On Tuesday night, I finally did what I have been avoiding doing for the last few months: I set up a Decentraland account. I was provided a few options, hesitant to pick any, but opted for MetaMask purely due to its logo being a fox. I then attended a Metaverse party hosted by sexual wellness company, Lovehoney Group. The whole time I was telling myself, “This isn’t a virtual orgy”.
But here we are.
Lovehoney Group is the world’s largest sexual wellness company. I had the pleasure of chatting with the man in charge of tech at Lovehoney Group only last month, and while we talked all things artificial intelligence and pleasure, we didn’t talk about the metaverse. In fact, I’m willing to bet Tobias Zegenhagen was itching to tell me about its upcoming initiative but he couldn’t. Not to worry, I went balls deep on my own.
So yes, Lovehoney is launching a sexual wellness pop-up space in Decentraland. It will run from Saturday (July 16) through to July 31. The space spans four floors and offers an immersive brand and product experience, educational videos, workshops, a dance floor showcasing the company’s new music-activated product collection “Juno” and an erotic NFT art exhibition and auction.
It’s wild. Check it out for yourself.
According to Lovehoney:
“The sexual wellness industry has benefited from technological advances for years, and the Metaverse offers new opportunities.”
“Plus, the Metaverse space offers an anonymous place for people to explore sexual wellness products and content around the topic of sexuality.”
Fair play.
So, what did I do in the Lovehoney metaverse?
Unlike other metaverse parties Gizmodo Australia has attended (Australian Open concert, Meta’s Foo Fighters Super Bowl LVI after party), I actually got into the Lovehoney metaverse. I was greeted by ‘Betty the Bee’, Lovehoney’s security avatar. Betty is responsible for greeting visitors at the front door with information on how they can report inappropriate behaviour and block anyone who is making them feel uncomfortable. Blocking someone seems pretty straight forward (though I didn’t need to do this). You simply click on the person’s avatar, select ‘block’, and additionally, by pressing the ‘E’ key on your keyboard, you will be moved to a random area of the Lovehoney store.
Everyone must be 18 or over to enter.
Decentraland was buggy. So buggy. The navigation keys are ridiculously hard to, well, navigate, but that’s not Lovehoney’s fault, so I persisted. It’s no surprise we at Gizmodo Australia haven’t bought into the metaverse. I’m unsure what, if any, value it adds to my life when interacting with a brand. And Decentraland just blows. But alas.
Within the shop, you can click through to Lovehoney’s website to buy products and read more. I can also do this from my phone or laptop, without the metaverse element.
While I haven’t been won over by the metaverse, not even remotely, Lovehoney has incorporated something pretty cool – a dancefloor. I touched on it above, but this dancefloor showcases some of Lovehoney’s products, in particular the Juno range, which is “designed to buzz along to the beat”.
“If you live for music, wait until you feel it coursing through your body to get your sweet spots dancing. After all, who said the dance tent is just for dancing?,” Lovehoney says.
I may or may not have switched the Juno on when I was on the dancefloor. It does what the company says it does. Anyway.
You can also buy NFTs and hear talks in the virtual area.
The whole thing is a very cute idea from Lovehoney – if gimmicks like the metaverse help people explore their sexual wellness in a way they otherwise wouldn’t, I’m all for it.
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