Sex-Ed with Lioness

“We’ve siloed sexual pleasure on its own, and we tend to overlook sexual health when it’s an important aspect of our everyday health.”

— Anna Lee

Skingasm [skin-gaz-uhm] noun: a physical side effect experienced post sexual climax, resulting in dewy, glowing skin. Photo credit: @s00beautiful, 2020

Perfecting the art and science of beautiful skin requires going beyond external skin care—and we continue to emphasize that living your best skin means embracing a holistic philosophy of wellness, including healthy self-intimacy practices.

​In addition to the benefits of stress reduction, tension release, enhanced sleep quality, and elevated moods, exploring your personal desires, sexuality, and getting comfortable with, and in your own body boosts your confidence. You start to show up in the world with that je ne sais quoi factor, radiating beauty that can only emanate from true self-love and acceptance. And did we mention that a side effect of arousal is glowing skin?

It only seemed appropriate to sit down and talk about sexual wellness with a woman who is pioneering major shifts in the way women can now discover and explore their sexual health and desires.

We sat down with Anna Lee, co-founder and lead engineer of Lioness, the world’s first and only smart vibrator.

Anna Lee, co-founder and VP of Engineering at Lioness.

ALAA:  What was your journey in becoming the co-founder of Lioness?

Anna:  I graduated college with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2013. I believed in pursuing the American dream to fulfill my parents' dream of coming to America and having a corporate job. I never meant to be an entrepreneur, especially in the sex toy industry. It’s one of those beautiful life sequences that unfolded once I realized that I wasn't fulfilled with my job at Amazon and that I was living somebody else's American dream. Around the same time, I was on my own personal journey of feeling comfortable with my own body. The best way for me to overcome this was to to deal with it head-on in doing something that scared me. I left Amazon after two years and I’ve have been working on Lioness ever since.

There's a superpower in being a woman in engineering, especially back then when it was so uncommon. The sex toy industry is very male dominated, so I have an advantage because I’m a woman—I can give better perspective on how things are designed to properly accommodate a woman’s body and [vibrator] aesthetics. Current products don’t help answer questions about your own body or all the little nuances because it was never designed with that intention. So, we, at Lioness, really wanted to change that.

ALAA: Traditional Asian-Americans tend to have a more conservative attitude towards sexually, how did you overcome that and enter the industry?

Anna:  I lived in Korea until 2006, and then we moved to the U.S. I grew up in a very conservative, very religious Korean home. I experienced sexual trauma as a kid and I never felt comfortable with my own body—like I had lost something and I didn't deserve to love my own body. Into my mid-20s, even when we started this company, I didn't want to do interviews. I didn't want to talk about or say the words clitoris, vagina, orgasms, or anything related to that.

The breakthrough happened as I started learning more about sexuality and sexual heath—the information and knowledge gave me confidence. I was getting to know my own body better. With Lioness products, I get physiological data points that record how my body is responding to sexual pleasure. It gives me black-and-white information so I can see and learn what my body does, and how it changes when I try something, like having a cup of coffee, and I can better understand the kind of stimulation my body [and I] like.

This allowed me to embrace my journey of getting to know myself on a deeper, more intimate level. To be able to do that was really special for me—in traditional Asian cultures, there aren’t enough platforms to openly ask sexual health-related questions. There are so many cultural barriers, particularly with the way people should perceive us or how we should present ourselves to the world. Having a tool that allowed me to explore my body to understand how it naturally and physiologically reacted to sexual stimulation was such an important step for me in feeling comfortable to openly talk about my personal experiences, sexual pleasures, and what works for me and what doesn't—and it’s what allowed me to work on this as a company.

ALAA:  Did your personal journey of sexual exploration start when you became co-founder of Lioness or did that start much before that?

Anna:  I was starting to feel a little bit more comfortable with my body pre-Lioness. But because of Lioness, I've had to learn so many things—read as many papers as possible and spoke to as many sex educators as I could, including wellness coaches, OB/GYNs, including a pelvic floor therapist.  All of this set me on the right path to be mindful about my own sexual journey. Lioness allows you to understand the variables that affect sexuality, like the way lack of sleep or stress affected my sexual health.

ALAA:  How is sexual health connected to our overall health?

Anna:  We have to be really mindful that sexual wellness is very sub-categorized in our industry. Whenever people talk about sexual health or women's health, it's typically focused on fertility—which is very important—but there are so many other aspects of sexual pleasure and wellness that aren’t commonly considered. As a result, a recurring topic at Lioness is overall wellness—stress, lack of sleep, medications, etc.—all of which affect sexual pleasure and arousal. We don't put the two-and-two together, because we've siloed sexual pleasure on its own, and we tend to overlook sexual health when it’s an important aspect of our everyday health.

We have an athlete who is a Lioness user, and she once contacted us because she thought her Lioness was broken. We went through all the diagnostic tests and couldn't find anything wrong with the device. After looking at her data, we asked her about the events of a particular week where the data started looking weird—basically a flat line. It turned out that during that week, she experienced a sports injury and suffered a minor concussion. Though she didn’t think it was a big deal, we realized that the concussion was affecting her arousal and orgasms. Once she started physical therapy, her Lioness graphs began to normalize like her pre-concussion metrics.

Everything is interconnected.

ALAA:  Can sexual arousal, or lack of, help to monitor or gauge health symptoms that may be overlooked? 

Anna:  Definitely. This is something that we are interested in studying further. In men, erectile dysfunction is a common indicator of heart-related issues because it’s directed correlated with blood flow. There are so many studies on erectile dysfunction and male sexual function, but there is limited research on female sexual health and wellness.

ALAA:  What are some of the misconceptions that currently exist?

Anna:  There's a lot but a common topic regards pelvic floor muscles, which are the muscles that contract and release during arousal and orgasm. This should be health-focused and less sex-focused because these same muscles are affected when you give birth, and cause urinary incontinence if the pelvic floor prolapses. For years, media has focused on vaginal tightness and promotes the misconception that pelvic floor exercises, like kegels, helps with better orgasms. It instills fear in a lot of women to believe that they need to constantly be doing kegels. In actuality, most pelvic floor therapists will not recommend it because many people do it wrong, and constantly tightening those muscles can lead to more issues and pain during sex.

ALAA:  Why do you think it’s important for more female entrepreneurs to get into sexual wellness?

Anna:  Traditionally, this industry has been male dominated. Lately, we've seen more women-led companies in the sex-tech industry, as well as non-binary and LGBTQ-led entrepreneurs. This broadens the opportunity for innovation, especially as we create specifically for people with vaginas—as a woman, this means I’m building something that resonates with people on the same journey.

Also, it's not about wanting something pink and purple with butterflies and a huge shaft. It’s about mindfully designing with intent. Historically, a lot of old vibrators or dildos have handles that are meant to be held away from you, as if you're using it on somebody else. The design is not ergonomic because your wrist doesn't turn like that. That’s a classic indicator that the device wasn’t designed for self-use or self-exploration. Instead, it was designed for use by the cis-hetero white male. Being conscious of the different needs and diversifying designs to accommodate different people and their needs is so valuable, not just in the sex industry, but across all industries.

Photo credit: @dearestcreative @lionesshealth, 2019

ALAA:  Lioness is unique in that it has the sensors that tracks the data. Can you tell us a little bit about how the sensors work?

Anna:  There are precision sensors that measure pelvic floor contractions and relaxation moments—the way your vagina or anal muscles squeeze and relax—which research shows are the best indicators of arousal and orgasms. During an orgasm, the sensors show a unique pattern of movement in the pelvic floor muscles. At first, the charts look like a Rorschach blob test, you have no idea what the graphs mean. But the more you use it, you’ll start recognizing differences, patterns, and trends of what your individual orgasms look like when it felt really good versus not as much.

It’s like keeping a sex journal—and you learn to decipher sensory patterns of when it feels really good, when it's not good, compared to when stress levels are higher, etc. You can then analyze your own data and what that means for you. Just like a fitness journal, the information becomes more valuable with more journal entries that show progress.

ALAA:  Can you talk a little bit about the relationship between sexual health and Beauty?

Anna:  The most important part of my own sexual health and wellness journey is confidence in my body and knowing what works for my body. When you feel confident and accept yourself and all the nuances that make you, you, it brings a type of glow. This Beauty is hard to replicate through makeup. It brings out a certain light in people. If I look back at my early 20’s compared to how I look at myself now, my current self-acceptance allows me to glow because I want to take care of myself. Being confident in your own body results in Beauty in your overall aura and appearance.

ALAA:  We talk about that a lot at Age Like an Asian—Beauty truly starts from within—beauty is self-care, self-love, and self-acceptance, mentally, emotionally, and physiologically.

Anna:  I agree one-hundred percent. I always tell my friends that when you're in a room and someone enters, some have this aura and you're immediately drawn to them. I used to wonder what that was, and now I understand. When you lead with confidence and you’re representing yourself with full acceptance, there’s an energy that radiates, and people are gravitated towards that. That's the feeling of Beauty, right?

ALAA:  It’s the feelings of joy and love, the biggest drivers of Beauty.

Anna:  Definitely. 

ALAA:  What are some of your favorite beauty regimens or rituals?

Anna:  I love Differin for my retinoid and Paula's Choice BHA Toner. Vitamin C serums have been good to my skin. Ordinary Niacinamide.

Mostly, I like to stay active. I've just picked up boxing. I love meditating through exercise or surfing, and anything that allows me to turn my brain off and focus on being in the present.

ALAA:  And the sweating, the endorphins, the blood flow, and stress reduction all are really great for your skin, too.

Anna:  I love it.

Anna Lee is the co-founder and VP of Engineering at Lioness, a wellness company dedicated to championing female sexual pleasure and health. Anna was listed as a Forbes 30 under 30 icon in 2020 and currently calls Los Angeles home. You can learn more about what she’s working on at @annaisaverage.