Sex & CBD With Raven Faber Of Eng Erotics

How did a structural engineer become the founder of a sex toys & CBD company? And what’s the connection between better sex and CBD?

In this episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast, our host Matt sits down for a conversation with Raven Faber of EngErotics for a conversation on motherhood, engineering, starting a business, sex toys and CBD. This is the latest part of our ongoing Women in Hemp series.

Raven is a black woman who started her career in STEM and ended up founding a healthy, educational sex toy company, EngErotics. Using her engineering background Raven has developed sex toys that work for people of all sexual orientations, genders and body types. Matt sat down with Raven to discuss their recent addition of CBD products to their line and how CBD can affect and even help improve intimacy.

Previously, we reviewed EngErotics Oh!Nectar, a CBD-infused oil which can be used for intimate massages or as a lubricant. If you’re interested in trying their products, you can use coupon code The_Ministry to get 10% off your first EngErotics order.

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Raven Faber founded EngErotics after realizing she could design better sex toys and intimate CBD products through her engineering background.

Sex & CBD with Raven Faber: Complete episode transcript

Below you will find the full written transcript of this episode:

Matt Baum: I’m at Matt Baum, and his is the Ministry of Hemp Podcast brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education.

I’ve been talking to a lot of women who are doing very exciting things in hemp on the show recently, and today we’re going to talk to another one. Her name is Raven Faber, and she is the CEO of a company called EngErotics. Raven doesn’t directly work in CBD or hemp, but she does bring CBD into your business. You see, Raven works in sex toys and she comes from an engineering background and she is amazing. She’s so fun to talk to and you guys are going to hear my conversation with her real soon. Now, some of you might be saying, “Well, what does CBD have to do with sex toys at all?” You’ll see, trust me, but when I started thinking about the differences between the hemp market, specifically the CBD market and the sex toy market, they have a lot of things in common. Both industries have been battling a lack of education and understanding that can shunt them to darker disreputable places.

When it comes to CBD, you’ll find less than reputable companies making all kinds of medical claims about how it’ll cure your allergies and make you see better and cure your cancer. The same thing knows with the erotic sex toy industry. For too long, you’ve had to go to very male humor driven porn shops, full of essentially joke memorabilia that doesn’t do anyone any good. Raven found a way to, not only help people enjoy sex, enjoy themselves and accept themselves for who they are, but introduce CBD into their sex life as well with some pretty cool results. While we don’t get into the nitty gritty of things, today’s episode is going to be pretty explicit, so if you have little ones, again, this might be a good headphones experience, but I’m really excited about talking to Raven, and I think you guys will think she’s really cool too. Here’s my conversation with Raven Faber of EngErotics.

Meet Raven Faber

Raven, welcome to the Ministry of Hemp Podcast. Nice to have you aboard.

Raven Faber: Yeah, thank you for having me. This is this really cool.

Matt Baum: Before we go into like the CBD stuff, tell me about EngErotics. Tell me how about how this came about because it sounds like you were kind of a nerd and you got interested in some stuff and you just took it to its logical conclusions over there.

Raven Faber: No, still am. I’m currently a nerd. Yeah, EngErotics is my first baby, I guess next to my actual babies and my cat, which is my fur baby. I still am very much a nerd. I’m an engineer by profession and I practiced in the corporate world for 10 plus years, about 12, 13 years before. Well, actually, I founded EngErotics while I was still working on the tail end of that, but yes, I’m a structural engineer. Went to CU Boulder here in Colorado and got my bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering and my master’s degree in civil engineering. My area …

Matt Baum: Okay. Let me stop you real quick here.

Raven Faber: Yeah.

Matt Baum: How do you go, and this is … I’m not doubting what you do. I think what you do is necessary and important and kick-ass. Thank you for doing it, but how does one go from structural engineering to engineering erotica? Well, not erotica, but erotic tools and whatnot.

Raven Faber: Yeah. I feel you. Well, first of all, there are a lot of similarities between structural engineering and sex toys and sex in general because structural engineers, we engineer things to stand up straight and not fall down. Erections, we erect things.

Matt Baum: Ideally that’s what the erection does, right?

Raven Faber: Yeah. I’m also trying to erect things over here.

Matt Baum: Fair enough.

Raven Faber: The story is, is that my career in engineering and my career in sex toys, they were running alongside each other in parallel, believe it or not. When I was in grad school, I was broke, and I didn’t know that the recession was going to be a thing. I was just trying to get … I was about to go to grad school. I actually started in direct sales. So, I was a sex toy sales lady. I did sex toy parties. I started doing that in grad school as a way to make some extra money. I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do this thing and make some money.” What I didn’t know is that I was going to like it a lot and I didn’t know I was going to be really, really, really good at it.

I actually continued to be a sex toy consultant on the side while I was being an engineer during the week, working 40 plus hours a week during the week. Then, on the weekends I’d go make some extra change, sling and dildos and talking about vibrators. That’s how I learned about sales and being … and not just sales, but being able to sell something that’s so personal and maybe even like taboo and dirty. Taboo, big air quotes, taboo and dirty.

Matt Baum: The Ministry of Hemp does not think it is taboo or dirty, but yes.

Raven Faber: I figured.

Matt Baum: I understand what you’re saying. This is a very [inaudible 00:05:58] show and we will not use those words.

Raven Faber: Yeah, you guys would have to bleep me out every other word.

Matt Baum: No, don’t worry about that.

Raven Faber: Learning how to sell a product and put the client at ease when it comes to buying their first vibrator or their first butt plug, whatever it is. I met all kinds of women. I’d say like I did this like for nearly a decade. From the time that I was, oh gosh, I was just barely 22 up until, gosh, my late 20s, and for reference, I’ll be 34 in March. I was an engineer in the corporate world and a sex toy sales lady for about the same length of time. During that time, I really liked selling. I liked it and I was finding that the direct sales route was not really what it was cracked up to be for me.

I wasn’t really getting everything that I needed out of it. I started to notice that in a variety of the things that were being offered because its direct sales. I would never bash anybody if that’s what they want to do, but you get your kit and you have your catalog. Most consultants, you don’t really get to choose what you’re offering. You just surely don’t have any say in the design process.

Matt Baum: So, this is the scientist nerd in you started to go …

Raven Faber: Yes, exactly.

Matt Baum: I think I can make a better vibrator than that.

Raven Faber: Yeah, exactly. I started to notice design flaws, things that could be very easily fixed, but they were just designed a little bit differently, and I started noticing some real gaps in the market. I noticed that a lot of what we were offering and how we were marketing it, very, very heteronormative. I know for the longest time, I’m not going to mention any company names obviously, but I know for the longest time that the idea was to have a fun ladies only party. You can imagine how that’s going to get muddy because you meet somebody who identifies as a woman and maybe they have not gone through their transition. It’s painful and expensive from what I understand. It’s like, listen, I’m not going to do ball checks at the door and reach my hand under somebody’s skirt. It made me really uncomfortable, that whole premise.

Then also, the things that we were offering they weren’t necessarily inclusive to other sexual identities, other gender identities. It was a very … yeah. We’ve gotten better over the years, but historically, the sex toy has been very status quo, very heteronormative.

Making better sex toys

Matt Baum: It’s so bizarre me. That blows my mind because it just seems like if there’s one industry that should fundamentally understand this stuff, you know what I mean? And be like, “Look, we’re not taking anybody’s crap and we’re not judging anybody. If you want a toy, we got it for you.” It seems like it should be the sex toy industry. Right?

Raven Faber: You would think that. Granted, things have gotten so much better over the past eight or 10 years, but there was a period of time where it just wasn’t that, it really was not that. Think back to, this was well before I knew anything about toys, because I was a little, I was a child, the late ’80s, early ’90s. You’d go get sex toys from the CD shop on the bad side of town and you had a very basic veiny throbby looking dildo.

Matt Baum: Yeah, and there were garbage. It was just garbage. It was stuff that you bought for parties and jokes and whatnot.

Raven Faber: Yeah, they weren’t being marketed like they are now. They certainly weren’t being marketed to women. They weren’t being marketed to queer couples, trans couples, it wasn’t there. We still have a long way to go, granted, and I’m finding that there are other companies that are trying to rehabilitate their image for lack of a better term, but there are a lot of really great companies in sex tech right now that are really doing, like leading the charge.

Matt Baum: A lot of women fronted companies I’ve noticed too, it seems like a lot of women got into the industry and said, “What the problem is? There’s too many dudes that are running this and you guys all think it should be geared a certain way.”

Raven Faber: Well, gosh yeah. We’re seeing, like it’s 2019 and we’re still trying. Like women, we’re still trying to get our seat at the table. There was this whole to do last year at CES and Laura de Carlo and they rightfully …

Matt Baum: Okay, CES. I don’t know what that is.

Raven Faber: The Consumer Electronic Showcase. Yeah, it’s in Vegas. It’s where you go to see all the latest tech gadgets, robotics, drones, the SAT and the other …

Matt Baum: Sure. It’s going on right now, right?

Raven Faber: It’s going on right now. It’s going on this week. Yeah, I know somebody who’s there with her invention and it’s quite amazing. We’re still fighting for a seat at the table. They have been having like VR porn and sex robots and stuff like that at CES, but as soon as you have a woman owned company with a vibrator that’s for women’s pleasure and that’s what it is, like no, no, no, no. This year is a bit different. There’s a big handful of sex tech companies that are at CES this year. I’m so pleased because that’s …

Matt Baum: It’s awesome.

Raven Faber: I’m so pleased. I’m just like …

Matt Baum: The more open we can be about this, the more normalizing we can be about it, the better we will all feel, literally.

Raven Faber: Well, yeah. The thing is that it’s a big market. It is a huge market. There are so much designing to be done, so much money to be made, and when the tide rises, all of the boats are going to rise, all of them, every single last damn one. Yeah, so when I started noticing these gaps in the market, this need for better design, better materials. I can’t even remember if I knew … I don’t even think I’d heard the term sex tech. I just knew that, I am an engineer, I take in circuits, I like building stuff. For anything that I don’t know how to do like when you go to school and you’re an engineer, well you have a bunch of other friends that are also engineers too.

Matt Baum: Sure. You call the right nerd. They tell what screw needs to be tightened or whatever.

Raven Faber: Yeah, pretty much.

Matt Baum: Obviously, I’m an engineer, I know what I’m talking about.

Raven Faber: Obviously. The engineer’s always right. All you got to do is just dig down real deep and just be like, “I feel like an engineer today.” Just real, real deep, find your inner engineer.

Matt Baum: So, you knew sex tech existed, you just didn’t know it was sex tech.

Raven Faber: I didn’t even realize what it was called.

Matt Baum: It just wasn’t a thing yet.

Raven Faber: I just wanted to build, can I curse?

Matt Baum: Yes, you can curse. That’s fine.

Raven Faber: I wanted to build shit. I’m cursing.

Matt Baum: Trust me, this show is already explicit.

Raven Faber: I just wanted to build some shit and I didn’t even know what the company was going to look like. I didn’t know. I just knew that it was on my radar. I started thinking about it probably two years before I actually founded EngErotics. I’m still in the corporate world and a friend of mine introduced me to a, they’re no longer in business, but a startup called Orgasmatronics, and I had the pleasure of meeting their founder, their CEO and their team. It just blew my mind. I’ve told each and every one of them that, that was really like the catalyst. That was the inspiration. That was really when I knew without a shadow of a doubt that yes, there was a place for engineering and science in the realm of sex toys, because of that company, although it was not founded by a woman, it was founded by a physicist with a PhD. I’m like, holy shit.

Matt Baum: A nerd, there you go.

Raven Faber: What is going on? And he’s doing videos about eccentricity and frequency and rotational vibration. He had his whiteboard, and he’s putting this on YouTube and writing equations and shit. I’m like …

Matt Baum: Like yes, yes, this is what we need.

Raven Faber: Yes, where was this course in college? Where was this? Unfortunately, the company went under and I was really sad to see that happen because what they were bringing to the table was really cool. The concept, just Orgasmatronics. I was like, yes.

Matt Baum: Great name.

Raven Faber: Yes, absolutely. I speak very highly of them because they were really my inspiration and affirmation that, yeah, this is a thing. Yes, absolutely.

From sex toys to CBD

Matt Baum: Let me ask you. From there, because I have to, obviously the show is about Hemp so we need to bring it back to hemp, but from there you start building your own superior, well engineered sex toys driven for women, for trans couples, for just about anybody who needs one. How do we get to CBD?

Raven Faber: Oh gosh.

Matt Baum: How does this [crosstalk 00:15:27]?

Raven Faber: We could be, “Yeah.” I’m like, “This is a hemp show.” We might have to do edition two on this.

Matt Baum: Yeah, no doubt.

Raven Faber: Because it’s a wild ride and there’s a whole like thing about the sex toys and what we do because there’s a difference between being the inventor and being the engineer and that’s a whole different thing. CBD, all right, yeah, CBD. CBD came to find me quite literally. I didn’t even know we were going to be working with CBD. I had no clue. I had no idea at all. We have a private group on Facebook, the EngErotics community. It’s basically like, we have conversations, you and I are having, do Facebook lives. It’s where I gather feedback because I want to give the people what they want.

Matt Baum: Yeah, of course.

Raven Faber: It’s a safe space where we can talk about sex and all that stuff. One day somebody posts in the group, “Hey, Raven. What do you think about CBD infused lubricant and THC infused lubricant?” To be completely honest with you, I had been out of the loop because I’ve been in the corporate world for a long time and the firm that I was at right before I made the leap to become an entrepreneur, I think I can call myself that these days. I think I qualify. Sometimes I’m like, “What the hell am I doing with my life?” I honestly had no clue because I had been … my previous firm in the firm before that, they did randoms and there was a zero-tolerance thing and so I didn’t touch anything.

Matt Baum: Gotcha.

Raven Faber: So yeah, I didn’t use any topicals, I didn’t vape, I didn’t smoke anything. I went to school in Boulder.

Matt Baum: It was around.

Raven Faber: We’re 420 friendly.

Matt Baum: Yeah, it was around.

Raven Faber: Yeah, absolutely. I just couldn’t, because I didn’t want to risk losing my job and so I said, “I have no clue. Let me ask.” Because there were other people that I knew in the space. One of the first people that I asked was one of the founders at Steep Fuse Coffee in Boulder, Colorado.

Matt Baum: Okay. I’ve heard of them.

Raven Faber: Yeah, Devin. Him and I went to high school together.

Matt Baum: Oh cool.

Raven Faber: Yeah, I reached out to him and I was like, “Hey, I got this question, don’t know. I’m reaching out to people. I need people who are current 420 hemp CBD THC people tell me what’s going on because I don’t know how to answer this question.” Long story short, the idea was pitched to me that perhaps maybe EngErotics should dive into this realm and create CBD infused intimate body care products. I thought about it and I realized there was certainly a need for that. On the chemical engineering side, on the formulation side, because sex toys and CBD, they don’t seem like they’re related, but they actually have a lot of things in common. Neither one of them are regulated for quality and safety.

Matt Baum: That’s one of the things when I first heard your name and what you were doing, I said to myself, “Oh my God, this makes perfect sense. How did no one think of this yet?” That’s what blew my mind.

Raven Faber: Well, that’s the thing. I’m sure that many people have, but it’s like a lot of people have an idea, just about everybody has an idea. I have no doubt that there are probably half a dozen other people that maybe thought about launching a company like this, but it’s in the execution. Too often, like, “I have an idea and one day I’m going to do this idea.” And it takes a lot of work to actually … yeah, the execution is … I was very intrigued, very intrigued, and I’m like, I think that there is definitely a need for this and we’re going to see regulation for quality and safety on the CBD side long before we do on the sex toy side, unfortunately.

That’s because of societal stigma and whatnot, but there’s even something stigmatized and taboo about CBD. I hear it every day like, “Oh, I want to I want to give my mom in-law, one of yourself sticks for her whatever, she’s got pain.” Whatever the case may be, “But she has never touched anything cannabis related. I don’t know how she would feel about it.”

Matt Baum: She’s afraid of marijuana or like …

Raven Faber: Yeah. Once we started diving into it. I was really blown away by what the demand was. I was really shocked by how many people didn’t realize you could use CBD to enhance the sexual experience. I was even more shocked to learn that people did not know that there’s no regulation here. There’ve been plenty of people that have been injured by subpar sex toys with toxic materials, butt wider, but you never hear about those things. But if you find somebody who’s an ER nurse or an EMT, those stories.

Matt Baum: Oh yeah, they’ve got plenty of them. Sure.

Raven Faber: Yeah. Sex Sent Me to the ER, I forgot channel it comes on, but there’s a reason why it happens.

How CBD enhances sex

Matt Baum: Can I ask? When you said how CBD enhances, can you explain that? How does it work? In your products, maybe just walk me through one of your products how it’s used and what it’s used for?

Raven Faber: Well, CBD has been, as I’m sure … tell me if I’m telling you something. You’re at the Ministry of Hemp. You know all of this shit.

Matt Baum: No, but we’re here to learn. Don’t worry about it. We’re here to learn.

Raven Faber: We know that it can act as a vasodilator and get more and more blood flow going, and when there’s more blood flowing into an erogenous area, the sensitivity is apt to increase.

Matt Baum: That makes sense.

Raven Faber: Yes. When you apply a CBD topical to the clitoris or you use it internally, on the G spot or you use it on the penis, it has the potential to create more sensitivity for an enhanced experience. Of course, your mileage may vary, everybody is different. Depending upon things like age, do you use tobacco? What’s your medical history? What kind of medications are you on? Have you been using alcohol tonight? These are all things that, I know like when I’ve been drinking, my reaction to CBD is a little bit different because like I feel a little bit …

Matt Baum: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve had CBD in cocktails and stuff and it is a different sensation.

Raven Faber: It’s different. It’s very different. I always tell people, part of the fun is really experimenting to see how it works for you. I always tell people, I find that for a number of people it helps to prolong the experience.

Matt Baum: Really?

Raven Faber: Yeah. It’s like while increasing your sensitivity, getting you out of your own head, especially if you’ve been vaping, I’m not limiting it to … we don’t do vape, but just say you decided to vape CBD, it helps you to get out of that anxious level. I’m a mom. My head is like all over the place and sometimes it’s like, for us women especially, when we’re worried about the kids, we’re worried about doing the … we got to do the school project and all of that stuff. How the hell do you get in the mood for sex when your mind is just like scattered? Or maybe, for us women who are postpartum, it’s like, we don’t look like we did when we were 21. I sure don’t. It’s like gosh, I feel so self conscious and after having used CBD, it’s really a good way of getting out of your own head and getting into a more relaxed headspace so you can have an orgasm and that’s just the mental benefits outside of anything that’s happening in your vagina, on your vagina, on your vulva.

Matt Baum: You’re not thinking about it, you’re just enjoying.

Raven Faber: Yeah, absolutely. But I’ve had clients of mine write into me and tell me about how it’s helped them to increase lubrication, how it’s helped them … they have more sensitivity, they’re able to have more orgasms. It’s helped prolong their partner. It’s been all across the board and since people are so different, it’s like, I can never tell people like, it’s going to do this, this, this for you. All I know is it’s going to be good.

Matt Baum: That’s the same with any CBD product. That’s the same.

Raven Faber: Yeah.

Matt Baum: Anyone who’s making the hardcore claims, it does this, it does that is probably a liar, but we know it helps with anxiety, we know it helps, like you said, take you out of that headspace, it helps mellow you out. And it would make sense that yes, if you introduce it into an erogenous zone, chances are it’s going to absorb the same way and have similar properties.

Raven Faber: Yeah, absolutely. I am not a doctor. I am an engineer. None of us are doctors. We’re all engineers and scientists. Our formulations specialist, she’s very good at telling us this is what you can and cannot say. It’s why we do our labels the way that we do and this, that, and the other. But I can tell you that a number of our clients have written into me and said, “Hey, I have this condition in my intimate area and it’s made it easier for me to have sex.”

Matt Baum: That’s incredible.

Raven Faber: Yeah, I wonder if we’re in this area where there’s new hope for women who have things like vaginismus, vulvodynia, endometriosis. I wonder if we’re like in this space where, there are a lot of women that have … they want to have sex, but it’s very painful, very difficult, even impossible for them to have sex. Maybe this could help them. I tell people like, “Listen, go to town. It’s going to do what it’s going to do. I can’t guarantee that it’s going to do something specific. Your results will vary. They will vary, but I can say that you’re going to have a really good time.” It’s been a very rare occurrence that somebody’s told me like, “Your product didn’t do anything for my sex life.” I’m just so thrilled that our products are helping people and people are loving what we’re doing. Yeah. It came to me. CBD came to find us.

The EngErotics product line

Matt Baum: What do you guys offer right now, CBD wise at Eng? Is it EngErotics or EngErotics? What do you call it?

Raven Faber: EngErotics. Think engineered erotic.

Matt Baum: EngErotics. I kept looking at it. I’m like, how am I going to … ENG, ENG?

Raven Faber: Yeah, it’s okay. It’s all right. We offer a few different things in a variety of different versions right now. We started our product line with our soothing self stick. We retroactively named it the original formula, and it is formulated with coconut oil and cocoa butter. It contains 500 milligrams of CBD. When we launched that, we had a bunch of people that were like, “Well, hey, I want to try it too, but I’m allergic or sensitive to coconut oil. What can you do for us?” So now we also have a coconut free version of the soothing South stick and it’s formulated with mango butter in lieu of the coconut oil and deodorized cocoa butter. So it’s a virtually, I mean, they’re both … neither one of them are scented, but the coconut free version it doesn’t really sound like anything.

We started with a 500 milligram soothing South sticks and then we created our extra strength, 1,000 milligrams South sticks, again original formula and coconut free. Then after that, came the soaking sand bath shots, which if I’m being honest, I didn’t even want it do. I was like, “What do you guys mean you want us to make …? You want us to do what?

Matt Baum: Like a bath bomb basically or? Where you just drop it in?

Raven Faber: No. We don’t do bath bombs. My formulation specialists and I, we had a really long conversation about bath bombs and why we don’t do them. It basically boils down to efficacy. With CBD being oil soluble …

Matt Baum: It is so good to hear somebody say something that makes sense in these [inaudible 00:28:19].

Raven Faber: Yeah, I threw that. I said efficacy. Damn it. How many people …? It’s not a buzz word. It’s something that we really care about. Our soaking sand bath shots, they come in four ounce vials. They look like kinetic sand, if you ever played with that as kid. I play with it now. I got kids, so whatever, I do one.

Matt Baum: It’s super fun. Yeah.

Raven Faber: Yeah. So, you dump the whole thing into your bath tub. They’re 20 milligrams of CBD each. They come in a variety of different scents that we custom blend in-house. Dump the whole vial into your bath water and you soak, and it feels like your body has had a glass of wine, but your inhibitions are not affected at all. So it’s like your whole body is just like “Oh.” The bath shots will get you right. The cool thing about those is that they’re formulated in such a way where the CBD is evenly dispersed throughout the water. If you’ve got a big fancy tub that you can soak right on up to your neck, that’s a very good thing.

Matt Baum: Right. Is it like an oil that comes sits on the top of the water when you get in, it just coach you? Is it like that?

Raven Faber: No, it doesn’t even sit on top of the water. It’s evenly dispersed. Just hangs out.

Matt Baum: Really?

Raven Faber: Suspended yeah, on the top, like from the top down to the bottom. Our testing showed that the efficacy was much better. We don’t plan on doing bath shots, or excuse me, bath bombs. We don’t plan on doing bath bombs. Our people, our followers, they’re like, we want something for the bath. I was like, “What does that have to do with getting it in at night?” And they’re like, “Well, you got to relax and you got to …” I was like, “Oh.”

Matt Baum: There you go.

Raven Faber: But you see, I’m a mom. I haven’t had time for that shit. Since we release those, I have become an occasional bath taker. I still don’t have time, but I take time out to use my own bath shot. So we have those. Then we have them our Oh!Nectar massage oil. We don’t have a CBD infused lubricant because personal lubricants are classified as a class two medical device by the FDA. Yeah.

Matt Baum: Makes sense I guess.

Raven Faber: Yeah. Listen, we’re still on the come up. I don’t have like a whole pile of money to fight the FDA, so we don’t want to piss them off. But we’re marketing … it’s a massage oil and it is safe for intimacy and it’s very good for erotic massage, it’s good foreplay, it’s good for intercourse, it’s good for back door play. It’s good with toys. It’s not safe with latex though because it’s oil-based of course. But those come in a variety of different sense as well. We also have an unscented version in both the bath shots and the Oh!Nectar. Then last year we released, we call it body polish, and it’s a CBD infused sugar scrub. Very gentle. It’s good for your intimate areas. To have a CBD infused bath with a partner or a group of people, we don’t judge.

We’re not here to … And you get that real sensual scrubbed down and you want to get the vibe right. You can’t just jump right into it. You can’t just like, boom, there it is. Draw that bath, soak in the CBD, get your little scrub on that sort of thing.

Matt Baum: Right. Foreplay baby, some romance. Come on.

Raven Faber: Yeah, and it’s like, gosh. I’m like, I feel like such a hypocrite because it’s like … with two kids, it’s like, “Where the hell … I’m lucky if I get a quickie.”

Matt Baum: Yeah, I got 15 minutes, let’s get in. Let’s get going.

Raven Faber: The kids are asleep. Do I want to watch TV? Do I want to go to sleep? Do I want to have sex? Pick one. Maybe two, but you can’t have all three. Otherwise, you can’t, you’re exhausted more so than you already are. Yeah, so that is what we currently offer. Going into 2020, we’re going to be doing some R&D with water soluble CBD.

Matt Baum: Very cool.

Raven Faber: But we’re focusing mostly on toy R&D for 2020. We have a pressure sensitive dildo that we’re working on. I’m very excited.

Matt Baum: That’s very cool.

Raven Faber: Yeah, it’s cool. We’re essentially picking up where Orgasmatronics left off with the team’s blessing, of course.

Matt Baum: Of course.

Raven Faber: I talked to each one of them and I’m still in contact with them. I said, “I would be privileged and honored to work on this and to bring it back and get it to where it needs to be.” Yeah, so we’ll be focusing mainly on mechanical device R&D in 2020. Maybe releasing a couple of new things on the CBD side, but probably not. We’re not in any rush. Our current product lineup is really solid. People seem to love it. I love it.

Matt Baum: I’m excited to try it. I think I’ve got a box coming and I’m super excited to try it.

Raven Faber: Yeah, no, you have a box coming. I’ve got to send that email and …

Matt Baum: Awesome. There’s something to be said about, and I was looking at your site, it’s a great site and it’s very inclusive …

Raven Faber: Thank you. Thank you.

Matt Baum: … and it’s very body positive. There’s something to be about going to a place like that where you know, someone not only thought about this but they put work into it, and not just their own products but the products you’ve selected, and I think you’re doing an amazing at job.

Raven Faber: Thank you. I have to say, I would be remiss if I didn’t shout out the designer who did my website, but her name is Laura Russo and she runs the EA graphic design. She is the reason why we have the look and feel that we do. Because initially I was pumping all my money into R&D and we didn’t really have money to focus on aesthetics. So, she did our website overhaul, she did our rebranding and she really helped us level up.

Matt Baum: She did a great job. It feels like a safe place to go to buy stuff like this.

Raven Faber: I think she nailed it.

Matt Baum: And there’s plenty of other dark corners on the internet.

Raven Faber: I want for people to …

Matt Baum: Where you should be careful.

Raven Faber: It’s really important. I think you nailed it. A lot of people don’t feel safe with this, like what if somebody finds out? What if I go to a sex toy store and I see somebody that I know?

Matt Baum: Right, when my boss is there, or what if somebody sees me outside?

Raven Faber: Yeah. It’s really at the heart of what we do, aside from safety and quality and science and engineering, all that jazz. It’s making people feel safe and cared for and we really want to be a place, like we want to set the tone that you can have a big air quotes because it’s a podcast, prestigious, respectable engineering firm that’s working on sex toys. There’s no reason why this can’t be respectable per se.

Matt Baum: Absolutely. Like we said earlier, the more open we are about it and the more comfortable we make people with it, the better we will all feel about it. I think it goes …

Raven Faber: We have to normalize the conversation.

Matt Baum: I think it goes beyond the fact that you guys are being respectful or you are being reputable. I think it’s the fact that you listen. I think it’s the fact that you listen.

Raven Faber: We try so hard.

Matt Baum: And you feel what people want. That’s how you said CBD found you. I think it is amazing and that’s why I brought you on this show because you’re the only person I’ve heard of doing this and I think it’s incredible.

Raven Faber: Being a minority, being a black woman, there aren’t really a lot of founders in either the sex tech space or CBD that look like me.

Matt Baum: Absolutely. Or just women period, let alone black women. It’s crazy, but it is changing.

Raven Faber: Yeah, and it’s the same …

Matt Baum: We’ve seen a lot of that changing. I’ve been interviewing a lot of women that are coming into this industry, the hemp industry that is, not so much the sex toy industry, but they’re coming in and saying, “Sell, there’s a right way to do this and I’m going to step in and do it. Whether it’s forming or creating a tincture or …” I just spoke to a woman that is making hemp nutrition bars that are amazing. She was like, “I saw a niche and I went for it.” It sounds like that’s exactly what you’ve done. Raven, I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. This has been fantastic.

Raven Faber: Oh gosh, this is amazing.

Matt Baum: Thank you so much.

Raven Faber: I’ve never been on a podcast before.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum: As you obviously heard, I had a blast talking to Raven. She is the coolest. She is a mom, she is a scientist, she is a nerd, she’s in the CBD and she makes sex toys, which puts her right up there in my top five most interesting people that I’ve probably ever spoken to, and of course, you will be able to find links to EngErotics and all of their products in the show notes for this episode.

Next time on the show, bring your appetite because we are going to be talking hemp in food again and I might even do a little bit of cooking. As always, I want to thank everyone that has been supporting the Ministry of Hemp Podcast. You guys have been great and you can hit me with all your opinions, your thoughts and your questions. You can email me at [email protected], or you can call the Ministry of Hemp phone line at (402) 819-6417 and leave a message, and you might just hear your question answered on the show by myself and Kit O’Connell, editor in chief of ministryofhemp.com. Speaking of ministryofhemp.com, make sure to get over there and check out Kit’s picks for the best CBD salves, creams and topicals of 2019.

While you’re there, be sure to subscribe to Ministry of Hemp newsletter so you can be the first to hear about all the exciting news reviews and educational stuff that we are doing at ministryofhemp.com. If that’s not enough for you, follow us on Twitter @MinistryofHemp or on facebook/ministryofhemp. As always, you can find a full written transcript of this episode in the show notes as well because at the Ministry of Hemp, we believe that an accessible world is a better world for everybody, but right now, this is your host Matt Baum saying, be sure to take care of yourself, take care of others, and make good decisions, will you? This is that the Ministry of Hemp Podcast signing off.

Editor’s Note: We initially picked an incorrect photo of Raven Faber for this article, using a clip art model instead. The photo has been corrected. We regret the error. -KO