Wet for Her’s beginnings started off with an intention to change how queer women and queer people were represented in the sex toy industry. 12 years ago, Wet for Her CEO Alice Derock was shopping for her and her partner and was let down by the selection of products marketed to her.
There was of course a variety of pleasure products for women, but there were not many aimed at queer women. Unsatisfied with the lack of consistency and quality of toys for lesbian women and queer people, Alice took matters into her own hands and revolutionized the sex toy industry by crafting somewhere the queer community could take up space. Wet for Her has grown exponentially since then and is constantly shifting to meet the needs of our community.
Designed by queer women for queer women’ is a catch phrase you’ve used. What was it that made you start Wet For Her, and captured such a niche market?
– Wet for Her was created on the basis of creating sex toys for lesbians and queer people to share pleasure at the same time. For individuals with vulvas, pleasure is felt and stimulated from the inside of the genitals, vs a penis which experiences stimulation on the exterior of the body. WFH creates products to fill that pleasure gap with our products, such as the RockHer, the UNION Double Dildo, and our variety of strap-ons. The FUSION strap-on helps the wearer experience pleasure at the same time as the person being penetrated. We create our sex toys to cater to members of the LGBTQIA+ community and those who would like to experience pleasure with little to no focus on experiencing pleasure solely because of penetration or phallic toys. For the first few years of our inception, WFH was focused on catering to the lesbian market after we realized there was little to no toys marketed specifically for queer women. After a couple of years of navigating the sex toy industry, we realized it was not only just queer women having difficulty finding toys that affirmed their sexuality, but all queer people! So now we aim to affirm and bring light to queer sexuality as well as empowering our community. Designed by queer people, for queer people!
In what appears to be a male dominated industry, how have you found your journey towards becoming a well-known female entrepreneur?
– Focusing on the reason why I started Wet for Her has guided me greatly on this journey. Seeing the impact WFH has had on the LGBTQIA+ community and even heteronormative couples has been incredibly rewarding and has led me and my team to much success.
Also, do you believe there are different views on what men think women would enjoy in a toy, and is this a huge gap in what is actually wanted?
– Unfortunately, much of what the sex toy industry, which is heavily dominated by cis, white men, considers as suitable sex toys tend to focus on phallic shapes, penetration, and quickly “getting the job done”. There is definitely a huge gap between what men THINK queer people and women enjoy sexually and what they ACTUALLY enjoy. What is actually wanted are toys that make our customers feel represented, body affirmed, and empowered. Seldom does this have to do with heteronormative structures of sex. The sex toy industry must start representing queer people and women not as bodies, but as individuals with real emotions, sexual preferences, and needs for pleasure and intimacy.
Is there still a stigma attached to people who want an enjoyable sex life, yet feel by using sex toys, they are judged?
– Of course! There will always be some sort of stigma with sex toys. This is why educating our audience (and the masses in general) about intimacy and sexual needs is so important. Sex and wanting it is all about being human. It’s incredibly natural and within our nature to want to be sexual and feel pleasure. Wet for Her is focused on dismantling these narrow structures which look at sex as something shameful.
How does your business help people to feel more empowered in their choices and embrace their sex lives? What else would you like to see happening to increase this?
– Wet for Her embraces that there are no binaries in sexual identity and orientation, and that there is no “right” way to have sex. This, I believe, is what empowers our customers and followers. We focus on sexual wellness just as much as we do on representation — so we encourage a platform and structure of business which encourages everyone to be their most authentic self. Building an intersectional platform which dismantles structures of racism, homophobia, transphobia, sex, and gender is also a huge priority for Wet for Her.
The sex toy industry must dismantle certain structures to remain intersectional, and this is what should be the next step to work on within our market.
Tell us some of the different aspects of your range of toys that would appeal to the wider LGBTQI+ market as opposed to what is routinely available out there
– We carry a variety of toys for queer couples and singles, such as our popular UNION double dildo, our Finger Extender, as well as a plethora of gender friendly dildos, strap-ons, and harnesses. Most notably, we have recently developed a product line focusing specifically on gender affirmation gear for the transgender and gender non-conforming community. This line of products includes packers, binders, discreet hormone therapy carrying kits, breast forms, and packing and compression underwear.
We work with queer owned and operated sex toy companies (like us) to source our gender and queer friendly products, so we make sure our dollars stay in the queer community. We have found sex toy stores are often lacking in these options for affirmative and dysphoria-free toys. We are proud to carry these products and further represent what being queer truly means.