Unbound Babes founders

Byd hjerteligt velkommen til det New York baserede og trendsættende brand, Unbound. For dem er sex og nydelse ikke bare en vigtig del af livet – det er også politisk. Grobunden for deres design og produktion af produkter er, som de selv siger: ”Whether you’re just starting to explore or you’re a seasoned expert, you deserve pleasure and an unapologetic community of babes to revel in.” – og vi kunne ikke være mere enige. I USA har brandet allerede lidt af et renommé, blandt andet for at gå i kamp med MTA (Metroen i New York) over dens sexistiske reklamer i undergrunden. Og ikke mindst har de sendt tusindvis af vibratorer afsted til flere Kongresmedlemmer for at støtte kampen for reproduktive rettigheder og kvinders adgang til sundhedssystemet som en del af kampagnen ”Vibes for Congress”. Derudover laver Unbound Babes, som de selv siger: ”The most beautiful, body safe vibrators, lubricants and accessories in the biz.”

Vi er derfor både stolte og glade for at have dem som en del af Lust Copenhagen familien og har mødt dem til et interview, så også du kan blive klogere på alt det, de har at byde på.

Hey Sam! So nice that you’ve taken the time to answer our questions. We’re of course super excited to welcome you to the Lust Copenhagen family and spread the Unbound-vibe all over Scandinavia.

Tell me, how did the idea for Unbound Babes first come up?

"Unbound started in 2012 with the goal of taking sexual wellness mainstream, because we believe that people should be able to purchase high quality, body safe, fun-to-use, affordable sex toys without facing any stigma.

Polly Rodriguez, co-founder and CEO, went through menopause from cancer at age 21 and found herself shopping for a vibrator and lubricant in a strip mall next to the airport, wondering, “Is this really the best we can do?” We knew that people deserved access to better toys and a better shopping experience, and thus Unbound was created.

At the start, Unbound operated as a subscription box. In 2017, however, Unbound began designing, manufacturing, and retailing its own products after co-founders Polly Rodriguez & Sarah Jayne Kinney debuted innovative designs to great success at TechCrunch Disrupt. Since then, we’ve continued expanding our assortment and iterating on our designs to make sure that we remain frontrunners for quality, safety, function, and affordability."

Looking at some of your campaigns like “Vibes for congress” and your fight against MTA, they all seem quite political – why is a sex toy brand like you getting into these battles?

"It’s quite a politicized industry. Pleasure – especially for people who are not cisgender, heterosexual men – is heavily stigmatized, and products in this category have a history of being regulated under obscenity laws or other puritanical regulatory or administrative policies.

Vibes for congress, our fight to advertise in the MTA, and other fights around advertising have come up because we are not allowed to advertise in the same channels that other consumer products brands depend upon. Even some brands in similar categories are allowed to advertise, as long as they cater to men.

These battles are necessary fights to advance our mission of destigmatizing sexual wellness and improving consumers’ access to high quality, body safe sex toys: by fighting these battles, we create awareness about unfair policies and call attention to the individuals and entities who enforce them. They are memorable events that educate consumers about Unbound and invite them to join us in advancing our mission."

Can you tell me a bit more about the overall mission of Unbound?

"Our mission is to bring sexual wellness into the mainstream by creating high quality, body safe, affordable sex toys– because everyone deserves pleasure and an unapologetic community to revel in it with."

Not too long ago you issued a campaign called “Thunderthrust” on social media that tried to challenge the social media ad policies. Can you tell us a bit more about the struggles that lead you to create the campaign as well as your findings/results?

"With Thunderthrust, we built a bro-themed, hypermasculine fake brand to examine how discriminatory policies affect a brand's ability to advertise on social platforms.

Unbound has been trying to figure out advertising solutions on social media, specifically Facebook and Instagram, for nearly a decade. Over that period we’ve attempted to run an uncountable number of ads. We’ve had great success with virality and word of mouth to reach consumers, but it’s not enough – this bias puts companies like Unbound at a disadvantage to companies that primarily build their products for men.

We saw time and time again that Meta would approve ads for brands that serve men even if the ads featured vibrating cock rings, phallic imagery, people in suggestive positions, partial nudity, and direct references to sex.

We saw ad copy like “Get hard or get your money back”, “He chews it, we do it”.

At the same time, we knew that our own ads were getting a blanket denial – even for something as vanilla as a tote bag.

In response, we decided to create Thunderthrust: a fake brand that repositioned our products as hyper-masculine fitness products. There’s so much snake oil in the fitness space that we suspected some bogus workout devices could gain traction, and our creative team had a lot of fun inhabiting the voice of Thunderthrust.

We ran the Thunderthrust campaign from October 16-26th. We spent $1,000 to run 20 different Thunderthrust ads which reached 167k people.

The reaction to the reveal was overwhelmingly positive– we found that our message resonated with everyone it reached, even people outside of our usual audience.

Ever since then, we’ve had more success getting our ads approved and have seen the same for other brands in our category."

If we look at your products, what thoughts lie behind your design, choice of color etc.?

"We try to make sure that our products are easy to hold, so that they’re comfortable for everyone – including those with limited dexterity – and convenient to use with partners.

Additionally, the geometry of a product is very important for us. We want a product to be discreet, and we also want it to have different surfaces and ridges that will make the product fun for users to enjoy in multiple ways. We want our products to inspire delight and experimentation, and part of that comes through multifunctionality.

The visual aspect of the experience of using a toy is an extremely important one, especially because society associates certain colors with gender, but also because the visual elements of using a toy are part of the totality of the user’s experience. We want our toys to be fun, accessible, approachable, and affirming– so for that reason, we try to have more than one color available for most products, and we try to choose attractive colors.

For multicolored products, we juxtapose colors with color blocking to suggest how users might enjoy using the product. This creates an intuitive, approachable experience. During development, we’ll often gather the whole team together to look at three or four different ways of color blocking a product and we’ll discuss which one creates the most intuitive experience.

Lastly, before launching a product, we always user test and make sure that we’ve gotten it right. These tests typically include members of our community who have indicated interest in testing, and we try to select a group that represents people across different ranges of age, ability, and other demographics that change how someone will interact with a sex toy. We want to make sure that the product is excellent, and that it works for everyone who wants to use it. If we find that we haven’t gotten it quite right, we make improvements and try again until we have a product that we love. When we love it, we launch it."

I can tell that you have inclusion in mind with both your products and your online Magazine. What is it you see missing in the industry or what is it you want to do differently?

"We absolutely have inclusivity in mind when we design products and in the content we create. Many of the people who love Unbound are part of the LGBTQ community, and so we think a lot about making sure our products don’t come across as overly gendered. We want our products to inspire creativity, and I think this approach also helps to make sure that users can project their imaginations and desires onto the products.

Another thing we discuss during the design process is ability. Lots of people have limited dexterity or mobility for a number of reasons, and it’s something that everyone will experience as we age. This is something that I think we did really well with Clutch. The triangular handle is super easy to hold, and users have found it makes a big difference in their experience.

I’d like to see the industry continue championing design that includes people across the spectrum of ability. It’s something that more & more brands are taking seriously, and the outcome will be better sex toys for everyone. Accessible design is better design."

Which one of your toys would you recommend if you were just starting out with sex toys? And which one is for the more experienced?

"I actually get asked this question a lot, especially after a stranger finds out what I do for work. The answer, with something as personal as a sex toy, is that it depends on what you like and what you want!

If someone is nervous and wants something simple, I’d go with either Squish or Zip. Squish has an approachable shape and can be used in a squeeze-responsive mode that’s intuitive for beginners. Zip, our bullet vibe, is straightforward and easy to use since it only has a single speed.

For someone who thinks they might enjoy suction, Puff is a bestseller for a reason. It’s a great value and it works very well– but not everyone enjoys the suction sensation.

Bender is a great choice for someone who wants a motorized toy that can be used both internally and externally. And Ollie, although it can be too strong for many beginners, is a great toy for someone who is coming into the category knowing that they’re a little bit power hungry. It’s easy to use, but can be overwhelming for some.

In short, the best toy for a beginner is the one that excites them. We can always guide a beginner along and help them choose, but there’s no right place to start, and not everyone likes every toy. In my view, the most important thing I can tell someone just starting out is that there are no rules– everyone is different, and what matters is what you like best."

No doubt that you’ve inspired brands worldwide, but also in Denmark, where you see brands like Peech and Klub Venus emerging, with the same sort of playful and no-fucks-given vibe – has it been your plan from the beginning to make such an impact on the industry, also outside of USA?

"We strive to be a leader in the industry – our work is guided by our values & our mission, and we’re driven by the need to make products that consumers desire. When we got into this industry, it was more taboo than it is now. There are plenty of other brands in this industry that started out decades before we did, and back then it was even more taboo. It’s a globalized industry, and so we’ve never desired the impact to be limited by borders. Nobody in this industry is doing this alone, and we’re very proud to be part of it."

What does the future hold for Unbound?

"Lots of good things – I wish I could share details, but we prefer to surprise. Stay tuned ;)"

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