Allow Myself to Introduce... Myself

Welcome to The Nakey Times, our blog. Eventually, there will be writing, video, and music to entertain you and help you understand who we are and maybe even who you are. But first, hello, I’m Shawna, the co-founder of Nakey. 

Honestly, this is a little scary for me. I’m not a writer. But if we are going to create content to “make you think” and products to help you “feel better naked”, we need to tell the story of how this all happened, what it means to us, and also ask for your stories.

Sex has always fascinated me. The excitement of feeling something new, the mortifying first steps, and the secret feeling that no one else knows what you're going through. We are all the byproducts of sex, literally. Nothing is more universal. Sex is natural. Sex is joy. Sex is shame. Sex is forbidden and funny. Sex is pain. Everything that exists, exists in sex. But, for some reason, maybe because it’s so personal, when it comes to sex, we too often don’t talk about it and feel alone. Why should it be so hard to talk about?

"We are all the byproducts of sex, literally. Nothing is more universal. Sex is natural. Sex is joy. Sex is shame. Sex is forbidden and funny. Sex is pain. Everything that exists, exists in sex."

Sex has been my one true connector in life. While other people found it hard to discuss, I went the opposite direction. I was loud about sex. I wasn’t scared to “embarrass” myself by telling my stories. Don’t be confused, my sex stories aren’t more erotic or more interesting (most, at least), they’re mostly basic coming-of-age stories we all experience, hormonal imbalance, awkward pubescent interactions, and first steps into adulthood. The only difference was my willingness to talk about it. 

As I grew into my twenties and now my thirties, sex remained a point of fascination. Gone were the days of pimples and failed attempts at imagined adulthood. I was an actual adult now having actual sex with actual other adults. More joy. More pain. More stories. As I got older, my interest in sex only grew. So, what does one do with this lifelong fascination? Start a company, I suppose. Create products that push the conversation with their names and uses.

Me and Hannah’s (our other co-founder) friend had a baby. She was using homemade postnatal pads to recover. We didn’t know it at the time, but the seeds of our company had been planted. Then, in 2017, we went on a trip to Cuba. It was hot. And we needed relief. We remembered the postnatal pads and joked about creating a soothing product for our, quite frankly, uncomfortably Havanah-hot vaginas. It was that simple. It was a joke, sort of. But when we got home, it stayed on our minds, and we decided to turn our idea into a reality. In 2020, we created Nakey and launched our first product, Muff Masque.

"I have finally found a way to channel my lifelong interest in sex and share it with the world."

We could never imagine that what started out as one of our many discussions about our vaginas would turn into something so serious, full-time jobs for both of us, and even more importantly, a shared mission. I have finally found a way to channel my lifelong interest in sex and share it with the world. We want to make innovative products and challenge conventional standards. We want to normalize talking about sex. We want to invert the power dynamic of defining what is sexy from the other to the self. We even want to invert the traditional power company/customer dynamic. If I haven’t already made it abundantly clear, we are not experts. We are just two people trying to figure out how to run a company and share the experience along the way. We want to give you the power and learn from you. We need you to help us redefine beauty and sexual wellness. Tell us your stories, what you think, what you feel, what you want, and we will try, one mistake at a time, to satisfy. 

---
Email us at hello@wearenakey.com - we’d love to hear your stories.