We live in a world that continually reminds us that people have a lot to learn about sex. The news is full of disturbing stories of sexual violence and, although they rarely make headlines, misogyny exists every day in our schools, workplaces and homes.
Maude, the purveyor of aesthetically pleasing and stylishly designed vibrators, condoms, candles, and lubricants, is not going to solve these systemic, largely patriarchal, problems. But the Intimacy brand aims to get people to view sex as a form of health and wellness, starting inside our bedrooms (or wherever we choose to have fun). And every little bit helps, maybe?
I spoke with Maude founder Èva Goiccochea and her co-creative director, actor Dakota Johnson, about sex toys at the Louvre, Shere Hite being deported from America, and why we might need a Miss Rachel for sex education.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Fiona: How did you meet and decide to make it official?
Dakota: I was about to launch my own sexual wellness brand, but I didn’t really know where to start. There are so many sexual wellness brands out there that I find incredibly offensive and cheesy and really demeaning, especially when it comes to female sexuality.
So they brought Maude to my attention and then I wanted to talk to Éva and we got along really well and I learned so much from her.
Fiona: Your products can be found at major retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty. Two of your vibrators were also exhibited in a museum exhibition – at the Louvre, no less! It’s certainly a way to insert yourself into the cultural conversation. But I guess that also says something about Maude’s suave aesthetic. Why was it important to move away from dildo comedy?
Dakota: Ha!
Eva: Good design is a language and it creates, in this case, the potential for destigmatization.
Fiona: It’s hard to ignore the context in which we’re having this conversation about sex education and wellbeing: in the last month we’ve seen stories of sexual violence emanating from Cornell University, the Russell Brand trial underway here in the UK.
Dakota: Violence and sexual misconduct have occurred since the dawn of time. So I think now it’s about people who are victims of this feeling of being able to speak honestly without being sent to the guillotine.
Humanity is both incredibly advanced and evolved and profoundly backward. There are cycles, it’s like two steps forward, five steps back, and I just think if we can create a place where people are supported to talk about their experiences and also have access to education and support…I think it’s about building a safer conversation around the topic.
Eva: We have many clients who write to us to tell us that they have been victims of sexual violence. Some of them just aren’t ready to think about that part of their lives, and they say, “Thank you for existing, the products you make don’t make me uncomfortable, they’re so neutral, I’m not ashamed anymore.”
Fiona: This is powerful feedback to receive. I also think about women later in life, a time when many women might say, “Well, I’m just not going to do that anymore!” My sexual years are over.
Eva: We’re taught for maybe one to two hours, especially in the United States, in school when we’re teenagers, and then we become ill-equipped to have these conversations about intimacy later in life. We wanted to be there throughout your adult life because the truth is we are educating ourselves every moment. And Dakota, I don’t know if you want to mention this, but I thought it was so powerful that you were involved in the documentary “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” because she stood up so early for what was really going on with people and intimacy.
(Shere Hite was a pioneering and outspoken sex educator known for the groundbreaking 1976 study, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, which surveyed thousands of American women about their sex lives. Her challenges to traditional patriarchal ideas about sex, including the revelation that about 70 percent of women were unable to achieve orgasm through penetrative sex, received enormous backlash and upset many fragile men.)
Dakota: Yeah, and she was publicly silenced and so demeaned for it. My production company TeaTime produced this documentary and I narrated it. I wasn’t even aware the book existed, but my mother was, as were many people of her generation and friends I spoke to. She was such a fabulous woman. So strong…she was so cool and classy, and she just told the truth, and she was practically kicked out of America!
Fiona: What other films or books do you think are good for building healthy sex education?
Dakota: To be honest, I didn’t really see much.
I guess you know that the show “Sex Education” was good, but it also lacked basic information about sex, like what you want your kids to learn when they start to understand what it is. Eva and I talked about sex education in schools and now it’s not really a thing, is it Eva?
Eva: Barely.
Dakota: They took him out of schools. There’s not really a conversation around sex, which is a very important issue because human beings are sexual by nature and a human being is going to have sexual urges at some point in their life. If they’re not educated, it leads to the kind of behavior that we were talking about earlier, where it’s more aggressive, more violent, it’s like something that you don’t understand where it comes from and how to relate to it. But in my job, I really can’t give you an example.
Fiona: The other way to help people talk about sex is to make it fun, and even make it funny? A film that recently made me think about sex in a different way is Olivia Colman’s new film, “Wicker,” starring Alexander Skarsgård.
Dakota: I haven’t seen that yet! But even in Alex’s other film, “Pillion,” there’s a more subversive conversation about sexual discovery and something that’s really, really beautiful, even though it’s a niche sexuality. So, yes, there is a way to do that in film, but do you think there’s a disconnect between people watching a scripted story and then going back to their own lives? I don’t know, does there need to be a Miss Rachel for sex education??
Gn entert
