From the February issue of ETO magazine: There’s always room for new entrants to the market if they bring something different to the party. Sex Kitten certainly does that and you can help to make it happen…
The term ‘sex kitten’ has been in use since 1958, when it was coined by British tabloid the Daily Sketch to describe a young Brigitte Bardot. The memorable phrase has long outlived its creator (which closed in 1971) and, thinking about it, it seems an obvious name to use for an adult toy but to the best of our knowledge it never has been – until now.
‘Something clicked’ in the mind of cat lover Juliette Trevett after she bought a rabbit vibe. A feline inspired model could be a lot of fun, she thought, and the Sex Kitten concept was born. This was back in July 2012 and although Juliette’s experience of the adult sector was limited to having erotic stories published in Jade magazine, she developed the idea further while researching the market with her husband, accountant Martin.
“The results were extremely promising,” says Juliette. “After seeing the design boards, a high proportion of the people questioned wanted to know when it would be available to purchase.”
Sex Kitten certainly looks like it will be a cat to get the cream. The moggy-inspired massager features motors in the flexible tail and the head – with the latter’s ears, nose and whiskers intended to stimulate the clitoris. Other neat design touches include glow-in-the-dark eyes, a removable cock ring for a collar, and ‘cat face’ controls on the back of the vibe.
A manufacturer has been lined up, there are ambitious plans for a complete range of Sex Kittens and retailers are probably wondering at this point when they can buy it…
The short answer is probably around August this year. The long answer is probably around August this year assuming Juliette and Martin achieve their objectives of raising £19,500 on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo to finance the initial production run.
Speaking about the decision to opt for this route to market, Juliette says: “Indiegogo is very successful in helping to make dreams come true, with kind people who help to fund projects, and we have seen other sex toy campaigns on the site that have successfully raised their funding.”
The cash raised will be spent on the tooling for production and testing in addition to the initial production run of the Sex Kitten, which will be a limited edition purple leopard print.
“As part of the market research we asked people what price they would expect to pay for the Sex Kitten, and after collating the results we decided on a pricepoint of £40,” says Juliette. “As we are launching our campaign with a limited edition run of 2,000 purple leopard print variants we will be pricing them at £50 with early bird discounts on the first 500 to entice funders. The perks, as they are called on Indiegogo, for investors are as follows: For £10 you will get you name immortalized on our wall of thanks which will initially be on our Sex Kitten Facebook page [www.facebook.com/the.sex.kitten] which has just gone live, then we will transfer all of these to a permanent page on our proposed company site when it is up and running. The first 200 pledges of £35 will get a purple leopard edition of the Sex Kitten – this will be at a 30% discount on RRP. The next 300 pledges of £40 will get a purple leopard edition of the Sex Kitten [20% discount on RRP]. The remaining 1,500 limited editions will be at the RRP of £50. A person can decide to pledge for multiple perks. The campaign will be running for 60 days from the commencement, which we envisage should be the first few days of February. You cannot collect any of the money till the end of the campaign, as no money changes hands till the end and the target needs to be met to get any of the money. After that we are being told by our manufacturer that it will take about three months to get the tooling made and do the initial testing in readiness for the production run, so if all goes as planned I would think mid-July or early August [for the launch]. After the limited edition version, the Sex Kitten will be available initially in its pink version but we do intend to make it available in other colours.”
Following the success of Rocks-Off’s boutique bullet range, it is easy to imagine a number of limited edition Sex Kittens would be ‘lapped up’ by the fashion conscious female sector who would, no doubt, consider it a purr-fect gift.
When asked if Juliette’s long term aims are to launch a new brand and become a permanent part of the adult market or to sell the product on, she replies: “Our long term aim is to create a new brand and to start a business within the sex industry. We wish to own the rights to the Sex Kitten and any future toys we create and to bring them to market to give joy to millions all over the world. Since Egyptian times the cat has always been associated with a female energy – take Bast, she was a goddess, sensual and beautiful. So it makes sense to create a sex toy that will resonate with the sex kitten within all of us.”
The best ideas often seem obvious after the fact and there is a part of us that wonders why nobody thought of Sex Kitten before. It seems to tick all the right boxes as a concept, as a product and as a name. If you’d like to be a part of bringing it to life the Indiegogo campaign site for Sex Kitten can be found at: www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sex-kitten–2
