“Hello ladies, I’m a family man looking for discrete fun.” Swipe left. No profile photo. Swipe left. Three gym selfies. Swipe left. You open your inbox to check if you have any messages from a match, and there you have it – an unsolicited dick pic illuminated by the unflattering light of a smartphone. Maybe along with a creepy message.

If you’ve ever found yourself navigating through a dating website while dodging dick pics, you’re not alone. A YouGov survey of 2,302 women found that of the 53 % of millennials who had received a dick pick, 78 % had not asked to see the image. Alongside harassing messages, crude pick up lines, and limited safety features, it can make online dating a nightmare.

The problem mostly stems from a lack of female leaders in technology. Only 11% of executives in Silicon Valley are female, so most of the technology coming out of the area is designed with a male-centered perspective. It only adds to the problems of women being ignored as a consumer group.

Women’s pleasure has been hidden behind closed doors, so it’s no wonder that the technological world around us isn’t hitting the spot. But before you close dating apps for the last time, there are technological options created by women for women.

Dating

Bumble is an app created by Whitney Wolfe – one of the co-founders of Tinder. While the app works on a similar location-based concept, it’s designed to give women the chance to take more control over who they are messaging. Only women can make the first move. It sounds simple, but it is really refreshing to open your inbox and chat to people you’re actually interested in, rather than have to filter through tons of weird messages. There is also a photo sharing feature that automatically stamps a photo with the user’s name and face, as another way to weed out the dick pics.

Another app created by women for women is Coffee Meets Bagel, which matches you with friends of friends using data from Facebook. Designed by three sisters, Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang, the app only gives you one match a day. If both people agree, the app sends a message with an icebreaker question.

Sex toys

Sex toys have traditionally been designed with the mindset that women mostly enjoy penetrative sex objects. They tend to be large, clunky, and difficult to hold. Little design flaws show they’re not really designed with women in mind, like on-off buttons facing the wrong direction or shaped in a way that misses the good bits. Luckily, some sex toy companies are focussing on the female consumer in a male-dominated industry.

CalExotics, founded by Susan Colvin, offer products designed for women. One of the company’s most innovative products includes the California Exotic Tiered Silver Bullet – an attachment for the Sterling Collection 7 Function Control – that allows women to personalize an experience unique to their own pleasure by setting various speeds and settings.

Other products on the market designed for female pleasure include the Eva II. Designed by Dame Products, The soft flexible wings of the Eva II hands-free vibrator are designed to tuck under the labia and it is part of a line of sex toys aimed to ‘close the pleasure gap’ and heighten intimacy for women and their partners.

Education

Many of us lost out on good sex education when we were young. We only learned about the functional bits – the biology behind sex, pregnancy, and periods. But we didn’t learn about consent, masturbation, or sexual technique. Most of us learned as we went along. But now there are some fantastic resources online to help women (and men) learn more about female pleasure.

The website OMGYes is pioneering the way. The founders, Lydia Daniller and Rob Perkins, partnered with Indiana University and the Kinsey Institute to survey over 2,000 women aged 18 to 95 about techniques and pleasure. The site features a realistic virtual vagina for practicing 12 taught techniques, accompanied by videos of women talking about what they enjoy and demonstrating how they do it.

Another site, HappyPlayTime created by Tina Gong, offers a more ‘cutesy’ cartoonish approach with similar educational material on women’s pleasure. Whichever design you prefer, both websites offer unintimidating in-depth information on sexual pleasure.

With all of this technology, products for female pleasure are finally making their way into the mainstream market. Whether you’re looking to learn more about sexuality, start having more positive interactions on dating websites, or finding a sex toy designed for your anatomy, female-led sex and dating technology is leading the way to offer more pleasurable experiences for women.