As for the ubiquity of massive, veiny flesh-coloured dongs on sex toy websites? Ky explains: “At one industry webinar, the speaker said a lot of the toys are bought by men for cam girls. It’s a massive part of the industry and it skews the results. If you’ve never bought a sex toy before, you go onto bestsellers on a website and if you think everyone’s buying dick shapes, you’ll think you’re meant to buy dick shapes. It’s so frustrating!” As for the future of sex toys? There’s hope. “Mass production of anything means we pay to get the lowest common denominator, but eventually, the industries making tons of money out of something that’s badly designed will catch on and change what they’re doing. “We’ve already seen the transition from horrible fabrics that wouldn’t pass safety tests to silicon and more body-friendly material, and more innovation in the marketplace will come as more women, start-ups and tech companies think radically about redeveloping products. We’ll see a change in what’s being invented for people in the next 20 to 30 years.” “It’s one thing about sex and relationships that I’m very optimistic about”, she concludes, before guiding me to check out the Mystery Vibe, an item which “is flexible and prehensile; you can do almost anything with it. They’ve got massive investment and it’s got a female founder.” Ky has high hopes, too: “ In 2009 it was discovered that the clitoris is a bigger organ than we ever knew before and the differentiation between clitoral and internal orgasm has been blown apart. And new technology is breaking through – like suction technology. It looks like an ear thermometer and is used on the clitoris to slightly suction it. So many women are reporting absolutely different orgasms while using it.” Even Ann Summers is launching products that don’t look like dicks, with their new Fusion toy “which is C-shaped and targets her G-spot and clitoris, whilst also sending vibrations to his shaft” set to launch just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s a “couples toy”, and the language remains firmly his’n’hers, but with time, and more women buying for themselves based on their own pleasure, perhaps one day all sex toy companies will learn that orgasms do not require a male chaperone. While sex and relationship education is still not a compulsory school subject in the UK , sex toys are low on our list of sexual priorities. But just like a string of anal beads, all the nonsense is interconnected. If male inventors are injecting themselves into moulds that should be carved of women’s pleasure, it’s another symptom of a wider social problem which assumes that women’s pleasure centres around a monolithic ideal of male-ness, and not what their bodies enjoy and take comfort in. What we clearly have to do now, is continue to have honest discussions about what female pleasure is. We also need more women to be unafraid to be in tech companies, go after investments and feel confident to push their products. In its 2017 trend-forecasting report, intelligence agency JWT hailed fourth-wave feminism and its de-stigmatising discourse around female anatomy and experiences for making this the year of “vagina-nomics”. How about we make it a decade, a century, an eternity? We’ll need a few more batteries, mind.