The business of pleasure

(L to R): Anushka Gupta and Sahil Gupta, co-founders, MyMuse; Leeza Mangaldas, founder, Leezu's (bottom); Dr Nikita Dound, Karishma Chavan, and Aishwarya Dua, co-founders, Sassiest

The first time Leeza Mangaldas used a vibrator about a decade ago, the first thought that came to her mind was: “I wish it would rain massagers so everyone could have one.” After years of thinking that pleasure was difficult and mysterious, that orgasms were too much to ask for, a toy showed Mangaldas that they could reliably be achieved within minutes, every single time. That experience was inspiration enough for Mangaldas, a 34-year-old sexual wellness influencer, to start her own sexual wellness brand Leezu’s in April 2023, which sells products such as sex toys and lubes.
 
While that was Mangaldas’ first experience, it was remarkably different for Alizeh (name changed), a 24-year-old copywriter working in Mumbai. After moving to Mumbai from her hometown Varanasi, and hearing from her friends about sex toys, she searched for one on the internet and was taken aback by their prices which she couldn't afford as a first-jobber. However, the intrigue had already sparked a desire in her to try one out. “I found the cheapest alternative, which was a body massager that I bought from a sports retail store. I figured it vibrates, so it will do the job. It did, and how!”

Eventually, Alizeh invested in a proper vibrator as she became aware about brands in the sexual wellness industry in India. Her experience with it completely changed how she perceived self-pleasure, increasing her understanding of her body, which in turn improved her overall sexual life. 
 
In the past three-four years, the Indian sexual wellness industry has seen a revolution. While the big players in the industry were only a handful, and awareness and conversation very limited, today a number of brands such as MyMuse, Sassiest, ThatSassyThing, Bleu, Bold Care, and Leezu’s, among others, have taken the market by storm. Most of these brands—launched very close to each other in timeline post-pandemic—are working towards making pleasure a part of people’s everyday conversations and not something that has always remained hush-hush. According to a report published in 2022 by Allied Market Research, the Indian sexual wellness market clocked a revenue of $1.15 billion in 2020, with an expectation of it growing up to $2.09 billion by 2030. 
 
While it is now in recent times that many brands have started selling pleasure products such as sex toys for men and women, lubes, vegan condoms, pleasure playbooks, etc., advertisements and films made in the past have also tried to ignite conversation about the tabooed topic. For example in 2019, condom brand Durex rolled out a campaign that tried to highlight the issue of ‘orgasm inequality’ by claiming that around 70 percent women in India don’t orgasm every time during sex. Films have also been made that address often avoided or overlooked subjects. For example, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (2017) focused on erectile dysfunction, Janhit Mein Jaari (2022) dealt with condoms, Vicky Donor (2012) explored sperm donation and infertility, and OMG 2 (2023) discussed masturbation among its themes.

If we look back, customers could only find sex toys being sold on shady websites, wherein, after making the payment, one was never sure if the product would arrive at their doorstep. If it did, post various customs and permissions, one was never sure if another family member would not open it, owing to its non-discrete packaging. However, today things are easier. All the brands in the industry have legitimate websites, and some have even collaborated with quick-commerce platforms and are delivering these products to consumers with apt packaging within minutes. 
 
Seema Anand, a 62-year-old Indian sexual wellness expert and influencer, based out of the UK, started her work in the field after deep diving into erotic literature written hundreds of years ago in multiple Indian languages. As she read more and more, she realised that there were many stories in the vast Indian erotic literature—prose and poetry—about sex, pleasure, and orgasms, among other things, which were kept hidden and were untold. This was due to the assumption that anything around sex and pleasure was thought of as ‘bad’. 
 
Anand, who works around women and their narratives, believes that “women need to decide that their body belongs to them, and it's not somebody else's property. Their pleasure does not depend on somebody else's permission.” With this belief, she runs her a page on Instagram called @seemanandstorytelling where she openly speaks about female pleasure, and addresses the problems of women who write to her with queries. In her opinion, the industry has seen a drastic change with brands selling sex toys, more specifically for female pleasure, coming to the fore. “Today it is incredible to see people talking about their sex lives and their masturbation lives with each other. When I was in college, if a girl even uttered the word masturbation, everybody's hearts almost stopped,” she says.

Anand believes that it is important for women to understand their own body first, if they want their sex life with a partner to thrive. “I think Indian brands are doing extremely important work by providing sex toys to women so easily,” says the author of The Arts of Seduction, who was awarded the ‘Sexual Health Influencer of the year’ in 2023 by Cosmo India.
 
One of the most popular brands in the industry today is MyMuse which was founded by couple Anushka and Sahil Gupta in 2021. The couple was looking for whitespaces in India Inc. and realised that sexual and mental health were two areas that were not tapped into much. While they were seeing some change in the conversations around sex, there were not many brands selling sex toys that were easily accessible in all parts of the country. “We thought this was a massive opportunity. We wanted to make the idea of pleasure, sex, intimacy, masturbation, fun and cool,” says Anushka Gupta, co-founder, MyMuse. 
 
With the idea to make a brand that allowed both singles and couples to get in touch with themselves, MyMuse started with just four products, and today the brand sells multiple products ranging from lubes, socks, oils, and candles to sex toys, pleasure playbooks, and naughty card games for both men and women. Before they began MyMuse, the couple conducted research for a year, taking insights from couples and single people, to know what was missing in their sexual life, as per them. Their discovery brought to light that for women in India, the concept of self pleasure was mostly alien. There were myths and taboos involved with it and there was still a belief among people that if a woman enjoys sex, it makes her a bad girl, a belief more pertinent in smaller cities in India. The irony was that these same women were expected to perform in the bedroom and have children. “Our research revealed that 80 percent of Indians had never tried a pleasure product before, and nine out of 10 said they would like to try. This was a big motivation for us,” says Sahil Gupta, co-founder, MyMuse. 
With a non-prescriptive language and quirky packaging, MyMuse has a website where people can buy products that get delivered to their doorstep, and have also partnered with quick-commerce players like Blinkit. The company started with Rs 40 lakh as seed capital from the founder, and is today clocking a revenue of approximately Rs 15 crore, but is yet to become profitable. Early this year, the company raised $2.7 million in a pre-series A funding round led by existing investor Saama Capital. 
 
“Our customers, especially women, have come back to us saying that after using our vibrator, it was the first time ever that they found out that their body was capable of sensations like this. The fact that we can help people like that is a big win for us,” says Anushka. For the near future, the brand wants to keep its focus fixed on India. “We believe that there's a long way to go. We're at the tip of the iceberg right now in terms of this category and its growth,” says Sahil who highlights that a big change that the brand has observed is that 20 percent orders that are received are now coming from Tier III cities. “Our big achievement has been fulfilling the mission of removing the taboo around pleasure. We want Indians to embrace the idea of enjoying pleasure for pleasure,” he says. 
Sachee Malhotra, founder, That Sassy Thing
While MyMuse is a more gender-neutral brand, another brand in the industry that is more female-centric is That Sassy Thing. It was founded in 2021 by Sachee Malhotra, who dealt with many body-image issues and discovered that these issues were part of the lives of many women. She started the company along with her husband. While she was looking for pleasure products in the market, Malhotra discovered that many products were not available in India, and those that were available were ultimately aimed at pleasing the male gaze and feeding women’s insecurities. They realised in their research that the whole customer experience for most sexual wellness brands felt intimidating and uncomfortable, almost like people judged themselves for visiting those websites, due to the dark and unapproachable visuals and toys that were unappealing aesthetically. “One of our customers shared: I felt dirty going on those websites, like I was doing something wrong. Our goal is to flip that narrative,” says Malhotra. 
 
While most Indians as teens turn to their peers or shady websites to learn about sex and pleasure, the information is mostly faulty and unreliable. For Alizeh, while growing up, everything related to sex was hush-hush and kept under wraps. Today, she is more aware and confident about her body and her likes and dislikes, expressing herself in ways she never imagined before. While for Alizeh, this knowledge came in her early twenties, for many teens today sexual education is more accessible owing to influencers and brands like That Sassy Thing. Apart from selling sex toys and other products, That Sassy Thing has launched India’s first ever free online masterclasses on sex education. “We’ve collaborated with the best educators in the country to curate Sex Ed masterclasses that are comprehensive, inclusive and realistic,” Malhotra says, as she highlights that the brand is an education and content-first brand that is built off and for real people, and also creates a lot of content around people’s lived experiences exploring their gender and sexuality. 
According to Malhotra, with the coming of more brands, consumers have become more open and are willing to experiment more in the bedroom. The consumer base is also increasing, with the brand seeing a lot of customers from not just metro cities but from smaller towns too, such as Ludhiana, Indore, Lucknow, Jodhpur, Coimbatore, Salem, Siliguri, etc. “It’s so refreshing to see that when people order their groceries on Blinkit, they also add a That Sassy Thing massager to their shopping bag. This is a big mindset change,” she adds. 
 
Malhotra believes that while there’s a lot of conversation about equality in the boardroom which is much needed, the conversation around equality in the bedroom is completely missing. And they aim to bridge that gap. With products available on the company website, Blinkit, Amazon and Nykaa, That Sassy Thing was bootsrapped till March 2024 when it raised its first external round of funding. “Our ultimate goal is to build a global sexual wellness revolution in India,” says Malhotra.
 
Another brand that caters only to women making female pleasure products is Sassiest.
 
Founded by Aishwarya Dua, Karishma Chavan, and sexologist Dr Nikita Dound in 2021, Sassiest began with the idea to bring about a change in women’s emotional, sexual, and physical narrative. What makes the brand stand out amongst the competition is a big team of female doctors that act as advisors and consultants, not only for the brand, but for all its consumers too. “We're not working on only bringing a pleasure toy. But, how that toy will evolve with the journey of a female's body is what we are focusing on,” says Dua who mentions that the products they sell are not just for pleasure but also help in solving issues like vaginismus (painful spasmodic contraction of the vagina in response to physical contact or pressure, especially during sexual intercourse). 
 
Sassiest, which also makes products for the LBBTQ+ community, is bootstrapped, with an expectation of turning profitable in two years. With uniquely designed products which look almost like show pieces, the brand has partnered with Blinkit and Nykaa to sell its products. Speaking about competition, Dua is of the view that with the onset of more and more players becoming a part of the industry, it is becoming more open. “Today you see people talking about pleasure. Even if it is just knowing the names of some of the brands and their products, it's commendable,” Dua says. 
Leeza Mangaldas, founder, Leezu's
A recent brand which started as an extension of a passion project is Leezu’s began with the discovery that too often even those more officially tasked to provide information on sexual health—doctors, public health/ development/ family planning/ disease prevention stakeholders, teachers, community leaders, parents—either do not provide enough information, or perpetuate a fear- and shame-based approach. That’s exactly what Mangaldas wanted to change. She wanted to bring about a pleasure-positive approach to sex education that provides not just information about the negatives or the risks involved such as infection and accidental pregnancy, but also a vision for good sex that is safe, consensual, pleasurable, joyful.
 
Over seven years ago, as a passion project, Mangaldas started making pleasure positive, sex education content on YouTube. In 2020-2021, she was granted The Pleasure Project’s Pleasure Fellowship (a leading global organisation focused on advocating for the inclusion of pleasure as a vital aspect of sexual wellbeing in public health, education,  and public policy communications around sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide) which included formal training as well as funding for a collaborative project to create a digital archive of pleasure positive experiences from people all over the world. With over three million followers across YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook together, she also launched a book titled The Sex Book - A Joyful journey of self-discovery which came out in October 2022.
 
Then, along with Hanna Stromgren Khan and Jesper Karlsson, part of a Swedish brand incubator called Bozzil, Leezu’s began with a vision to make sex toys and lube become as widely available, affordable, and as destigmatised as any other everyday wellness item like toothbrushes and face wash.
 
According to Mangaldas, we’ve long been conditioned to feel a lot of shame around sex—that dictates that the only truly acceptable or legitimate context within which sex can be had is within a heterosexual endogamous marriage, with the intent to have children. Globally, society still manages to ensure that women are fed the message that sex is primarily a marital duty, something they must simply tolerate, not necessarily enjoy, rather do it for the sake of their husbands, and to have children.

Also read: Taking the taboo out of sex in India

“The problem begins right from a young age in a woman’s life when in school, all that they get to learn about their bodies, vis-a-vis sexual organs, is about the uterus and the ovaries, and the vagina-as-birth canal,” says Mangaldas, who goes on to say how they are not even told about the vulva, the clitoris, or the G-spot. Mangaldas, who has also been named a UN Women Ally, says that her brand Leezu’s is an extension of her work as a pleasure positive influencer. 
 
While these are brands focused either on female-centric products or gender-neutral products, Bold Care, founded by Rajat Jadhav, Rahul Krishnan, and Mohit Yadav in 2019, is a D2C men’s sexual health care brand that recently caught the attention of the online world with its disruptive and cheeky advertising campaign, which brings together American adult actor and model Johnny Sins and Bollywood celeb Ranveer Singh. The brand, which also got Ranveer Singh as a co-founder, makes products which primarily focus on tackling common sexual issues for men like erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. While they don’t sell sex toys, the brand’s product range also includes condoms and water-based lubes. 
Komal Baldwa, founder, Bleu
Another brand that brought about a drastic change in the condom industry specifically is Bleu. A sexual wellness brand that sells 100 percent vegan and natural latex condoms was started in 2019 by Komal Baldwa. The brand began after many hardships that Baldwa had to face with the reactions of the chemicals that are being added into the condoms for the pleasure of men. When she went to gynaecologists with the issue, many told her the solution was to have a baby, and there were just a handful who were ready to understand her problem and look for a solution. “On asking if the problem will be resolved post pregnancy, the doctors had no answer,” says Baldwa. After conducting extensive research for three years, and speaking to gynaecologists who were willing to help, Baldwa launched condoms that were made keeping women’s sexual organs and their wellness in mind. Condoms made by Bleu are vegan and do not contain any harmful chemicals or high levels of protein which can cause side effects such as irritation, dryness, discomfort, and yeast infection for the women. 
 
Starting the brand as a woman, especially pre-pandemic, when many such brands weren’t in the picture, was extremely difficult for Baldwa. She would often not just face judgement and harsh comments from society, but received disrespectful messages and photographs from men, just because she had a startup selling condoms. People even questioned her as a mother to a young daughter. “I was headstrong, the more they pushed me, the more I bounced back,” says Baldwa. 
 
Today, even old and established condom brands in India have started selling vegan condoms, and condoms that are more centric towards women's sexual wellness than men’s. “I believe that this change has come after Bleu was founded,” says Baldwa, who also thinks that the condom industry has seen a big change in the packaging of products which earlier used to have half-naked images of men and women, “for no specific reason”. 
 
Baldwa believes that people need to realise that condoms are more wellness. They are more about giving the woman the liberty to decide when she wants to have a child and when she does not. “I think we should let it be for that purpose. Let the power be in the hands of the woman,” Baldwa says. 
 
Bleu, which started with a seed capital of Rs 30 lakh, invested by Baldwa, was acquired by Sirona Hygiene, a company backed by the Good Glamm group, in 2023. The condoms are available on the brand’s website, with a plan to be soon available offline as well. “I have received responses from male customers saying that my wife doesn’t let me use any other condoms so I always have to keep a stock of Bleu condoms. Knowing that I am bringing about a change in another woman’s life keeps me pushing the limits,” says Baldwa. 
 
There are many other brands in the Indian market today that are trying to change the narrative around sex and pleasure. While these brands are in the business to make money, for many of them, the larger motive is to raise awareness, increase conversation, and change people’s regressive outlook towards pleasure. Examples of more such brands include Salad which sells vegan condoms, Pee Safe which sells intimate hygiene products, IMbesharam and Lovetreats, which sell sex toys among other sexual wellness products. Not only changing the narrative, these brands are also providing a platform for people to talk about issues related to sex and pleasure openly, with an intention to solve them, much like ‘Agony Aunt’ columns from old newspapers. 
                                                                                       
However, there is still a long way to go. “There is still shame around pleasure, especially self-pleasure, which prevents people from exploring and becoming aware of this whole new world that’s waiting with open arms,” says Alizeh.