'Don't lockdown desires': This Indian couple built a ‘sex startup’ amid Covid-19

India is the land of the Kama Sutra. However, talking about sexuality and intimacy openly and in a healthy way is still frowned upon. But a founder couple is trying to change that with their intimacy wellness startup called MyMuse.

Founded by wife-husband duo Anushka and Sahil Gupta, MyMuse delivers bedroom essentials, bespoke candles and fun games to couples in 200 cities who are overcoming the stigma around sex. The couple decided to leave their well-paying corporate jobs to become entrepreneurs. Anushka used to be with WeWork, while Sahil, an MBA from Harvard University, was working with a private equity firm.

The MyMuse story began amid the Covid-19 pandemic when the couple started shipping out their first products in candles, adult toys and lubricants from a spare bedroom in their house. They soon bagged seed funding for their venture from VC firms.

The idea behind MyMuse

The couple wants to tackle the inhibition and silence around sexual wellness with their products, marketed and sold with a creative touch that aims to take out the shame and hesitation of consumers.

A social media ad of MyMuse ahead of Diwali 2021 on Facebook read, “Diwali is coming and so should you! And as always, we're urging you to save the fireworks for the bedroom.”

“There's this shame, guilt and fear associated with buying something that should be used in your intimate areas, and that's the first thing we wanted to turn around,” co-founder Anushka recently told AFP.

“(We want to) just remove all of that misogyny, sexism from this idea and just make it something that's beautiful, that's natural, universal,” she added.

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