Warning:
The content below may contain sexual relate infomation.
Speculative/Product Design:
The content below may contain sexual relate infomation.
Speculative/Product Design:
Sex Bomb
Course: IAT 431 - Speculative Design
Critical Design Mini-Project Sex Bomb, which is a product we design for possible near-future where emerging biological technologies intersect with social activism to create products with the appearance of celebrating female sexuality. Due to a lack of consideration for the nuances of institutionalized gender inequality, this actually worsens the culture of shaming.
Role: User-Research, Graphic Design, Prototyping, Branding Design, Camera & Video editing
Tool: Illustrator + Photoshop + Premier + After Effect +
Figma
Duration: 2 Weeks
Critical Design Mini-Project Sex Bomb, which is a product we design for possible near-future where emerging biological technologies intersect with social activism to create products with the appearance of celebrating female sexuality. Due to a lack of consideration for the nuances of institutionalized gender inequality, this actually worsens the culture of shaming.
Discovering the Problem
Women who lack satisfaction in sexual activities are unwilling or unable to speak about it with their partners due to feelings of shame or fear of being dumped.
Female artists and designers are attempting to normalise the imagery and discussions around female sexuality, but getting pushback about morality and obscenity.
Advocates disagree about what is exploitative and what is empowering. Artwork that depicts women in sexual or naked positions: is that objectifying/harmful, or is it empowering? Does it depend on who created the work? Who is “allowed” to speak about this topic?
What kind of design is occurring in the domain of this topic?
︎︎︎Product Osé create by Oregon State University's Robotics & Engineering Lab.
Osé
Female-Focused Pleasure
Osé is a robotic massager created in partnership with Oregon State University's Robotics & Engineering Lab. And Osé focuses on providing female pleasure through combining human sensuality and technological innovation into a tool, using natural motions such as a finger stroking rather than vibrations.
Female-Focused Pleasure
Osé is a robotic massager created in partnership with Oregon State University's Robotics & Engineering Lab. And Osé focuses on providing female pleasure through combining human sensuality and technological innovation into a tool, using natural motions such as a finger stroking rather than vibrations.
In 2018, Osé won the Robotics Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, the award was later taken away as the device was deemed “immoral, obscene, indecent and profane”.
︎︎︎“After CES Rejected a Female Sex Tech Company the CEO Calls for Change” by Mashable.
︎︎︎Product Osé create by Oregon State University's Robotics & Engineering Lab.LiaHide the evidence
In 2017, a start-up in the United States called Lia created a biodegradable pregnancy test that breaks down like toilet paper in water.
Lia’s breakthrough technology makes it the first and only flushable and biodegradable pregnancy test. Lia is engineered to be discreet and good for the environment, without sacrificing accuracy.
Hide the evidence
In 2017, a start-up in the United States called Lia created a biodegradable pregnancy test that breaks down like toilet paper in water.
Lia’s breakthrough technology makes it the first and only flushable and biodegradable pregnancy test. Lia is engineered to be discreet and good for the environment, without sacrificing accuracy.
Lia comes from a place of positivity, to erase anxiety about someone finding their pregnancy test. However, this poses the question:
Why do we feel the need to hide evidence of our sexuality?
Why do we feel the need to hide evidence of our sexuality?
Design Process
Context: Female sexuality is a social construct. However, people have attributed arbitrary physical and physiological characteristics to it (presence of hymen, tightness of vagina, blood, arousal time, etc) and use it as a represention of social characteristics such as morality and innocence. By doing so, this creates a culture of shaming that punishes women sometimes for being too revealing and sometimes for being too private.
Goal: Through the observation of the real world, design a product that is likely to appear in the future world and seems to be very helpful to women increases the culture of humiliation and leads people to think about sex discrimination against women.
Product
Sex Bomb allows women to change their sexuality to be whatever they want, deconstructing the assumptions around sexuality as a permanent factor on our worth as a person. The form of a bath bomb takes what is traditionally seen as yet another inconsequential female cosmetic product into something that has the potential to create waves in social change, creating a defamiliarization around of how we perceive products aimed for women.
Target Audience
Women in western cultures who are shamed for their sexual history and reputation.
Domain + Critique
Our work exists within a possible near-future where emerging biological technologies intersect with social activism to create products with the appearance of celebrating female sexuality. Due to a lack of consideration for the nuances of institutionalized gender inequality, this actually worsens the culture of shaming.
Poster & package
I made three posters and package for our product, “Sex Bomb.” They correspond to three products of sex bomb and three-stage of female sexuality: The Sexual Activist, The Blushing Virgin, and The Chasity Vow.
The reason why I choose pink is that there are strong gender stereotypes in today's society. People think that blue is used to describe boys and pink for girls. You still encounter dazzling pink, blue cracks in almost every child's store. I put fruit in the poster because the media now often use these juicy fruits to make an indecent suggestion, only because the shape of these fruits is similar to female genitalia. This is ridiculous, but people ignore these issues, and our idea is to add this sexism and ridicule to our design to remind people to think about it further.
︎︎︎ React video of product Sex Bomb.
Reflection
As a male designer, I‘m grateful to be in touch with areas which I didn‘t know much about before. In this society, The invisibility of female sexuality has created an attitude where it is more acceptable to see men receive sexual gratification than women, leading to a power imbalance where women’s right to bodily pleasure is non-existent. For example, while male oral sex in movies is treated as simply a fact, depictions of female oral sex is more likely to be seen as obscene and shocking. WE HAVE TO CHANGE IT !Also, if I have more time to improve our design, I hope we would use some media(video) to show what it actual does to someone taking this bath, like a before and after usage the sexbomb to show a stronger reappearance of the scene and promote people to think about behind the product.