Dialogue with the designer of the vibrator | "Women should take full responsibility for their own orgasms"

1.

The moment I opened the gift from my boyfriend, I was stunned - there was a vibrator in the pink box.

I blushed and sent a WeChat message to my boyfriend, "Is this the surprise you mentioned???"

"Do you like it?" The boyfriend replied, "I hope it can bring you happiness on my behalf when I'm not with you."

Two years ago, I was in a passionate relationship with my long-distance boyfriend. One day, he suddenly said he had bought me a gift online, which was a new work of his friend.

"What is it?" I asked; he smiled mysteriously and said, "You'll know when you receive it."

I have always been open-minded about sex, but the gift still surprised me. It was the first time I had such close contact with a sexy gift, so I picked it up carefully, held it in my hands, and observed it carefully.

In terms of appearance, it is cute. It is the size of a palm and shaped like a bird. The outermost silicone coat feels smooth and comfortable to the touch, and the main color of watercolor makes it look gentle and pleasant. I pressed the switch and it vibrated, making my palm itchy.

That night, I started my first journey of exploring sex toys in my life.

I turned off the lights, lay on the bed, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, reached into the quilt, and pressed the switch of the vibrator; soon, it was licking my body violently, giving me an almost uncontrollable pleasure in just a few tens of seconds.

After turning off the vibrator, I looked at the ceiling and was shocked - for the first time in my life, I felt a kind of happiness that did not require any cost.

Sex can give people an orgasm, but the orgasm brought by a vibrator is simpler and purer - it has nothing to do with love or affection, it only has to do with sex.

It does not require you to pay for the time cost of a series of foreplay such as kissing, hugging, and caressing when having sex with the opposite sex. It will not bring a series of negative consequences such as pain, pregnancy, and injury. It just wants to use the most direct, naked, and safe way to allow women to get the most intense pleasure in the shortest time.

That kind of happiness can teach us so much.

It will force you to reflect on why women should feel ashamed of happiness? Why women who pursue sexual pleasure are labeled as "sluts" who are immoral? Why women are always in the roles of dedication, sacrifice, grievance, and cooperation in sexual narratives?

What is it that makes women's sexual pleasure so easy and yet so brazenly plundered?

Perhaps, it is not just about sex, not just about women. In the Eastern context, the word "happiness" naturally carries the derogatory meaning of indulgence and depravity. We have been taught since childhood to delay gratification; to endure hardships in order to become a superior person; to achieve something in order to gain something.

Our happiness is always conditional.

2.

So I wanted to find the people who made the vibrators. I really wanted to know why they developed the vibrators? What difficulties did they encounter in selling the vibrators? How did they deal with those who didn't understand?

I opened the search engine, entered the brand name on the vibrator packaging bag, and quickly found its design consultant, Wu Xiaopiao, through numerous reports.

In the photo, Wu Xiaopiao has neat short hair and a bright smile. She looks confident and determined.

Unlike most Chinese girls, Wu Xiaopiao grew up in an environment without sexual shame. Because her mother is a doctor, there were many human anatomy magazines at home since she was a child. From the perspective of her family, sexual organs are just parts of the body. Throughout her growth, she was the one with the healthiest, most correct and richest sexual knowledge among her classmates and friends.

In 2001, she went to study in the UK and saw the same sexy lingerie brand repeatedly in different neighborhoods. She walked into the store and found many female sex toys in the store. She observed that the British girls who came to the store to hang out were comparing and selecting these sex toys in their hands without any abnormality, and excitedly shared their purchase experience and usage experience with their companions. She was always relaxed about sex, and soon became one of them.

Toys make her happy, so she wants to share this happiness with more people. She collects different types of sex toys and gives them to her friends as gifts after returning home.

But friends often reply, "How do I use this thing?" "I'm not single, why do I need this?"

Knowing that sex toys and related knowledge were lacking in China, she quit her job at a top domestic public relations company in 2007 and founded an e-commerce brand to sell sex toys online. At the same time, she became China's first toy reviewer.

Yes, before her, there was no such profession in China.

Starting from a female perspective, she analyzes each sex toy from multiple professional angles such as appearance, design, material, sound, and whether it is waterproof. She writes an evaluation report on the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, and whether it matches the body of each sex toy, and posts it online for women to refer to when purchasing. In the process, she also provides body knowledge and sex education.

Over the past decade, she has written thousands of evaluation reports.

As she had more and more clients to contact, she gradually discovered that the "sexual problems" faced by many women were not caused by physical problems, but were rooted in psychology. So she took the psychological counselor certificate exam, went to the California Institute of Integrative Psychology to study "human sexuality" and applied psychology, and participated in mindfulness courses at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oxford. In 2015, she started a new attempt - an offline training camp for relationships between men and women, to help more women solve psychological confusion and promote self-acceptance and positive interaction between partners.

She has provided counseling to at least 30,000 women over the past few years.

At the peak of her career, she was interviewed by hundreds of media outlets and even received official endorsement, becoming a director of the Chinese Society of Sexology.

3.

As a reporter, it is not difficult to find Wu Xiaopiao's WeChat Account with the help of the Internet.

I opened the friend request form, carefully filled out my self-introduction and interview invitation, and sent it.

I was confident that she would accept my interview - an early report about Wu Xiaopiao mentioned that she had proactively emailed multiple media outlets, inviting reporters to interview her in order to spread sexual knowledge.

However, that friend request was not approved.

I also found her company’s official WeChat account and left a message inviting her for an interview.

Still no response.

I didn't want to give up, and thinking that she was my boyfriend's friend, I wrote a nearly thousand-word interview invitation letter and asked my boyfriend to help forward it to her.

This time, she finally agreed to be interviewed. "I like your sincerity," she said.

I was so excited about finally being able to talk to Xiao Piao that I didn't have time to analyze her sudden change in attitude towards the media. I have been looking forward to this interview for two years. I look forward to producing high-quality content with her and changing more women.

It didn't disappoint me at all. Wu Xiaopiao used her years of professional knowledge and consulting experience to give me a new perspective on sex. But as the interview progressed, some more touching stories that had never been exposed to the media began to unfold after her career reached its peak: the overall environment contracted sharply, and the sex education program she painstakingly produced was suddenly removed from the shelves; trapped both internally and externally, she suffered from depression, insomnia and anxiety, and relied on medication to control her body and mind; she stopped all business and consulting, refused to appear in public, put aside worldly affairs, and traveled to remote places; in the vast world, she completely shattered herself and kept questioning herself, was the previous success due to her own ability or the general trend? And how much of her persistence in the sex career was for helping others, and how much was out of the need to prove herself?

"That's why I refused the interview," she said sincerely. "The old values ​​seem to have been overturned, but the new value system has not yet been established. I don't know what I can output now."

The interview was completed between the old and the new. It records a woman who once made great strides in sexual thought, and her thoughts on sex after stopping, and also records her true confession of her own growth. Some things were overturned, but some things remained . This may represent that some solid values ​​have their own truth; some waves surging forward are also difficult to be blocked and reversed.

The following is our conversation, I hope it will be helpful to you.

When facing sex, there is no need to shout for liberation, nor to suppress it

Q: When I saw you mention in the interview that “there was no negative guidance on sexuality in your family since childhood” and “you lived in an environment without sexual repression” - I was actually surprised that your family seemed to have avoided the family sexual narrative in the traditional Chinese context.
When you were growing up, were your sexual desires always fully accepted? Was there no moment of shame about sex?

Answer: Because my mother is a doctor, I have been exposed to human body models since I was a child. I knew at a very young age that sexual organs are just different parts of the human body, so I naturally don’t feel ashamed when facing sex.

But my parents are definitely not open-minded people.

Our family faces sex in a very calm and natural way, without being open or suppressing anything.

In fact, in China, if sex education can be carried out in a plain manner, it would be a very good thing. However, society always goes to two extremes, either being very repressive or clamoring for liberation.

Is excessive sexual liberation a good thing? Some people lack sexual knowledge, and many large-scale contents are harmful and shocking to them, and they don’t know how to deal with or accept them.

When it comes to performance, we cannot put aside the topic of repression and liberation. Can we just treat it as a normal thing?

Q: I always feel that being able to "treat sex as a normal thing" in China is already a kind of liberation. After all, we have been imprisoned by Confucian culture for thousands of years, considering restraining desires as self-cultivation and talking about sex openly as impolite. Sexual issues have always been regarded as moral taboos.

This is also true in modern times. For example, I clearly feel the "internalization" of sexual shame in my family education. When I was a child, I watched TV with my parents. When I saw a kissing scene, my family would immediately change the channel. At that moment, you knew that sex was not allowed to be discussed.

A: There needs to be a sense of boundaries between parents and children, especially on sexual issues. Both parties should not cross the line. Parents can be intimate in front of their children, but not excessively. It has nothing to do with sexual liberation, it is a psychological boundary.

But sex shouldn’t be a taboo. My mother is a doctor, so I had relatively correct knowledge of sex since I was a child. The way she expressed her feelings to me was also very natural, and the environment at home was very relaxed and peaceful.

It can be said that my attitude towards sex was not learned, but developed by the atmosphere.

When talking about sex with my parents, I may feel "shy" but not "ashamed".

I think "shame" is a good thing, but "disgrace" means that we have some sexual resentment deep in our hearts, and we need to slowly open it up.

In fact, it’s okay if there is no such family atmosphere. Adults can learn about sex and correct their attitudes towards sex in various ways.

If you want, everything can start now.

Sex is more than just sex

Question: What is a better attitude towards sex?

Answer: When talking about sex, what people probably think of is sexual behavior, but in foreign countries, sex is called "Human Sexuality", which covers multiple dimensions such as medicine, psychology, and sociology, and also involves political issues.

These are rarely discussed in China. When people talk about sex, they still think about sex.

After more than ten years, it's still the same.

Sex is actually a very good key to reflect on the relationship between oneself and oneself.

You can learn how familiar you are with yourself through sex.

For example, why are you afraid to have sex with the lights on? Are you not accepting of yourself? Why are you not confident enough in yourself?

When you don’t accept yourself, you will be distracted during sex. When you are kissing, you are still thinking whether your underwear is not suitable today or whether it looks good. How can you concentrate on it?

Sex is also a key to reflect on the relationship between yourself and your partner.

Sexual behavior always exposes the attachment patterns and relationship status of both people.

For example, some women have been in sexless marriages with their husbands for more than ten years and have been cheated on several times but are still unwilling to separate; there are also women who learn moves not because they like it but because they want to please the other party, objectifying themselves into tools without even realizing it.

This attitude towards sex actually exposes one's own emotional pattern: knowing that it is not suitable and making you unhappy, but still unable to let go.

Most of us have probably had this experience—it’s these emotional entanglements that expose the parts of our inner selves that need the most healing.

It may come from childhood trauma. The injury was not treated well, and it festered and scarred in the process of growing up. We will not actively open the scars in daily life, but in an intimate relationship, the real self and the other person will be able to poke the abscess.

Healing means opening the scar, applying ointment to the abscess, and letting it heal slowly.

This process will be painful and difficult, so many people would rather be twisted in the relationship than grow inwardly.

You don't have to worry about it. You can continue to stare at the scar for the rest of your life, but if you keep living in fear, it will be difficult to enjoy your relationship with yourself and the world.

It is not only a sex toy, but also a tool for self-exploration

Q: I am not conservative about sex, but if my boyfriend didn’t give it to me, I would never say that I would take the initiative to buy a vibrator.

A: Why? Did they not know it was possible to play it this way, or did they know but did not buy it? These two are different.

Q: I know, but I don’t buy it.

A: Why? How do you understand the vibrator? Do you think it is only suitable for singles, or do you have other negative impressions?

Q: I don't have a biased view on vibrators, nor do I have a negative impression of them. I know they can make me happy, but I think I can get this kind of happiness in other ways, such as masturbation or sex with my boyfriend, and I don't necessarily need toys.

To put it more directly, it is not a necessity. Unlike food, I cannot live without it, so I don’t have a strong desire to buy it.

A: Most people think so, and they think it is a toy. But in fact, the vibrator can be a tool for self-exploration.

Q: Yes. It's amazing - because this is the feeling I didn't know until I used it. The vibrator taught me a lot of things. I still remember the first time I used it, I was shocked. It brought me a kind of pleasure that was only related to sex and almost didn't cost anything.

Before using it, you will ask why you should buy sex toys? But after using it, you will ask why you should not buy sex toys?

I later reflected on it and still felt that it was due to social and cultural reasons. There is an old Chinese saying that goes, "When you are well fed and warm, you will think about sex." This saying implies that in the Eastern context, whether men or women, as long as they get pleasure from sex, they should be criticized and despised, and sexual pleasure is a negative thing.

In fact, not only sex, but also pleasure itself, has a sense of decadence in the Eastern context. The direct pleasure that the vibrator brings me has never existed in my previous life.

A: I understand what you mean, but I want to remind you that suffering and happiness are relative. Extreme suffering and extreme happiness are not good things. The key is how to find a balance between suffering and happiness.

Women should take full responsibility for their own sexual pleasure

Q: I still feel that male sexual pleasure is still more socially acceptable than female sexual pleasure.

I saw a survey saying that the most popular sex toys in China are masturbators and sex dolls, and only 5% of women have purchased sex toys.

Answer: This may be related to the physiological differences between men and women.

Men feel pleasure directly and can easily orgasm using a masturbation cup, but women may need to learn and explore before playing with sex toys, and only after an adaptation period can they get positive feedback.

Just like learning to ride a bicycle, you will naturally be happy once you have learned it, but you may fall frequently in the first few days.

Girls can easily feel frustrated in their sexual explorations, and if they don’t feel pleasure, they will give up quickly.

Q: Are there differences in sexual desire between men and women? We have been taught since childhood that "men are animals that think with their lower body", but women's desires seem to be rarely acknowledged.

Does the difference in sexual desire between men and women stem from innate physiological structure or from socially shaped inequality?

A: Both. It may not be "inequality". "Inequality" is like something has happened to girls. The physiological structure of men and women is different. Men will feel pain if they don't vent their sexual desire, while women's sexual desire is more the result of mobilization. Society has further widened this difference.

Q: Are men really better at separating love and sex than women? Does male sexual behavior really need the connection of love and affection?

A: It depends on the person, his personality, his upbringing, and the people he interacts with. You can’t generalize all of these with the word “male.” Everyone is a unique individual.

Q: So statements like “no matter whether men are 20, 30 or 40 years old, they all like 18-year-old girls” are also a very arbitrary judgment.

A: Of course, everyone’s emotional patterns are different.

And as society develops, aren't girls also beginning to objectify men? Don't many women only like young "fresh meat"? If conditions allow, many women are not much better than men in what they do.

Q: In the Eastern context, the sexual subject has always been male, but I saw you said in an interview before that women should take full responsibility for their own sexual pleasure.

A: Of course. I have been doing offline sex education for decades, and many girls told me that these courses should be taught by boyfriends - they don't have your body system, so how can they learn? If you don't know how to orgasm, how can others know how to make you orgasm?

At that time, I felt that their boyfriends were so pitiful. They had to take care of the family, take care of your emotions, and be responsible for your orgasm, my God.

If a girl wants to orgasm, you must first spend time exploring yourself and know what rhythm and position are most comfortable for you, so that others can know how to cooperate with you.

This is your own happiness, and of course it requires you to give others a constructive and executable plan.

You are unhappy, don't explore, are unwilling to speak up, and then blame others for their poor skills. Is this logical?

Some women have a strong dependence mentality. After all, it is much easier to blame others than to blame yourself. Being responsible for your own pleasure means that you have to bear the frustration of not having an orgasm yourself, which means that you have to understand yourself, accept yourself, please yourself, love yourself, and continue to grow.

When a girl is having a good time, she really doesn't care who she is with. She can easily reach orgasm with anyone. Sex is the icing on the cake, but many girls expect others to help them out.

Q: Actually, I think this is the consequence of gender inequality in society. Just now you said, "It seems that society has done something to women" - I want to say, hasn't society done anything to women? Women's sexual desires have been suppressed, and it is difficult for them to even admit their desires, so it is naturally difficult for them to be responsible for sexual pleasure.

Answer: Society does have an influence, but the problem is, I know many girls who are not like this, so why can others not be like this?

Can accusing and complaining about society help you grow?

Life is ultimately your own business, and adults should take full responsibility for their lives. If every individual lives well, society will be much better.

“I am just a small tool in a larger system”

Q: After all, sex toys are related to sex, and they have their own privacy and controversy. Did you think that you might encounter many difficulties in the early stages of your business?

A: No. You don’t anticipate what will happen until you do it.

At that time, I was passionate about defending the injustice of Chinese girls. Why can't we orgasm properly? Why are girls so passive in relationships? Why are Chinese women, who are smart and knowledgeable, so confused about sex? I wanted to see what was going on, to pass on sexual knowledge, and to try to create a new path in that environment.

At that time, I had a strong sense of mission.

Later I discovered that this sense of mission is actually narcissism.

Q: Why is it called narcissism?

Answer: At that time I felt like a warrior. I dared to stand up and speak out for sex and to justify sex. I felt that I was very brave.

This is still at the level of satisfying the desires of the ego, which is a kind of arrogance.

Moreover, I had a very idealistic view of the world at that time. I felt that whether two people were in love or got married, it was rare to meet their lover, and it was such a pity that they could be unhappy just because of a lack of sexual knowledge.

But after so many years, I found that many people who have learned this sexual knowledge are not exploring their partners; those who are going to cheat will still do so, and sexless marriages will still be sexless.

I realized that sexual knowledge is only one aspect of a relationship, a very superficial aspect;

Too many factors affect the flow of relationships, such as communication skills, growth path, life background, etc.

There is actually very little I can do.

At that time, I always wanted to change other people's destiny.

It's like when you eat fruit and taste the sweetness you want to share it with everyone. You say it's really delicious and you must try it because it's good for your health, but some people are just not suitable to eat this fruit at the moment; they reject you, so you feel disappointed and angry.

Now I know that if someone really needs fruit, he will go find the resources himself, and there is no need to force it on him.

Q: In Buddhist terms, you have transcended the "ego" and have reached a state of "no self." How did this transformation occur?

A: I was depressed for several years. In the early days of my business, the environment was relaxed and the traditional media was very supportive. They promoted vigorously and produced professional content, so my business went smoothly.

But a few years ago, the environment suddenly contracted, and all the sex education programs I put on different platforms were blocked within a few months. It was like watching my own child suddenly die. I couldn't understand what was going on.

At that time, I was thinking of doing parent-child sex education. The Red Yellow Blue kindergarten child abuse incident was making headlines at the time, and I wanted to teach the children about sex step by step. Parents didn't care and wanted me to start by talking about preventing children from sexual assault.

I thought to myself that intimidation education is more terrible than no education. Formal sex education for children requires professional teachers to explain step by step according to the system. They cannot skip the "privacy boundary" and "how to say no" and just talk about "preventing sexual assault."

Children will be confused, "What's wrong with this world? Why is the world so scary?"

What I insisted on as the right thing was not in line with what society wanted, and I felt very conflicted at the time.

Then I went to India, and found out that there is such a hell on earth. The people at the bottom of society have no possibility of climbing up the social ladder. They passed by me like zombies, without any soul in their eyes.

At that time, I was thinking, what is wrong with this world, what is wrong with me, and what should I do? "Who am I", "Where do I come from", "Where am I going", the three major questions in life, I don't understand them.

I was so depressed that I couldn't do anything. I gathered my energy, stopped giving lectures, stopped accepting consultations, and stopped running the company. It took me four or five years working with a psychologist to slowly calm down.

In the past few years, I have been constantly reflecting on the "narcissistic model" that has followed me for decades.

I once said that holding the flag was for everyone's good, but in the end, I have to admit that many things we do are ultimately based on our own needs.

I used to think I was omnipotent, but now I realize that the company’s success is the result of luck and it has nothing to do with me.

I used to feel that I was suppressed, but now I realize that this is how society is. It never moves in the direction you want. What I should think about is how to provide sex education in such an environment.

I used to hope that everyone would know what I did, but now it doesn’t matter whether you can see me or not.

Q: But it is undeniable that what you are doing is indeed to promote a freer and more open society, and at least change some people's views on sex, right?

Answer: This is just the inevitable result when all conditions are ripe. I am just a small tool in a larger system.

Q: Realizing the insignificance of the ego and no longer being arrogant is the only way for humans to learn happiness and wisdom. However, it seems that we have never received such education since childhood. We always find this perspective after a huge trauma.

Answer: Only when people really hit a wall and completely understand that the previous path is not feasible, will they start to reflect and look for new paths.

Q: Will you go back to continue making sex toys, psychological counseling and offline training camps in the future?

Answer: There are already a lot of resources now, and everyone can find what they need.

As for myself, I don’t know at the moment. If I were to do it, the way would be very different from before. I would be more like a tool and bridge to complete this task, and would not be too obsessed with my specific role in it.