Not like the Fleshlight, which is flamboyantly anatomical in design—some variations are even molded to resemble the crotches of particular person porn stars—the eggs are downright discreet. “It appears like a enjoyable tech product, although it’s not that techy. And it appears nearly asexual,” Lieberman says. She thinks the eggs appear like what Apple would possibly launch if it ever obtained into the intercourse toy market.
Tenga says all of those selections are deliberate: Approachable aesthetics have all the time been a key a part of the corporate’s enchantment. “For many individuals, the eggs have been the primary time they noticed a intercourse toy that didn’t appear like a intercourse toy,” says Andreas Nishio, a longtime Tenga worker.
“Many individuals nonetheless have of their coronary heart a sense that intercourse toys are shameful or soiled. However this can be a cute little egg. It’s a lot simpler for them to choose up.”
Tenga now considers itself as a way of life firm greater than anything, with a concentrate on wellness. In Japan, its merchandise choices embody a whole specialty line of streetwear, and its flagship Tokyo retailer is within the upscale Ginza buying district slightly than neighborhoods sometimes related to intercourse retailers and maid cafés corresponding to Akihabara.
At this specific second, the nonthreatening and ambiguous look of Tenga’s eggs would possibly make them much more interesting in international locations like the US which can be quickly changing into extra conservative. In Texas, for instance, there’s presently an effort to introduce legislation that will make it unlawful to promote intercourse toys in drugstores.
It’s a part of a wider push to ban or suppress sexual expression. “When you’ve got a masturbation sleeve that appears like an egg and that would plausibly be bought as, say, a stress-relief ball,” says Lieberman, “in an more and more anti-sex American society, that will enable this product to exist in additional locations.”
