Startups Aim to Broaden the Market for Sexual-Health Devices

Dr. Tepper, a sexuality educator and coach in Atlanta, specializes in helping people with disabilities find sexual fulfillment. Dr. Tepper, who is quadriplegic, injured his spine in 1982 at age 20 while working as a lifeguard. The doctor told him he had less than a 10% chance of having children, but no one advised him on how to increase his chances of fatherhood or improve his sex life, Dr. Tepper says. Today, he recommends app-controlled devices to clients who, like him, don’t have full use of their hands.

“Sexuality is an integral part of a person’s life. But disability often results in physical limitations which can dramatically impair a person’s capacity for intimacy,” Dr. Tepper says. Technologies that are modified or created for disabled people “have the ability to help individuals and couples overcome those limitations, allowing for access to life-affirming pleasure,” he says.

Recently, companies have started developing such products that cater to people with disabilities, incorporating features that make their devices more accessible and relying on testers from the disabled community to improve designs.

When it comes to sexual health, the medical community remains behind in meeting their needs, disability advocates say. Many doctors are uncomfortable talking about sex, particularly with their patients with disabilities. Stigma is partly to blame, but there has also been a dearth of products available to help, and only a few devices that are covered by insurance.

“From my own personal experience and from working with countless patients with physical disabilities, the healing power of sexual contact and sexuality is grossly underestimated,” says David Ley, a clinical psychologist, certified sex therapist and affiliate faculty member at the University of New Mexico. He specializes in working with people with disabilities and is disabled himself.

Some tools to help people with disabilities have children have been on the market for decades. In the 1990s, researchers found that men with spinal cord injuries were able to have children through stimulation with vibratory devices. Ferticare, which came on the market soon after, is a wandlike device that uses intense vibration to treat infertility in men with spinal cord injuries.

This new crop of devices is more about pleasure, not just fertility. They are cheaper and easier to use, and many were designed by people with disabilities.

The Bump’n Joystick, which will be available in early 2022 for $249, is a bendable cylinder with an extension for various attachments. It is designed for people who struggle with small motor functions. They can hug the joystick and move the device into position with their arms and legs.

Toronto-based siblings Andrew Gurza and Heather Morrison came up with the idea for the Bump’n in 2018, after Mr. Gurza, who has spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, was asked to test a device made by another company. “I couldn’t get this toy out of the box because of my dexterity,” he says.

Through research conducted in 2018 with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Mr. Gurza and Ms. Morrison found that the sex devices on the market didn’t meet the needs of disabled people, particularly those with hand disabilities.

Bump’n has raised 323,000 Australian dollars, including AU$13,000 from a GoFundMe fundraiser, equivalent to roughly $230,000 at current exchange rates.

Alexander Bjørkmann, a former designer of automated weapons, put his expertise to use designing the Handy, a device for men that can be controlled remotely. The Handy, which went on sale in 2019 for $160, looks like a remote control crossed with a flashlight, with a motor that moves an external sleeve up and down.

Mr. Bjørkmann and financier Jens Wilhelmsen co-founded Norway-based Sweet Tech to develop the Handy in 2018. The company’s funding includes $600,000 in matching funds from the Norwegian government’s innovation fund.

Though the Handy isn’t marketed specifically for people with disabilities, Sweet Tech has kept those customers in mind, the founders say. Sweet Tech employs testers with disabilities. In one case, the company says, a user with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, used third-party software to connect with the Handy, allowing him to control its movements with his eyes.

The U.K.’s Hot Octopuss recently hired Kelly Gordon, a wheelchair user, as a creative director. Their $360 Pulse Solo Interactive, which was designed with input from disabled users, includes two app-controlled, hands-free vibrating devices, making it more user-friendly for people with dexterity issues, Ms. Gordon says.

“Sex toys are so important for disabled people,” Ms. Gordon says, noting that self-pleasure can “relieve pain, boost circulation and boost your immune system.”

Scottish sex-tech designer Tabitha Rayne didn’t create her Ruby Glow vibrator with disabled people in mind. Then she read a review of the $60 product from a man with chronic fatigue syndrome, who said he burst into tears of joy after using it, she says. Ms. Rayne is now working on a more inclusive version, priced at $110 and set to be released next year, developed with the input of disabled testers. This iteration has a remote control with buttons of different sizes, making it easier to differentiate their functions by touch, and requires less pressure to turn off.