Could A Smart Vibrator Revolutionize The Way We Talk About Sex?

Lioness is so much more than ‘just a vibrator’ — it’s out to shift social mores.

Masturbation conjures all kinds of images, few of which are typically called beautiful, empowering, or communication-improving.

“Touching yourself” is a term that’s still snickered over and scoffed at. It’s an act that’s largely been made synonymous with lonely, hormone-thrumming teenage boys miserably hunched over their desktop computers, clutching Kleenex in the blue glow of their sticky bedroom.

I exaggerate, but just by a little. Pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry almost entirely predicated on folks taking matters into their own hands, if you will…and yet we still find ourselves in a neo-Puritanical hellscape where masturbation is a dirty word.

Especially for women.

Not surprisingly, this societally-sanctioned shame of self-exploration and satisfaction has pathologized masturbation and rendered a huge swathe of women ignorant of their own bodies. They don’t know what they like: how hard or how long is ideal, if they’re a penetration person or a clitoral person. Or both! Do I need lots of foreplay? Do I need my nipples pinched? What makes me come harder than other times? What’s it all about?!

To Whoever Called My Hotel Room While I Was Masturbating

And even if these lovely lascivious lasses are having (maybe even great) sex with other partners, they aren’t even able to convey what their body needs — and bliss out on their corporeal being — because they’ve founded their entire sense of pleasure on interacting with someone else as opposed to themselves.

Dr. Sherry, a veteran OB/GYN, the author of She-ology, and a “firm believer in the power of masturbation!” told me that sex is a “learned activity.” As she put it:

“You don’t magically have an orgasm without having an active role in making it happen. Being in the right mood and with a relaxing environment helps your experience be a success…