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Korean sex toys a hit, but can’t top Japan’s Tenga

Sapio December
Sapio December

Sex products from Korea are known for being of a particularly unique nature, but when it comes to quality they do not hold Japan’s candle…that is, hold a candle to Tenga, the nation’s top tool-maker for self-tugging, reports Sapio (December).

The monthly magazine traces the evolution of sex gear in Korea by starting with the Dream Love Chair, a copulating contraption taking up space in many of Japan’s love hotels. Designed by a Korean robotics professor in 2006, this fully automatic, five-gear sex machine consists of two seats facing one another and a mechanical apparatus connecting them. With the flick of a switch, the male seat slides back and forth while the female’s rotates ever so gently. The professor is said to have enlisted over 100 couples during the research and development stage of the design.

Since then, adult goods from Korea have picked up the pace.

“Most adult products from Korea are sold on the Internet,” says a manager at HEPS, the company that makes the Kinsey Multifunction System Enhancer masturbation aid. “From the start, it was Japanese products that had the greatest popularity. The only products from Korea were counterfeits, but now we are coming up with originals.”

Sapio says that at trade shows in the United States and Germany, adult products from Korea are exhibited prominently.

Development of the Kinsey began in 2008. It is a white plastic box about the size of a cigarette pack that when opened, much like a cigarette case, produces a pair of protruding artificial lips. The user’s manhood is then slipped into the gap.

The Kinsey (selling on Amazon for $79.99) hit the market in Korea last fall. In January, the company sold 10,000 units. Since then, the firm has shipped between 3,000 and 4,000 units each month.

The Kinsey has a ways to go to catch Japan’s most formidable maker of masturbation products. Since Tenga launched its first models in Japan on July 7, 2005, its products have gone on sale in over 40 nations, with more than 20 million units shipped.

In the development of the Kinsey, HEPS looked to Tenga. “When I saw the Tenga, its amazing design and quality of materials left me stunned,” says the HEPS representative. “Since there were no outstanding products coming from Korea, I thought that we could develop our own.”

To ensure that repeated usage did not result in an unpleasant odor, test models of the Kinsey went through 300 trial uses.

“Our selling point: ‘A deep feeling upon insertion that cannot be mimicked,'” the rep says. (A.T.)

Source: “Zenjido sekkusu mashin ni ‘fera hooru’…hanryu adoruto guzzu ga cho shinka chu!” Sapio (December, page 104)