February 14, 2022

Theory of Her: Normalising female pleasure one orgasm at a time

Theory of Her is a New Zealand based company with a very clear goal; to provide vagina owners with more orgasms through their organic pleasure spray ‘Mint & Blush’. Here, we talk to founders Cat and Sarah on their ultimate goal of making the world a better place one orgasm at a time and the barriers they faced getting a female wellness product to market just because of who it is intended for.

Can you tell me a little bit about The Theory of Her and how this product came to be?

Theory of Her was started by two sisters, Cat & Sarah. Our theory is that the more women cum, the better the world will be. 

It all began with a homemade formula that Sarah was experimenting with. To be honest, it had been years since I had opted out from buying sex gels and creams in stores. I just didn’t love what I was finding. As someone with extremely sensitive skin and also a modern consumer concerned about the environment, there was nothing out there ticking those boxes. Not to speak about the kitschy look and feel of most sex products out there…

So when I stumbled on this particular formula after experimenting with peppermint, I was blown away. Literally. I’d never had so many multiple orgasms in a row. So I decided to share the formula with my girlfriends (sisters help sister out!). Sure enough, they loved it too. And then suddenly we were all talking about orgasms. So, what started off as a homemade formula, turned into a conversation more generally about sex and orgasms and female pleasure. And then my sister and I realized this needed to keep going. So we turned this homemade formula into our first product, Mint & Bush, and starting growing the amazing community we have today. 

We manufacture out of New Zealand and have made sure to keep it clean with all-organic ingredients and no yucky additives. Only good things that belong on our bodies. 

We are now growing to include a massage candle and adult colouring book. We also have a big community of over 8.2k women-identifying folk in our private facebook group, The Pleasurey. It’s a safe space we created to encourage women to talk openly, honestly about love, sex, and relationships. 

For those knew to the product, can you please explain simply what it does and what it is.

Our signature product, Mint & Bush, is what we call an ‘orgasm spray’. Each bottle is made of all-organic ingredients, featuring peppermint, which is a natural stimulant that has been used for thousands of years to help women O. When you apply it to erogenous zones it increases sensitivity. But when you apply it to your clitoris specifically, it makes any sensation (touch, air) extra amazing and helps you climax quicker, easier.

We recommend people use it for solo play, as much as partnered play. It’s safe with sex toys and boys. 

At the end of the day, we are just tapping into the natural aphrodisiac powers of Mama Earth. She’s blessed us with this amazing plant – peppermint – that seems as if it were placed on this earth just for our pleasure. Mint has become a staple in our products and will get a starring role in our upcoming massage candle too!

Can you tell me a little bit about the barriers you faced getting this product to market?

Oh man, the barriers! They are many. Well, we learned pretty quickly after launching our product that we weren’t allowed to advertise. Not on Google, not on Facebook, or Instagram… or any of the online platforms. Generally, they flat out refuse ad space to products catering to sexual pleasure. There are grey lines though. For instance, if the product is meant to help with a sexual issue then it will be allowed. For instance, sexual impotency (aka erectile dysfunction) has been deemed permissible for ads. Which is a bit odd for two reasons. One, what it says about us as a culture that we suppress pleasure and yet prescribe illnesses. And two, that it shows how the orgasm gap between men and women – meaning that women experience orgasms drastically less frequently than men – isn’t considered a valid enough issue to allow us to address it openly as, say, erectile dysfunction has been. 

Most words and images are censored through automatic algorithms that are fine-tuned to detect any glimpse of nipples, for instance, or the word ‘vuvla’. Interestingly, the word ‘vagina’ is allowed though. So, it just shows how the algorithms built into these systems advertising to us are generally pretty ignorant about the female body and sexual anatomy. If we allow talk of vaginas, why are we censoring vulvas? The answer is most likely because we just aren’t quite that comfortable yet to actually talk about female pleasure. 

So yes, it’s been pretty infuriating. But also it’s probably helped us keep fighting to bring the conservation about female pleasure and orgasms more into the open. Every ‘no’ from the Big Boys (or what I like to call ‘Father Facebook’… the metaphorical representation of the patriarchy) only fuels the fire more. Ultimately, I do think this will slowly change for the better. But we are definitely not there yet! 

What is the ultimate goal with Theory of Her?

I don’t think we’ve ever had any kind of grand plan. We’ve just kind of been taking it one step at a time. So much of this has been a beautiful learning curve for us that we never really know what’s around the corner. For instance, we never dreamed that we would be into workshops or colouring books, but now we’re doing both of those. 

At the end of the day though, I think we both just want to be able to talk dirty in public and have that be okay.

Like for instance, I want to be able to say the word vulva or pussy and not have to get weird looks. Vulva is, after-all, a scientific word for a very real anatomical part of our bodies. And the word ‘pussy’? It was originally meant as a term of endearment to describe women. It begs the question: How far have we really progressed? 

Do you think your business trajectory would have been different If this was a product for men?

100%

That said… men have been some of our biggest supporters too. And increasingly we find them being isolated from the female sexual wellness space, which is a shame because in many women’s sexual experiences, men figure a central role. Our goal is to encourage more women to cum, but we also need to bring more men into this conversation. They belong here. They are part of it. So, while we are a female-led company, we do have a (straight) man on our team. And we love having his energy and support as much as anyone else who fights alongside us. This good fight won’t be won by pitting genders against one another. 

Why do you think products such as your own are still limited in the female empowerment space?

I hope some of my answer above addresses this question. But to address it maybe a little more specifically in terms of the female empowerment space, here’s something else to consider: we are in the sexual wellness industry, which is one of the biggest and fastest growing. The numbers are there to prove that people are definitely having sex and getting kinky, but it’s still something we like to tip toe around. Likewise, we talk about female empowerment, but that’s still generally limited to a wholesome image. One that isn’t too provocative or sexual. Of course, sex oozes from most any successful Instagram account, but it’s the kind of sex that is more ‘sexy’ than it is just straight up ‘sex’. 

We asked our community of women once what sexual word they hated the most and the two tied for tops? Cunt and pussy. Perhaps it’s because both of these words are still used in some derogatory way. But that’s why we try to talk about pussy, and vulvas, and the female orgasm, so we can start to normalize these otherwise culturally triggering words. 

To check out Theory of Her and support their mission, click here.