Sydney friends on a mission to normalise female pleasure

Two Sydney friends created a business to normalise a taboo topic – and change the sex lives of thousands of Aussies.

Viv Conway and Jo Cummins are using humour to talk about pleasure. Picture: Instagram

Sex and pleasure is so often sold from a male perspective, but two women are flipping the script with their new business.

Viv Conway and Jo Cummins were brain storming business ideas when they decided to start a sex toy company.

The company, Girls Get Off, was designed to be a middle ground between seedy sex shops and online stores with hundreds of options that could be overwhelming.

But the brand has become so much more than a simple place for women and non-binary people to buy sex toys – it’s eradicating the shame associated to sexual pleasure.

Ms Conway told news.com.au that separating girls and boys during sex education in schools further exacerbated the shame.

Viv Conway and Jo Cummins started Girls Get Off. Picture: Instagram

“There’s never any mention of pleasure – there’s good stuff like consent and anatomy,” she said, adding that when boys joked about self pleasure it was implied they were masturbating.

“For women, it’s not really talked about and I think that was showing, even more so, when we started having conversations with people really close to us and discovered female masturbation was never a topic that’s really talked about.”

She said she was stunned when a friend, at the age of 25, had never masturbated before. Ms Conway said it was completely different to her experience.

“It’s something that’s done in private, you don’t know what you don’t know and the only way to find out is through content consumed online,” she said.

Ms Conway said nothing negative came from talking about physical intimacy and the sex toy business used humour to start conversations.

She reflected on how she once dressed as a labia in public spaces such as Manly, Bondi and Coogee in Sydney and encouraged people to demonstrate their sexiest dance moves to score a free vibrator.

“Taking away those uncomfortable feelings helps them feel more comfortable sharing a piece of content which might lead to a conversation with a friend or a partner,” she said.

The company uses humour to tackle the topic. Picture: Instagram

Ms Conway said, when it came to the humour, it was important not tear anyone down in the process.

“I think there’s a lot of narrative out there that tears men down or makes them feel uncomfortable, which can be a problem,” she said.

“So for our content you won’t find any, ‘Oh, god men can’t find the clitoris’ and things like that. It’s not actually helpful and all that does is shame them into not wanting to have a conversation as they feel like they’re doing something wrong.”

She said to encourage female pleasure, you need to support your friends and partners through conversations and “laugh with them”.