Interview with Mikaela Silva, Founder at Sexual Wellness App and Subscription Box: Pleasy Play

Pleasy Play is an intimacy app for couples combined with a subscription box to make it date night, every night. Our personalised challenges encourage couples to try new things and experiment – respecting boundaries while sparking conversations about intimacy.

Our aim is to do for sexual wellness what apps like Headspace have done for mental wellness – removing the taboo and making it a topic that is discussed openly and without reservation. Ultimately, we want to help couples reignite their honeymoon period and build a better relationship.

A good sex life is important to nearly two-thirds of UK adults, according to a 2016 YouGov poll, and studies have shown that sexual satisfaction influences how happy we are in our relationships, and in our lives in general.

Having surveyed our users, more than 75% of couples said that Pleasy had enhanced their sex lives, intimacy and communication, thereby strengthening their relationships.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
Having just welcomed our second child into the world, my husband and I felt that we’d been able to maintain a strong, intimate connection – something we put down to open communication. But when we talked to our friends, we realised that most were quite embarrassed to talk to their partners about their own wants and needs.

We looked into the sexual wellness market out of curiosity, and saw how few services there were for couples looking to enhance intimacy. Through research and from personal experience, we realised that fun was the key factor. But there weren’t any tools to help couples improve their intimacy through fun and exciting activities.

No one was approaching sexual wellness from a prevention rather than cure perspective. All that we could see were services that were either clinical or sexual – nothing in between. And while most companies were targeting one gender, rather than catering specifically to couples and their intimacy.

So we thought “let’s make our own solution”.

We then tested and created a combination of intimate items with a set of challenges that would effectively help to normalise sexual wellness.
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
The pandemic has taken a huge toll on couples around the world. Nearly 1 in 4 couples in the UK feel that the first lockdown put additional pressure on their relationships. It also led to a surge in the number of couples seeking relationship counselling and divorces, which was also evident in the US.

UK law firm, Stewarts, saw a 122% increase in divorce enquiries between July and October, compared with the same period a year earlier, while a US law firm reported a 70% increase in calls for divorce lawyers in October 2020, compared with October 2019.

Considering how crucial intimacy is to a relationship, and that it is often one of the first aspects to suffer in a relationship on the rocks, we feel that Pleasy Play is a unique position to counter this trend. We want to help couples reignite the passion in their relationship to be more happy and fulfilled.
 
 

 

What can we hope to see from Pleasy Play in the future?

 
Pleasy is about fun, experimentation and normalising sexual wellness. It’s also about acceptance and inclusion. With this in mind, in the first quarter of 2021, we’ll be launching a dedicated service for the LGBTQ+ community. We’re also working on expanding the reach of Pleasy Play around Europe this year, starting with France and Germany.

So, Pleasy will soon be able to help couples in three countries to spice up their relationships. We’ll then hope to help to promote happy, intimate relationships right across the world.