because some people when they're stressed like they're more turned on or like they have better orgasms yeah I know I'm not what of those but I'm always stressed that would be great but it's for me like know that and also just give like a moment of like a communication channel to my partners and kind of understanding that but yeah wait em i have a question for you so i guess i'm i'm like curious because we're both in like the sex space do you sometimes like because when i'm like really stressed or i'm having like bad orgasms or like i don't masturbate as much sometimes i feel like i'm like i'm like dang like i don't know for my as my job i feel like it's like a duty to be like

super sexual that's so i feel like a massive fraud most of the time if that's what you're asking the answer is yes it's an affirmative yes i think i actually The first episode in the podcast series, I interviewed the girls behind Come Curious. And I asked them that question, I said, do you feel pressure to be specific, to be really sexually exploratory,

to always be having a very active sex life because of what you do and because they are very like, tell kind of style on the podcast? And both them said yes. They said sometimes it was, I think it can become quite burdensome pressure because you feel this,

this, I guess, professional impetus to be very, very sexual and to be but one thing I've really had to I think come to terms with I think running sex talks is that I definitely felt a lot of pressure early on to be very sexually exploratory and I think because this really came back off came off the back of doing sex therapy and kind of discovering my like sexual side of myself but from a position of sexual dysfunction and a tough relationship with sex I think early on I felt because I was suddenly introduced to this world of like sex parties and I was writing a sex column and sleeping with a sex addict and there was just

a lot of things that made me feel like I need to be this person I need to be at a sex club I need to be fucking everyone I need to be like one night stairs this is my sexual liberation and it just that doesn't necessarily make me feel that comfortable and I think what I've come to terms with is what I always say at sex talks like your relationship to sex is fundamentally about your relationship to yourself and I think you had to honour that relationship to yourself and really prioritize your pleasure and prioritize nourishing the sexual side of yourself but in whatever way makes you feel comfortable and I think that can be as small as just making sure that you're like taking care of yourself like kind of I think sensuality as well as sexuality is such an

important component to this so no not every night I'm going to feel like masturbating or having like an amazing orgasm although if I knew I was guaranteed to have the amazing one I probably would but I think for me it's a lot you know it's the kind of the self-care that comes around that as well it's not always going to be orgasm-focused but I think it's about having that as a priority in my life where once it absolutely wasn't and keeping in touch with my body as much as possible because I think so I know when I have those like quite flat orgasms I'm like okay I'm out of whack my body something is a why what can I do to like reconnect to me that's often like exercising yoga all the basic clichés that everyone tells you to do but you're like I'm too busy I can't

Yeah, for sure. I'm interested to know. You've told me how the, how beneficial it is at a personal level to better understand your orgasm and to like reconnect your body. But at a broader society level, obviously the purpose of Linus, like you really set out with the mission to contribute to a kind of gaping hole in sex research around female pleasure. What are the kind of research benefits of collecting the data that you're collecting? How is this? data being used. Yeah, so we have a thing that we always say knowledge is pleasure. And so it's just even the basic gap of like we don't have any reason. There's so little research on physiological data, especially about female sexual function. Like we have, you know, there's a lot of research on survey based of like, you know, how many people own a vibrator and all these things, which are really, really impactful in terms of like where society or culture is shifting over the years. But we don't know much in like physiological response.

of like how the body acts and it's things like you know the traumatic brain injuries does that have a correlation does your overall wellness have a correlation all of these things so for us we created a research platform and so otherwise for our data everything is anonymized and fully encrypted we're not in the business of like taking your data and then selling it or anything like that so it's all all all of our users that are using a vibrator is automatic opt out unless you come on to a research platform and you say, yes, I want my, I want to be able to contribute to research and whatever future research there is and be able to share my data with these researchers. So, so the users come on to our research platform and often. And then we have

researchers that come on and say, yes, I want to work on this research study that is, you know, X, Y, and Z. And so, for example, I think it's just for, so for example, recently we had a Dr. Jim Faustlia study on like the baseline. One, validating that the line is vibrating that the line is doing exactly what we say we're doing. And in terms of in research, it correlates to other research studies that have done pelvic floor contractions and getting that same data and that we are finding that where the orgasm is, it shows that there's an orgasm there. So one validated that. And then the really big part that that really got picked up in press last year was about orgasm patterns. So it was a really new concept of that. So what we know

as an orgasm usually is like a rhythmic squeeze and relax. So it looks like a little ocean wave where it's like the little blip and it goes down, up and down, up and down. And so that's like your classic that we've seen in research studies, like here's what an orgasm look like. But I think now that we have the world's largest data set on female sexual function at over 150,000 data set points, the two other ones that we found with Dr. Chimpaos was the avalanche, which is it starts really high in force, and then it trickles down, but you still have that squeeze and relax, so you still see it in this little ways, but it goes down in force over time, so it slopes down. And then there's the volcano type, which is your classic how they would show it in movies, you know, like every

sex scene in a movie where the woman just explodes in pleasure. So you see this huge jump in force going up and then a huge drop down in force so less of a rhythmic public board contraction but just a really huge squeeze and a huge let go of force and that was such a like it's such a fun it's such a fun research study one to start having people like guess which orgasm pattern they might have but it was also so important because I like remember when I was in college I remember I was like talking to one of my girlfriends about my orgasm and she was like describing hers and I was like oh my god i think i'm doing it wrong like i think maybe it's the classic fear of like i think i'm not comes back to think am i normal am i normal am i normal have i not been having

orgasms this entire time like is what i think was an orgasm wasn't the orgasm that everyone talks about and then it's so funny because once that study we really started putting that study together the moment of realization i'm so positive that she must have been a volcano type and that i am an ocean wave type. And so when she was like, oh, it's this huge explosion of pleasure and like and then just like completely relaxes. And I was like, mind doesn't feel like that. And I just realize it's that we probably have two different patterns of orgasms. So it's giving people, again, going back to the question of like, you are absolutely normal. Everyone experiences orgasms in a different way. You might be one of the three patterns. There might be even more patterns that we

haven't discovered from our research. But it's doing little research studies like that, even just to unveil a little bit more about how your body work and being like there's other people in this world that also experience that. Time for a quick ad break. Curse of our podcast Lord's sponsor Dating App Field. Field holds a very special place in my heart because their CEO, Anna Krova, has appeared in the sex talk stage multiple times, giving us a lowdown on what the future of sex and dating really holds. Open relationships she keeps reminding us are the new normal. Field is shaping that future with a dating app that is genuinely inclusive. They have more than 20 sexuality and gender identity options to choose from, and which caters

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membership for free by using the unique sex talks download code field dot co forward slash sex talks i've also put the code in the show notes okay back to the show thank you field is there any specific bit of research or insight you're particularly keen for the lioness to be able to help us discover there's so many i every day i'm like going like so i getting so excited of like we should try like we should look at numbers in this like we should do research in this and like all these different aspects i think the biggest overall one though is probably and something that we've talked about for a long time at our company is helping people understand different especially for people with volva's and cis women is like life changes that happen so

So whether you're first newly discovering your body, your post-pregnancy, that's like a big one we hear all the time is that, you know, postpartum, your body changes so much. And then you don't have, that's not like the first thing you think of is like, how do I get my sexual function back or how do I have orgasms again? But it's a big weighing factor of like something changed and I don't know why or I don't know where it happened and how do I fix it? And so that's like a really big question we get. And then it's the people that are in later stages that are like, you know, going through

menopause, postmenopause, your body changes so much. And it's understanding, well, what are the ways that help guide that other people experience menopause and like what are ways to actually like continue with, you know, feeling sexual desire, you know, especially like vaginal replication, all of these different things. So I think it's starting to segment out people's different life stages. So it makes you, again, feel normal in your life stage. and you also understand in the realm of everybody else that people are experiencing it and having the moment to be able to have those conversations.

Tell me how you got to this point of being able to put out this consumer product that is going to hopefully continue for years and years to continue contributing to our understanding of pleasure and to sex and to desire. Because I know you started the company in 2013, I believe, and then the first vibrator came out in 2017. what was happening behind the scenes as you were creating this product? What does someone have to do to put out a smart vibrator? You have to be a masochist.

I think about it all the time. You know, like, obviously, like, I love this job. So, like, I cannot imagine this world anything else I would be doing at this point in my life. Like, I know this is, like, the place I need to be. I think if you talk to anybody about starting a company or, you know, building your own brand, like, all this stuff. It's such a masochist activity to want to do to yourself of like the constant something going wrongs, constant like, am I even worthy of doing this? Do people care?

Am I going to fail massively? So I think aside from the four years of us panicking through all of that, it was so much research and development of how do we even build this product, right? Like there wasn't a product that exists in the market. So it was just a constant like, I remember actually once. the really early days of us doing like research and development like so i would say like when you do product development usually you build a bunch of prototypes you give it out to people they send it back you give it out to new group of people you can't do that with vibrators and also we

just had such limited funding and i was like we were like sitting kind of so why can't you do that i think it was more for us like a feeling of like making sure that was like sanitary and like making sure that it wasn't reused i think we've had people who are like oh i'm totally fine with But it was just for us to be, like, really safe in the, especially in the very beginning of, like, making sure everyone's healthy, safe, like, all this stuff. But I remember, like, in the really early days, one of the, like, and this is why it took so long for product development is we're trying to figure out where to put the sensor on the shaft. Do you put it at the very tip of the shaft? Do you put it really deep? Like, where in your vagina does it contract the most and where, like, which pelvic floor muscles are we really trying to measure as the contraction?

And I remember the one, there was no papers. So we couldn't really base it off any papers of like, okay, like this is where it should be. It should be like three, fourths inch inside the, you know, entrance, like any of that. So what we did was we were going around and asking people if we can ask them a sex question. And like if they've had like, so we're basically asking anyone that's had penetrative sex with someone with a vagina and being like, where on your penis do you feel the contraction of the vagina? that like we're like trying to get any form of little data points to figure out where to put the sensor. And so it was just such a funny thing to be like, I can't believe there's not even an answer. Like we have to figure out that answer ourselves.

In retrospect, I think if we had asked pelvic floor therapist, they would have known it off the bat. Like, like they are truly the truest unsung heroes in sexual function. Pelvic floor therapist. Yeah. Is that a thing in the UK or no? I mean, not that I'm aware of, but I have. her children. Maybe it's something that my childbearing friends know about. Even in the U.S., it's not usually typically covered by insurance and it's not a actual path of like, oh, everyone should go through this once they have a baby or anything like that. But pelvic floor therapists

basically know everything about the pelvic floor functions. So understanding like what might be going on, how to do training to properly kind of get it to go back to what it used to be or like helping you through pain all of these things. Usually, yeah, you wouldn't experience it unless you've had some sort of pelvic floor dysfunction or maybe like a post-partum. But I actually recently, there's a researcher we're working with Dee Hartman. She was actually a co-author of the Dr. Jim Fowl study. So she actually gave me my first pelvic floor exam. And I like learned so much. I was like mind-blown because she was like, oh, these are like your fast twitch muscles versus your and she was teaching me how to do kegles correctly. And she can actually

actually like train you as to like what you're actually supposed to be doing versus what I thought I was supposed to be doing. She was like, no, don't do that. And so can you train your pelvic floor to give you better orgasms? So it gets into a little bit of a great. I would say so this is the same reason because people ask about Kegels all the time. Kegels scare me mainly because the narrative I would say in culture is so much that tighter is better, right? Like train your pelvic floor muscle so that you can have a tight vagina so you can have better sex, all the stuff, which is such a horrible false narrative. And so you can train your pelvic floor muscle if you are doing keegles correctly.

And the best way I've heard of people, like a pelvic floor therapist, explain this. And it makes so much sense is that most people, all they're focusing on is getting tighter and like squeezing tighter, tighter, but they're not doing the full exercise where you're supposed to relax it completely. And it's not a pushing out. It's like a complete relaxation. and so she was like imagine you're doing like bicep curls and all you're doing is just this the whole time and you never extend it out and she's like you're not doing a full exercise and so

that's when you cause more harm than good because you get too tight you have pain now and like all these different things so kegles always scare me I would say like if you do pelvic floor training correctly it could help especially if you're having things like pelvic floor dysfunction all of these like different parts of your body like making sure your body is working correctly. But if you're doing it for the sake of like, oh, I've heard tighter is better, like it's such a false narrative that I'm so careful about telling people to do key goals ever. I'm thinking, can you train your pelvic floor to give yourself when you're masturbating better orgasm through just being able to, if you are training your pelvic floor in such a way

as to just kind of help your own contractions to more satisfying. I'm not thinking about tightness for someone else. I've met a couple people. It's the people that say they can have an orgasm, by like not even touching themselves like just by thinking about it yes and most of those people from what I understand what they're doing is they're doing pelvic floor contractions to like stimulate the clitoris and then they can like have an orgasm so I would say maybe you can train I would love to learn how to have an orgasm without even doing anything like that what a cool well I have I have orgasms in my sleep and I always had since I was really young I know even when I had sexual dysfunctional

I've always had orgasms in my sleep through brought on through like I guess I'd have like a hot dream but I've always had it so I can orgasm without any sort of touch or anything but I don't know how to harness my superpower because I don't really know how it happens because it'll just wake up that will just wake up that will be my next thing but I've had this before I've like slept with somebody and not orgasm with them but I've had an orgasm in my sleep and I've like woken up being like oh my gosh I'm like this is the ultimate independent woman they have to make a superhero of movie about you. That sounds like a superpower. Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, so I'd be interested know, can I maybe kind of somehow take the reins on my out of control super power if I do some sort of power? I will have to investigate and I will let you know what I come out with with that because I think this could be a great step forward in sex science research. But I'm also just curious now to kind of broaden out to your kind of broader experience of running lioness. Within Silicon Valley, in a startup scene that we know is very heavily male-dominated, both in terms of who's found in the companies and who's getting the money to found them.

The fact that Linus is growing, that the company has won awards at CES, that you've been made Forbes 30 under 30, that you're building the business as women founders and first-time founders, and you raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed round a few years ago. Defying the odds in many ways. It seems to be a good indicator that things are perhaps changing. Am I to believe that we are in an era in which sex tech companies are really having their day and in a very bro-y, typically bro-y, male-dominated environment of Silicon Valley, things are actually beginning to change?

Do you feel that thing, though? Yeah, you know, in the eight years that I've been doing this, I think in the very beginning, I'm going to, like, related back to surfing as, like, a California. a person. I truly, I think when we started, the term sex tech wasn't coined as an industry term. So the term, like the industry didn't even exist what we were doing. So much the thing, oh, like you're doing an adult entertainment company. It's a porn company. Like all this stuff, we can open bank accounts. We can't get onto like whatever online platforms. We can advertise all this stuff. And fundraising was a complete shit show in a lot of ways. It was so much of

people not being able to get over the hurdle of the taboo or feeling uncomfortable. It didn't matter what the numbers, like how big the industry was. People were like, I just, you know, I just can't fund a sex toy company. Like, it just goes against my, like, whatever, like morals or I can't tell my general partners about this, all this stuff. But I am so positive. And I think that was us just sitting in the water, no waves, just being like paddling, hoping to find somewhere that it was going to change at some point. And I do think in the eight years, we're now at such an interesting. see it all the time is like we're at such an interesting like I wouldn't say we're at the peak

yet like we're not about to surf just yet but we're so close to the peak of the wave where we're seeing so many companies come in we're seeing so many women founded companies and so many diverse companies coming into this space and seeing much more many more investors coming in that want to specifically invest in this space and seeing numbers like I think the beautiful thing is like starting to see numbers of how much how big this industry is how much funding there is how much money revenue that people are making so i think we're just at the cusp of something so grand and something where with slowly the destigmatization of the taboo around sex i think we're going to see it and i think it's going to definitely be

in our lifetime but it definitely was a i think it was such a long journey to get to this point but i see it i totally believe it it's it's such a hot topic it everyone wants to talk about it And I think now we're finally talking about it in a way that is correct and and decreases the taboo around it versus I think previously there's some time we're like it came from such a like spicy sexual kind of which isn't a bad thing. But I think it isolated a lot of people from feeling like that's not me. That's not how I am as a person. So now that we're coming at it from such a, I think more like more inclusive angle, I think we're going to see it. I'm, like, so positive in our lifetime we'll see it. Well, I think even kind of the nature of this conversation is focusing on the sex science

and, I guess, redressing the gender inequalities that we've seen in how we understand sex and how we talk about sex and scientific research behind sex. I think there's been much more of a, I think it's been a huge growth in that focus around the conversation around sex, which I think, to your point, I think is a really important kind of move forward. I mean, even just how everyone's talking about the orgasm gap now. I mean, I say everyone. I'm still buying my drum. I'm talking about the orgasm gap. I'm like, is everyone talking about it?

Every time I host sex talks, I begin the session by saying, who has heard of the orgasm gap? And you have to remember, it's a pretty self-selecting crowd at sex talks. They've all bought tickets to be at a set event discussing topics around sex. And most of the time, no one puts up their hands, maybe a few people. So I do think I'm a little bit, yeah, I'm in a bit of a bubble world, I think. But I still think there was a good, this, I mean, I just did, like, a brand campaign talking about the orgasm gap with with the company i think there's more of an

appetite to be having these conversations publicly and i'm not being and from that perspective from the kind of science perspective from the anatomical perspective from the perspective okay what are the cultural shifts that need to happen to address the disparities in how we understand sex and pleasure and also how we experience it okay the orgasm gap so i definitely i certainly feel galvanized in that arena too. On a personal level, being in Silicon Valley, this is where I'm seeking to get my Silicon Valley gossip, do you feel that in the circles that you run in and the people that you're meeting and the kind of whatever kind of founder groups you're a part of, do you feel the, is there still a kind of broy culture that perhaps doesn't feel so welcoming and inclusive

to a female founder running a sex tech company? Or does that feel very much of a buy-go-haer? Oh, man. I'm like a positive person. I would want to keep this so positive, but I'm going to be so honest. I think Silicon Valley sometimes, I think about it all the time

that if I were to go back in time from what I know now, would I have started a company here? No, I would have started it. Actually, probably maybe in London, in New York or L.A. I think there's such a, it's, you know, it's the, like the stereotypes exist because there's such a bro, tech bro culture here. And it is very much like, you have to be doing like fintech, deep tech, all these things like AI or else you're not, sometimes like respected as a company here.

And I think the, I think the thing that always I have like a chip on my shoulder about is like my background's in mechanical engineering. Like I came from building kindles like such a mechanical engineering standpoint. point of like knowing how to manufacture stuff, design stuff. And I remember like every time we would go talk at these like things or like networking events or meeting with investors, they would always see us as a sex company first and never a tech company, even though we've probably built a hardware product that was as complex as a lot of hardware products out there. And we did it with way less funding, way less people. And we just like were able to build a hardware product that is paired with an app where we develop everything from scratch.

But no one ever sees it as like a tech thing. It's always like, oh, it's like a sex thing. You should talk to this woman investor who doesn't even invest in this space, but because she's a woman, they're like, oh, you should go talk to her. And it's just like mind blowing every time. And so I think there's still a lot left. And it is a lot of like, you know, there's some great people here and there are some investors who are like, hey, I love what you do.

But I can't ever publicly say that I love what you guys do. it's just not in my realm or like I'm scared of what other people will see and all this stuff. So I think there's a lot that needs to change, I think, in Silicon Valley. Obviously, I'm a little bit the same of like, I probably live in this bubble for so long. So you kind of see all the like flaws of it. But I do have to be like grateful that it is such a crazy space where you feel maybe insane enough to being like, oh, I'm going to start a company or like, I'm going to bootstrap. this company or I'm going to find other engineers to want to work on this project. So I think it is cool that it gave me that. And I will also never knock Amazon. Like I learned so much when I was

there. And I had some of the greatest mentors that pushed me to want to do this like company. And so I don't think I would have gotten that if I wasn't here in this space. And like I met so many people at Amazon who had companies beforehand and like startups. And they're like, Anna, you should totally do it like I we believe in you and then giving them giving me free resources of like oh you need help on battery design let me help you with that like let me explain to you how that works and so I'm really grateful of like what it's given me but also you know sometimes you go to a party and everyone's wearing like a patagonia vest and all bird shoes and it's like a theme yeah I imagine you know like it's supposed to be like a formal event and you still see people in jeans and a patagonia vest and

you're like, what the hell is this place? Like, it's so bizarre. And then everyone's like, oh, like, what do you do for a living? Like, I'm an AI. It happens all the time. I was about to say, I'm an AI. I mean, I love, I feel like I'm a part of it because I listen to so many of these tech podcasts, because I'm so desperate to be there, I think, in some kind of, like, perverse, like, I get so annoyed at the, just the male centricity. I mean, also the podcasts I listen to up from, like, white tech, rowy guys. But I'm like, ugh. I want to, it's not like I don't want to be you, but I guess maybe in a sense I want to oust you, that's probably it. I know. And I feel like through osmosis, I can just kind of be a part of the industry by just kind of imbibing as much of the kind of gossip and the information as I possibly can. You said that that you do feel hopeful that things are changing and that there are investors who are saying to you, I love what you're doing, but I can't publicly declare that. You know, it wouldn't be good for my brand or whatever their reasoning may be. What do you think, needs still needs to change in order to remove, I guess, those last kind of hangovers of the

taboo around sex. It still makes it a topic that people don't want to be publicly associated. Maybe there's more kind of traditional kind of techie founders or, sorry, techie investors, for example. Honestly, it's exactly I think why me and you are both in the space is like education. It's so much, it's realizing how many hangouts that a lot of people have of like, it's skis. because we don't know anything about it and all we've known maybe is from growing up with what media has told us about sex or what we're supposed to be doing in sex or like you're just supposed to know how to have a good sex, all these different things. I really think like if everyone gets into a space where, you know, they come to sex talks and they sit there and

they just realize how normal the conversation could be, how relatable it is to another person of what they're experiencing, I think that just breaks down the stigma of that it doesn't have to be a scary thing. It doesn't have to be hyper-sexualized. And that every human experiences pleasure in some shape or form. And so to me, it's really like if I can grab all these investors, maybe that's what we should do is you come to Silicon Valley, but get all these executives investors tech brosist there and being like, let's all bond over the fact that we all have sex, we love, we want pleasure, we want to be able to give other people pleasure. It's a normal topic. And so I think that's what it takes. You mentioned that had you known founder life and the

company would be like this. You might not have staffed the company in Silicon Valley, even though you've had incredible mentors and, you know, fantastic experience at Amazon. What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you first started aside from that? It's really that, oh, I think the one thing I wish I knew was just, just believe, like, it sounds so cliche. Like everyone's like, oh, just believe in yourself that you are the person meant to do this role because I think it was so many years of feeling unqualified I felt so unqualified being like hey I'm head of engineering and I'm 22 years old you know like it's this constant thing of am I good enough am I if I go to this investor pitch are they going to take me seriously should I dress more professional should I dress

older should I not wear heels maybe I should wear like you know one inch heel like just all these fears of like do am I qualified enough and I realize now like and it's the feeling of maybe it's because after I turned 30 I just felt this whole settling feeling I don't know maybe it's an age you know uh what is it Saturn's return or whatever it is it felt so much like you know other people could have been doing it but they didn't and I'm the one that's here and I'm doing it and so like that's all you can ask for of me is that I'm here trying to make it work and so I wish I felt that level of confidence or self like comfort in myself to feel like I deserve to be at this pitch. I deserve to be at this like meeting all these things. And it took me, you know, it took me the

eight years to finally feel that in that space now. But yeah, I wish I learned it way earlier because I'm sure we could have moved so much faster. But it's all like part of life learning lessons and all of that. And it's such a joy to get to talk to you. So really thank you for coming in the podcast. I really appreciate it. And I've got to go and do some masturbating and collect some data, I know. I know. I know. I will. I will. You know what? We mustn't be too busy to prioritize our pleasure, must we. But thank you so much. And let's catch up again soon. I'd love to have you back on the podcast and, you know, and to find out what other research papers and stuff that you guys have been working on contributing to. So we'll have to get you back on.

That's good. Amazing. Thanks for having me. Bye. before we end the show another quick reminder about today's podcast sponsor field the dating app catering to whatever dating style you're into if you want to spice up your summer all while supporting this podcast then please do download the field app using the exclusive download code field dot co forward slash sex talks which you can also find in the show notes thank you so much for listening to today's sex talks podcast with me your host am louise boington if you'd like to attend a live recording of the podcast check out the event link in the show notes as we have lots of exciting live events coming up. In the meantime, don't forget to submit whatever Agdown question you'd like us to tackle on a future podcast episode via the Sex Talks website. That's sextalks.co.uk. And finally, if you enjoyed the show, I hope you did. Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to this on, as apparently it helps others to find us. Have a wonderful day. Thank you.