Nothing is as sexy and kinky as what you come up with yourself—which is why the custom option offered by sex toy manufacturer Bad Dragon is so popular.
Since 2008, Bad Dragon has been dedicated to offering a wide breadth of products for fantasy lovers everywhere, both totally original and inspired by popular culture. Want a Demogorgon dildo for the Stranger Things fan in your life? Bad Dragon has you covered, with 40 colors to choose from plus the option to customize it yourself.
Not only are the made-in-the-U.S. toys designed for maximum pleasure and originality—they’re beautifully designed, too. Several of the dildos could live on a living room coffee table as objets d’art, and no one would be the wiser.
“New designs can happen a couple of ways,” says Bad Dragon PR manager Derek ‘Tsukaza’ Young. “We’re usually inspired by media, games, movies, and other fantasy-based stuff that people conceptualize. So from there we have these brainstorming sessions where it’s throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, but also trying to describe what makes this character and then the product itself sensual.”
He pauses, then adds with a laugh, “The other way of doing it is more the epiphany of, ‘Wow, that would be a slam dunk.’ A few yeas ago we did a Jurassic Park parody [pegged to the movie]. Most of the brainstorming came from their viral campaign, but for us, it boils down to how well we market this to people.”
“People are way more, ‘I’m into the scene. Deal with it,’ and people are way more receptive than back in the day.”
That attention to pop culture trends went by the wayside this past year, a casualty of the pandemic-related shutdown. Several in-the-works ideas had to be scrapped once it became clear that they would no longer be timely by the time they could be created.
But that didn’t mean Bad Dragon lost customers. If anything, quarantining helped remove some of the lingering shame around sex toys that still stubbornly persists. Young points out that he’s seen a major shift in attitude on social media over the last few years, as more and more people clamor for sex positivity.
“People are way more, ‘I’m into the scene. Deal with it,’ and people are way more receptive than back in the day,” he says. “Sex positivity has gotten a huge influx recently.”
But while customization of existing inventory wasn’t on the table for 2020, plenty of Bad Dragon fans found ways to show their support. They were the ones who quickly drove Bad Dragon face masks onto the bestselling items lists. But there was another item that became a bestseller for bittersweet reasons: the Dakimakura body pillows.
Now, with the end of the pandemic coming into view, Bad Dragon is gearing up to return to what it does best: Customizing their products for their valued clientele.
“Having that outlet is honestly necessary for a lot of people to survive in this pandemic,” Young says. “And that taboo, in regards to fantasy toys that aren’t just a human dildo, there’s been a great positive reception [recently].”
Which only makes sense. When real life becomes an unending horror movie, enjoying alone time with a fantasy-based dildo is hardly the scandal it might have once seemed.
