If You Sell It, They Will Come

As the old saying goes, anything’s a dildo if you’re brave enough. And bravery may be needed for a few products at the fourth Stimulate sexual wellness trade show and conference, which was held on the first weekend of August at the Sheraton in downtown Nashville. For instance, the Buck — Thrusting Sex Machine ($1,600) features a wireless connection to a PlayStation controller, so you can multitask while playing Grand Theft Auto. 

But the thruster’s steep price and turbo action were relatively anomalous among the roughly 2,500 products that spilled out beyond the hotel’s ballroom for an audience including wholesale buyers, doctors, nurses, home party organizers, sexologists and sex therapists. Among the latter group was Raven O’Rourke, a certified sex therapist who practices virtually from Mt. Juliet and served as my guide.

O’Rourke says she attends Stimulate to stay updated on “the latest innovations and trends — good and bad” for her clients, though the swag bag’s two-dozen products are an added perk. We spent hours buzzing through vibrators for solo and couples’ use, glass anal plugs that look like objets d’art, saddles (one with a dragon tentacle!), supplements, lubes, ropes and more. 

It was a genuinely moving celebration of female pleasure, with few male members in sight. Not just because more than half of attendees were women, but because uncircumcised-penis dildos have been phased out enough that O’Rourke was surprised when a South African manufacturer used one to show off the docking station of his luxury leather box for sex-toy storage.

“More women than ever are designing sex toys,” O’Rourke tells me, explaining that women know it’s not always about the P. 

Quick anatomy lesson: A longheld definition of sex has been P-in-V (penis-in-vagina) — and herein lies the rub. Not only is that blatantly heteronormative — the female sex organ is not the V, which is why more than a reported 80 percent of women do not orgasm from penetration alone. Instead, the female sex organ is the clitoris — the only human organ known to exist solely for pleasure. It can be found through rubbing, grinding, licking, sucking, blowing or vibrating, and there are many, many devices designed to assist in all those areas. 

Some standout designs were Euforia’s mini old-fashioned phone vibrator and earbud-shaped Pleasure Pod, which offer “a suction-like sensation similar to oral flavors.” Speaking of which, evree’s edible massage creams were surprisingly tasty — especially the pineapple-orange. 

The hands-down tactile winner was Nu Sensuelle’s Velvet Touch vibrators, which are so soft that O’Rourke joked they can double as stress balls when turned off. Company co-founder Thao Luu-Brinberg, who spent two years perfecting the proprietary liquid silicone, said she learned sexual shame from her “two historically very suppressive” cultures — Asian and Catholic. So when the engineer realized in her 30s that “masturbation is just very natural,” she decided to improve on male-designed vibrators. 

“For other women,” Luu-Brinberg explained, “or if I have a little girl, for her to not go through what I did.”

But it wasn’t all gyno-centric at Stimulate. Products for men included silicone masturbator pods, cock rings, and pills to enhance semen volume and taste. And of course there were lots of anal toys, lubes and cleanses, including one from the Dr. Tush’s brand, and one from proctologist and author Dr. Evan Goldstein (Butt Seriously: The Definitive Guide to Anal Health, Pleasure and Everything in Between), who was one of Stimulate’s 30 speakers. 

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The educational conference is what differentiates Stimulate from other adult business-to-business shows, says Stimulate founder Nicole Leinbach Hoffman. She is intentionally creating a community of historically siloed professionals, “making sure that the buyers of, let’s say, CVS are educated by gynecologists and urologists to make better, more informed decisions about what they’re putting on their store shelves.” 

Panels spanned topics from business strategies and surgical procedures to pleasure and inclusivity. In her impassioned talk “Vanilla Is a Flavor Too,” Nashville therapist Valerie Martin reminded online and physical business owners that folks who aren’t into kink, who just want a simple vibrator, are often daunted by windows full of ball gags and whips. Martin suggests they create “lower sensory zones … and train staff to know that vanilla-kink is a spectrum, not a hierarchy, and that all preferences and expressions are valid and beautiful.” 

Both Martin and O’Rourke help clients understand and express their sexuality, often while processing sexual and religious trauma. For those who need a little nudge discussing fantasies and needs with partners, O’Rourke suggests card games like Lust Between Us: Scenarios for Curious Couples, which can “take the pressure off of asking directly.” 

I was surprised by the mild nature of some prompts, such as a massage, or looking into each other’s eyes for a minute. That’s the point, says O’Rourke: “For someone who’s never talked about sex before, ‘Do you want to watch me have an orgasm?’ is a better intro than, ‘Do you want to tie me up and leave me for days?’” 

The Denver-based Hoffman says she chose Nashville as the host city for Stimulate because it’s a destination location, and though the event may soon outgrow the Sheraton, bigger venues in town have previously declined to host it. But come next August, Stimulate will be back at the hotel, with an added third day dedicated exclusively to the conference.