Pleasure Pioneers
07 Mar 2025
In honor of Women's History Month, we're featuring female pioneers in pleasure & sex education! All of these women have changed the course of history through research, education, or innovation and we're here to celebrate their achievements. Without their historic contributions, we wouldn't be able to provide our customers with the same tools and information that we have today.
Betty Dodson
Betty Dodson was a feminist, artist, and educator who inspired female sexual liberation through teaching women self-pleasure to lessen their dependency on men. She held erotic art exhibitions in New York before diving into sexual education.
In the 1970s, Dodson started holding Bodysex workshops, designed to help women connect with their bodies, heal shame, and learn self-pleasure techniques. In these workshops, she would have women undress and masturbate together to promote the idea of body diversity and to destigmatize sexual shame.
The Original Hitachi Magic Wand was an important tool during Dodson's workshops, which is still one of today's most-loved vibes, decades later. She even dubbed it "the Cadillac of vibrator," taking this household massager to a whole new level of popularization among women.
Dodson also took part in research that involved being hooked up to an EEG machine while masturbating. Recording of this experiment showed that her brain waves went into alpha during masturbation, which is linked to relaxation. At the point of orgasm, her brain activity showed a shift to theta brain waves, which are associated with deep relaxation, inward focus, and hypnosis. This research supported her concept of masturbation as a form of "pleasurable mediation."
Betty Dodson died on October 31, 2020, at the age of 91 but her legacy lives on through new-wave sex-positive feminism and Magic Wand lovers around the globe!
Susan Colvin
Susan Colvin is the founder and CEO of CalExotics, one of the leading toy brands in the industry. She was an early trailblazer for women in an industry made up of mostly male business leaders. In fact, CalExotics is the first sex toy company founded and operated by a woman!
Susan introduced the industry to the idea of more “feminine” designs and CalExotics became the first company to produce pink toys, which quickly became the most popular color among women.
"Back then,” Colvin says, “Vibrators were made of hard plastic, had loud, unruly motors, and boasted very few selling features. Dildos were ivory or black, and packaging was very basic…Everything was cheap-looking and made by men for men."
She envisioned CalExotics to create more inspiring toys that considered the needs and desires of women and couples as well as men. Today, CalExotics has something truly for everyone. Their wide range of products consider all genders and ways to play! Whether you’re looking for a cutesy body-safe silicone dildo, diving into anal training, or looking for a strap-on harness that defies gender expectations, CalExotics has something to help.
CalExotics was also the first sex toy company to have a development team of all women, which has without a doubt changed the course of sex toy design. Their company has brought to life lots of innovations such as waterproof toys, “butterfly” style vibrators, and remote-controlled egg vibes.
Through CalExotics, Susan Colvin was able to pave the way for a big change in how toys were made and what they looked like. Her vision has helped countless women find toys that were less-intimidating, more intuitive, and better quality than their predecessors.
Dr. Ruth Westheimer
No highlight of pleasure pioneers would be complete without a mention of Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Known to some as “Grandma Freud,” Dr. Westheimer was a German and American sex educator who inspired millions to find happiness through sexuality and taught the nation about sexual health from STIs to g-spot play.
While Westheimer lived a full life to the age of 96, it was not an easy start for her. Both of Ruth’s parents were killed in concentration camps after they sent her to Switzerland at the age of 10 to escape the rise of Nazi Germany.
Westheimer went on to study psychology in France before immigrating to the United States to earn her Masters degree and eventually her Doctorate at the age of 42. After earning her Doctorate, she worked at Planned Parenthood in New York, training employees on sex education, which inspired her to shift her focus to sex therapy.
Dr. Westheimer's media career began in 1980, originally with a radio show called Sexually Speaking, which went on for a decade. Listeners would call in with questions on sexual health ranging from the inability to orgasm to sexual positions, contraception, and more. She even openly discussed men’s issues including erectile difficulties and penis size stigma with humor and wit. “When it comes to sex,” she said, “the most important six inches are the ones between the ears.”
Dr. Westheimer’s work destigmatized sexual health issues and helped to reduce shame and promote pleasure for her 250,000 weekly listeners. Her approach to sex was open, consent-based, and supportive of exploration. “Anything that two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom or kitchen floor is all right with me.”
She went on to launch The Dr. Ruth Show, a television program that had racked up 2 million viewers by 1985. Through the 90s, Ruth Westheimer became a popular household name, appearing on talk shows, commercials, and even guest-starring in television including Quantum Leap and the soap opera One Life to Live.
For those wondering on Dr. Ruth’s favorite products, there is one that stood out to her as being the ultimate pleasure tool. The Swiss-engineered Eroscillator has an oscillating motor with multiple attachments and is clinically proven to be more effective than traditional vibrators to deliver more numerous, more powerful, and longer lasting-orgasms. “I have been asked to endorse many sexual products and I've always said ‘No.’” Dr. Ruth said, “For the first time I'm making an exception.”
Dr. Ruth Westheimer was revolutionary in making sex education accessible and her work to destigmatize pleasure is an important legacy we wanted to honor for Women’s History month. Enchantasys is here to support your sexual journal and— as Dr. Ruth’s tagline says—“Get some!”
While she may not be a household name, we wanted to spotlight Helen O’Connell for our Pleasure Pioneers series because of her important contributions and achievements in the medical field that have led towards advancements in how we understand female pleasure.
Helen O'Connell
While she may not be a household name, we wanted to spotlight Helen O’Connell for our Pleasure Pioneers series because of her important contributions and achievements in the medical field that have led towards advancements in how we understand female pleasure.Dr. O’Connell is Australia’s first female urologist, which is quite an achievement on its own. However, her trail-blazing research on the clitoris makes her stand out to us as a true Pleasure Pioneer worthy of a spotlight in our Women’s History Month series.
Before Dr. O’Connell’s work, anatomical textbooks largely overlooked the complexity of the clitoris. When she was an intern, O’Connell noted that urological surgical procedures were careful to preserve the sexual functioning on penises, but no such care was given to female patients. She found there was no medical guide on how to preserve the nerves and blood supply to the clitoris—meaning women were more at-risk to experience the loss of sexual pleasure or function from related surgeries.
O’Connell started publishing research on the clitoris in 1998 and has been making waves in the study of female anatomy since. In 2010, she successfully completed 3D-imaging on the clitoris that was able to show exactly where all of its nerves were. With over 15,000 nerve endings in the clitoris, it’s no wonder that bullets & clitoral toys feel so good!
With a greater understanding of the internal structure of the clitoris, toy designers were able to develop products like air-pulse stimulators (such as the Womanizer Enhance), dual (”rabbit”) vibes for blended orgasms, and internal massagers that cater to the full network of pleasure-sensing nerves—not just the external clitoris.
Dr. O’Connell’s important contributions through her years of research will continue to pave the way for change as we discover more about female anatomy. Her groundbreaking work has not only reshaped medical knowledge and surgical procedures, but has also has had a profound impact on the pleasure industry, from sexual education resources to product innovation.