Can I Talk to You About Sex? Part 1
User-based design seems like a no-brainer, but actually implementing it is tough. Below, I talk about the design thinking process behind creating JST ASK, with learnings along the way to help you with whatever you’re creating.
This time last year, Alex Young popped into my Facebook chat. She had taken Professor Michele Dauber’s class on sexual assault, and she wanted to create a line of underwear that would help people ask for consent, and educate people on how to ask for consent.
When she initially reached out, she did so offering stake in the company as payment. However, based on the client load I had at the time, and other side projects, it just wasn’t a good time in my life to sign on to help launch a startup.
Later on, Alex reached out letting me know she had received seed funding, and she’d like to bring me onboard. I came on as a (paid) design/manufacturing and marketing consulting, and Alex remains the HBIC/CEO/Founder.
And then, we started asking people about their sex lives.
Specifically, millennials.
User Research
Round One: 1:1 Interviews
While Alex and I are millennials making our way through the queer dating scene, we didn’t want to run straight to creating tech packs and designing (okay, we kind of wanted to do that, but we knew it wouldn’t work).
The first step of the Design Thinking process is to empathize with your user, so we offered $5 for “coffee and tea” chats with just about anyone who would get on the phone with us. And, we discovered along the way that talking about sex is only as awkward as you make it. When we showed up and asked clear questions, and really listened, people had a lot to say.
Aha Moment: Doing this research led to a key insight for JST ASK. We realized that underwear with consent messaging wouldn’t ALWAYS make people pause and ask in the moment for consent, but the product could educate people on consent outside of intimate settings.
(But some styles, like our fave “Ask me what I like” will do that.)
This user research then set us up to create a list of questions for focus groups.
Round Two: Focus Groups
While a lot can be gained from 1:1 interviews, there’s something about being in a group that uncovers more insights. Hearing someone talk about their experience may make a user chime in, “You too?! I thought I was alone!” and set you down a discovery path that you didn’t know existed.
Instead of offering money, we held “Consent & Mimosas” chats, asking participants about hookup culture, whether they wore clothing with feminist slogans or had political stickers.
We asked, “Do you ask for consent?” to sorority girls and frat dudes, queer sex educators, student activists, faculty and our Starbucks baristas.
We Realized:
- People don’t think to ask for explicit consent until they have a positive experience. The product should BE the positive consent experience.
- People feel awkward and embarrassed asking for consent, and feel like it can “ruin the mood.” Because of this, the product should prompt people to ask for consent when they’re NOT in a sexual situation (if possible). Take Away: Presenting consent (as a movie/commercial) texting and talking about consent, etc — — Degrassi/PSA style.
- Women in their early twenties feel they can talk openly about left/liberal politics (on FB, in class, etc)but don’t feel comfortable wearing clothing that advertises their beliefs.
Round Three: A Qualitative and Quantitative Survey
Because Alex and I did a bulk of these interviews with people in the Bay Area, who lean a liiiittle to the left, we created a survey to ask people about their experiences with consent education, and set up an email forwarding system to get folks of different backgrounds to contribute.
What we found was pretty shocking.
- 39.2% (plurality*) of JST ASK respondents learned about consent in COLLEGE.
- People are having sex before understanding consent! According to the CDC, 47.8% of US high school students have had sex before college. It’s likely that a portion of them won’t learn about consent in college, and maybe not even then.
Before this, we were worried that consent may be a “moot point” by the time a potential user reached 18, but this is clearly not the case.
Another question, “How often do you ask for explicit or verbal consent?” showed a good amount, 49% actually, of people waffle around the topic.
During our research, we had users tell us about always asking about STD testing — but not always asking for explicit consent, in hookup situations. We wondered if it would be effective to compare asking for consent to asking about STD status. Survey Says: No go.
We also asked questions about underwear design, because people need to want to buy the product — not just think it’s a cool idea.
Define the Problem
It’s not enough to have cool underwear, so we’re currently working on materials (and potentially a user-driven website/experience) to educate people on consent.
Ideating
Which leads us to where we are now: Design! Below, we’ve shared preliminary product sketches for JST ASK underwear. We’re currently working with the awesome folks at the DNA Group to create samples, and will be having a photo and video shoot in the coming weeks. If you want to stay updated on our progress, join our email list.
Which are your favorite pair? Let us know in the comments!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, I’m Bri! A queer fashion designer (currently paying for that calling as a business and marketing professional for HBICs). Insta here, twitter here. If you’re a Creative Business Babe, and would like to be featured, drop me a line!
If you enjoyed this post, please share the shit out of it! Let’s raise the profile of consent culture.
