The future of sex toys is non-binary and this vibrator is just the start

You know that old saying about things that seem too good to be true? Well, that applies doubly to sex toys. They’re supposed to be glorious sensual objects designed to bring universal pleasure, but most of them are designed with only one set of junk in mind and one way to get off.

The folx at Wild Flower — the company that designed the Enby, a new vibrator designed for all genders — are trying to change that. The result of their labor is a matte black silicone disc that looks like no sex toy I’ve ever seen. More than anything, it resembles a bicycle seat or a manta ray, with alien-level advanced technology, but also cuddly. There are no buttons or cords. You charge it using a USB cord that inserts through a small puncture in the silicone.

I’ve been a Hitatchi Magic Wand loyalist for decades. If you’re unfamiliar, the magic wand is like the sledgehammer of vibrators, with a motor so powerful it could pull your car. While the motor on the Enby can’t compete on that level, it’s no slouch. It has so many other features that it makes my Hitachi feel a little prehistoric. So while we’ve been together a while now, I’ve been starting to wonder if we should open things up.

Wildflower sent me the Enby, gratis, to try. At $75, it sits at the average price for a high quality vibrator. The packaging is minimal, ungendered, and not porn-y — the box makes it look like a kinky Apple product. The texture of the actual vibrator is amazing. It simultaneously soft and smooth, but also somehow firm, like Megan Rapinoe. And it’s very flexible. The tail is like a pinpoint tip that you can press right into a clit (or wherever you want) and the wings bend and fold, so it molds right to your body. It also has several vibratory intensities and patterns, which is a nice change from the Hitatchi’s two speeds, which are “high” and “oh-now-I-can’t-feel-my-vulva.”

The curvy triangle shape is what makes the Enby stand out. You can bend it into many shapes for personal masturbation, but it’s also designed for more than one person to benefit off of. It’s ideal for using in a harness because it molds to the wearer, but anyone on the receiving end will also feel the vibe, unlike mini-penis-shaped toys, which only benefit the wearer (and are forever falling out and under the bed only to be retrieved by my cat when I have company).

You can also press the Enby between bodies, or grind it underneath just your own. This is crucial, because despite the fact that many folks with vaginas get off by humping, there are basically zero humping toys on the market. I don’t have a penis, and I don’t have any penises of note in my life, but people with penises can wrap the wings around the shaft and use the tail to stimulate the tip. Cool.

I loved the thing when I tried it, but the truth is it made me a little nervous. I’m so used to the old standby that I felt kind of awkward experimenting. To be fair, this always happens to me with a new partner I'm very into. I have no doubt that Enby and I will be together for years to come. Or at least we’ll go on vacay together.

Amy and Nick Boyjian, the queer married couple behind Wildflower Sex, told me that their motivation for launching this product was that they wanted to make every body get off, no matter the body. “We don’t gender things or prescribe to particular identities or people,” Nick told me. “A lot of companies parrot the same tropes that people don’t feel seen by. We wanted to make sure that when we developed our first product that our ethos ran through everything from design to marketing.”

Wildflower is a sex toy shop that caters to gender and sexual minorities (their Insta is crucial). Amy and Nick started to see patterns in the questions their customers were asking: “What’s a toy I can put in harness, a toy that would contour, or a humping toy?” Amy told me, “there aren’t really any toys that do all those things. Also we have a lot of friends and followers that are transitioning, so we wanted to make a toy that would work with a transitioning body.”

For people who are trying to come into a place of personal sexual or gender acceptance, a gender non-conforming toy isn’t just for sexual pleasure, it’s an emotional necessity. “Particularly when we’re talking about people who are trying to embrace their gender identities and get out from under the weight of all these cultural messages, something like this is very liberating,” says Dulcinea Pitagora, an NYC-based sex therapist. “The way that it’s marketed ensures that it isn’t reminiscent of anything that someone might want to avoid. And you don’t have to use it a certain way to do it right. Those constraints are removed. That’s really important for anyone."

By the end of our conversation with Nick and Amy, I was convinced that non-binary sex toys are the revolution. “There are more and more people who are realizing that they don’t need to ascribe to preconceived notions, but a lot of products come loaded with those identities,” Nick said, and added that he and Amy wanted to design a toy that “would empower more people to be themselves.”