Valentine’s Day might be a card and candy grab, but it’s also about (let’s be honest) sex. Two Toronto companies aren’t skirting around the post-quarantine desire running rampant through the city by offering clients something on the scintillating side of V-day.
Entrepreneur and co-founder of Jems, Whitney Geller, wants Valentine’s Day shoppers to feel more comfortable with the current state of condoms by co-creating Jems, a female-led condom company, with partner Yasemin Emory.
Geller and Emory built Jems because condom packaging and marketing are mainly male-centric without providing consumers with necessary information about materials used or catering to every type of consumer.
“You take the most embarrassing product, you put it in the most embarrassing packaging, and then you put it in the most embarrassing aisle,” Geller says. “When we went looking at the [condom] package, we couldn’t find anything on it that indicated what the ingredients were. And we thought, what a crazy thing for it to be something that, you know, is going into bodies and around reproductive organs, to not have to disclose what the ingredients are.”
Geller and Emory discovered that most condom manufacturers do not disclose ingredients. But this poses a problem for people with severe allergies. Combined with packing that is not inclusive, condom marketing may contribute to the current rise in STIs. They want to change the way people view, see, and use condoms, but they also want to change the way condoms are marketed.
Jems aims to “change the dialogue around what we’re talking about with safer sex so that it feels like an inclusive and expansive project product for a number of sexual identities and expressions,” Geller says.
Geller and Emory are also on a mission to change sex education by launching a new sex education platform.
“We really believe that sex ed is letting people down. It hasn’t changed the same thing since we were kids. And you know, the advent of the Internet and cell phones were kind of a big deal. And kids are learning so much from pornography, that we think there should be sort of other trusted voices out there. So at the same time to speaking to a variety of sexual expressions and identities is super important in terms of sex,” Geller says.
Julie Clark is also a firm believer in using natural products and opening the conversation around sex. Her Toronto-based beauty and wellness company, Province Apothecary, makes an all-natural sex oil that’s crafted with essential oils and other clean products. Opening the conversation about sex in general, in this case, also allows for a more open conversation about what goes into sex products. “I formulated sex oil because I was really dissatisfied with the available lubricants on the market,” Clark explains. “They smelt gross and felt gross and that’s where the inspiration for sex oil came from.”
Clark opened the conversation to ensure that what goes into her product is safe for skin and bodies. Having safer ingredients makes the idea of using the product less daunting. “A little bit of oil goes a long way and it’s so good for your skin, so no need to wash it off,” she says. “I personally find it makes sex more pleasurable and enjoyable!”
For Geller, Valentine’s Day presents an opportunity to bring safer sex talk full circle.
“I think Valentine’s Day can be a very triggering day for many people. And I think the more that we can have this sort of sex positive, inclusive conversation about what sex and love is, because it looks very different to everybody,” she says. “And the idea of the idea of not being like there’s a right and a wrong way, the idea of it not being heteronormative, the idea of it not looking one way, I think is really important…this idea of including the sort of safer sex, part of that as well is not a topic that comes up.”
In short, Jems and Province Apothecary want to have a conversation around safer sex.
