If your parents discover a pair of handcuffs, a gel bottle, a mike-like object with a few buttons, and a ring too large for the average size in your room, they, like most Indian parents, will assume you’re a thief who uses these tools to pick locks and break into homes late at night. “That’s why your child keeps the door closed from the inside. he doesn’t want to be discovered.”
We exaggerate, but we’re not far off the mark. Indians are notoriously clueless, often on purpose, about the art of lovemaking, ways of protection, and the various paths to pleasure. The land of the Kamasutra is plagued by amusing bouts of amnesia caused by societal norms. Unfortunately, bringing people into the ways of pleasure is not a two-pump job; it is difficult, time-consuming, and requires a great deal of patience.
TTK Healthcare, the marketers of SKORE Condoms, which were introduced to Indian homes in 2012, knows a thing or two about this. Nearly a decade after its debut, when most Indians may have realized the importance of protected sex, the brand decided to focus on pleasure, and in 2021, it introduced flavored lubes vibrating rings.
Pleasure is addictive; you constantly crave more. According to Vishal Vyas, assistant vice president, of marketing, TTK Healthcare, the origins of this depot of love are that “the market, for pleasure products, always existed, it just required a proper distribution channel.”
What worked as a blessing for the company, he says, was the “explosion of online” in the last few years, courtesy of e-commerce, which made it easy for any product to directly reach a consumer “be it the living room or the bedroom.”
This was the ideal opportunity for TTK Healthcare to “break into D2C through passion products that we have pioneered all along in the offline space.” That’s how LoveDepot came to be,” Vyas explains. According to TTK Healthcare’s research, women are more aware of lubes and toys, and they use sex toys more frequently.
TTK Healthcare is a subsidiary of the TTK Group, which began as a distribution agency for brands such as Lux and Cadbury. According to Vays, “it pioneered FMCG distribution in India, as well as the sexual pleasure category.”
It used to import condoms under the brand name Durapack before independence in the 1940s. In the 1960s, it established India’s first condom manufacturing facility, and a decade later, it launched India’s first commercial condom brand. The company is well-versed in the field of sexual wellness.
Jackie Shroff and Neena Gupta discovered handcuffs in their son’s bedroom five years ago, and he blamed Gupta’s mollycoddling for his son’s behavior. That was a short film titled Khujli (keep an eye out for Gupta’s reaction to Shroff’s acquisitions). Let’s hope that India’s discovery of sex toys goes more smoothly this time.
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