Form Follows Function: Sex Toys for Her

What's a woman to do when a retail industry that capitalizes on female sexuality falls short of the task at hand? Well, if your name is Alice Derock, you create your own product line and market it successfully to the world.

That's how, at the age of 35, the Parisian native, along with two friends, answered the simple question "Why, in this day and age, with all the products in the world, isn't there a sex toy designed specifically by and for lesbians?" -- she decided to create Wet For Her (WFH).

Officially launched in 2009 in the U.S., Wet For Her is a lesbian-owned and -operated brand that was founded with the intention of providing nonrealistic and designed novelties specifically crafted and packaged for lesbian consumers. At its very core, Wet For Her celebrates lesbian lovemaking with tools of love from the land of love: France.

WFH is a hugely popular brand that does not just act as a simple retailer but actually does it all -- from the designs, the fabrication and manufacturing to the distribution. Giving back to its own community, WFH is also unique in that it is committed to working only with lesbian manufacturers, including SpareParts, RodeoH, BSisNice, and Rainbow Lube.

"Our sexual orientation makes us different, so why don't we have our own toys?" asked Derock.

The entrepreneur's foray into the lesbian sex toy arena was both benevolent, because other lesbians would gain from it, and also self-interested, in that her product line would fill a gap in her own sex life. Alice hired researchers and statisticians to conduct polls and even distributed test products and questionnaires to more than 100 women in France, London and northern Europe. The response to these tests and queries was almost unanimous: across the board, women (lesbian, straight, and/or bisexual) expressed a strong interest in a toy or a series of toys created for women by women who love women, and which they could use to make love to a woman or to themselves.

As one of the primary lesbian novelty sex toy brands for the worldwide lesbian community, what makes WFH stand out is that it breaks the stereotypes about sex toys by focusing on lesbian lovemaking rather than hardcore porn -- and, most important, addresses some of the most proliferated misconceptions about the functionality of sex toys for women.

The sex toy industry has always been a lucrative business, and yet there is such a lack of variety and understanding, specifically for lesbian products. The plethora of sex toys on the market only reminded Alice of what the lesbian community lacks instead of enhancing what is already available. All Derock kept seeing in stores over and over again was something phallic-shaped, modeled after male genitalia, or those rabbits. There seemed to be no notion of a discrete lesbian sexuality -- nothing identifiably lesbian -- and no attention paid to the particular needs of lesbian sex toy customers. What's more is that most sex toys companies lack originality and just repeat what is on the market, not investing at all in design and research.

As a predominantly male-dominated business, the prevailing attitude in the sex toy industry toward women is that anything will do, thus perpetuating the perception that women's sexuality in general and lesbian sexuality in particular are not that important. Even in gay sex shops, lesbians are never, or rarely, included. Sadly, a handful of companies are capitalizing on lesbian sexuality selling irrelevant products, without necessarily contributing anything to the lesbian community. But why should men be the ones to make money off female sexuality?

Derock, under her Wet For Her marquee, fills in that void with high-end products that are not only uniquely creative, with a useful, elegant and chic French sense of style as well as a feminine edge, but also 100 percent silicone and phthalate free.

Derock's innovative Wet For Her product line has made a splash (pun intended) worldwide and recently received a nomination for an O Award from the American adult video industry trade magazine AVN (Adult Video News), which recognizes companies and products that raise the bar for the novelty and pleasure products industry. Interestingly enough, while WFH packaging is marketed toward women, the classic and simplistic styles appeal to a multitude of genders and sexualities as well as the health and style conscious.

The first two products, named "One" and "Two," are shaped like a woman's intertwined fingers rather than the stereotypical phallic rubber objects, and are pioneering innovations that revolutionized the market. They were quickly joined by equally successful successors: the "Three," a vibrating remote-controlled egg; the "Three Luxe," a more efficient remote-controlled vibrating egg; the "Four," a uniquely shaped insertable toy designed to connect with a woman's pleasure points; and the more traditional "Five," a simple, insertable toy with no ridges or curves.

Today, it is WFH's newly launched Fusion that is taking the market by storm. Designed in Paris, the fusion is a harness dildo with a built in clitoral stimulation at the base. The Fusion is hypoallergenic, 100 percent medical-grade silicone and is phthalates free. Retailing from $65.95 to $85.95, the Fusion comes in three sizes: Small, Medium and Large. The elegant packaging will make you feel like you're opening a new Apple product.

Derock's main contribution to the lesbian community remains a line of products designed specifically for lesbian sexual enjoyment, which has been lacking for years.

There is a clear demand for sex toys for women by women, and Wet For Her has positioned itself as the ultimate authority in the field -- a lesbian-owned brand that not only speaks to the lesbian market but also has successfully come to epitomize and represent lesbian sexuality in an chic and classy way... a tour De'rock!