Kandi Barros was restless. She already had a platinum album, a Grammy, and an appearance on The Real Housewives of Atlanta. But in 2011, no matter her accomplishments, no one wanted her to be the face of an ad campaign.

"There were very few black women chosen to represent the brand, and only about three women who were used over and over again by all major brands," Barras told Marie Claire. "One day I said to my team, 'You know what? I'm tired of even asking how to be the face of somebody else's brand. I'm going to build my own brand,"

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So Barras launched a line of sex toys called Bedroom Kandi, which she grew into a home party plan company (also known as a direct sales company like Avon). Her goal, she says, was "to help black women feel more comfortable talking about sex."

"I was one of the first very famous black women to talk openly about sex and love in order to sell products.

Barras not only has her own struggles as a female entrepreneur in a male-dominated industry, but also as a black business owner in a white-dominated world. While statistics on the racial composition of sex toy company executives and customers are not currently available, Scott Watkins, vice president of sales at Doc Johnson, confirms that most major sex toy companies were founded by whites. Furthermore, a survey of attendees at a 2012 home sex toy party found that less than 4% of attendees were black.

"There is a very strong tokenism in this industry," says Tracy Felder, brand ambassador for sex toy company Children of the Revolution. Sometimes it makes you feel like you have to work twice as hard." The company she works for is great, but when she attends trade shows, white men assume she is a model, she says. She adds, "As black women, we are fetishized."

The racial prejudice that Felder and Barras have felt is deeply rooted in the sex toy business. The modern industry was founded by white men in the 1960s and 1970s, who packaged their devices and sold them in "adult bookstores" (opens in new tab) to appeal to other white men, who were the primary shoppers at the time. Historically, "raw" dildos and vibrators were the color of white skin, and African American sex toys were intentionally oversized and as black as a crayon; in the 1970s, Grenadian immigrant Gosnell Duncan came on the scene with the first silicone Things slowly began to change until he developed the dildo.

But 50 years later, it is still not easy to get a dildo that is painted to look like the real thing; Shani Hart, CEO of Hart's Desires, a sex toy store with two locations in the D.C. area, says, "It has to be 1) made of good material, 2) actually look like black people's skin, and 3) packaged in a way that isn't racist, derogatory, or makes you feel like crap," she said. Not only is it hard to find good, racially diverse toys, but so are brick-and-mortar retail stores in predominantly black neighborhoods. (Online, it's easier to find diverse toys through companies like New York Toy Collective and SheVibe.com (opens in new tab).) This is one of the reasons Hart and her husband founded Hart's Desires. She says, "We wanted to make it possible for black people to read Essence magazine, see ads for Womanizers and Satisfiers, and actually go to their local stores to get quality products."

Women like Hart have been trying to change the sex toy industry for years, but with the recent resurgence of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, more and more of those in charge are finally becoming aware of the systemic racism within their companies.

In June, the trade magazine Xbiz hosted a roundtable discussion on race, during which participants developed an action plan for the pleasure products company. The plan included hiring more blacks and people of color in management positions and adding more black imagery to packaging. Other companies, such as Unbound Babies and Dame Products, doubled down on their public statements in support of "black lives." Unbound Babies made Juneteenth an official company holiday (opens in new tab) and pledged to match donations to a mutual aid fund for sex workers of color, while Dame Products donated to a number of organizations, including the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.

However, Pipe Dream Products, one of the companies that issued a similar statement, still sells male masturbation sleeves on Amazon with racist language: the packaging reads "Flip a Sista Over" and "Jizzle in My Nizzle for Shizzle" on the label. Hart took to social media to call out Pipe Dream's hypocrisy, and after seeing her post, a Pipe Dream executive contacted her. In the conversation, Hart said she recommended that the executive hire more black employees and consult with black consumers to change the packaging. In a statement to Marie Claire, Pipedream revealed that 22% of its current leadership team is black and said, "The package in question was updated when new management took over (about two years ago) and is part of the continuous improvement we are working toward." (The company did not respond to a request for comment on why products with the old packaging are still being sold at Amazon-affiliated retailers and whether efforts are being made to remove them.)

For Tamara P. Bell, founder of the Home Party Plan Association, an organization that helps home party companies choose sex toys directly from manufacturers, progress is welcome but long overdue. She recalls seeing a growing number of products for the black community at a sex toy trade show about 10 years ago, but "we had to call out some manufacturers because they were doing it in a very derogatory way (addressing outdated stereotypes). "April 2010, she formed a group of industry CEOs to meet semi-annually to discuss race "behind closed doors." (They plan to resume the forum in the fall or as soon as COVID-19 regulations allow.)

While hiring more blacks, especially in decision-making roles, would help create noticeable change in the industry, it is clear that simply being a black female sex toy entrepreneur has helped pave the way forward and make room for others. For example, according to Barras, almost 90% of her firm's consultants are black, and the majority of her clients are also black. Another black woman of her generation, Nena Joyner, founder of Feel More in Oakland, said that during the BLM protests in Oakland, she made sure her sex toy store was open and provided goggles and Band-Aids to the protesters.

"Operating as a black business is a form of activism," Joyner says.

"But my protest is also an activity of joy, of making sure that my business, a black business, remains open and available to the community.

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