Artificial intelligence has been credited with helping students pass exams and making the work day easier – but now it is being deployed in the bedroom.
Patricia Lopez is deploying the tech to help the up to 30 percent of adult men who suffer from premature ejaculation last longer during sex.
MyHixel is a sex toy that has a companion app. In combination, they train men to lost longer in bed and trials show it can boost endurance by up to seven-fold.
Lopez told DailyMail.com she was inspired to create the device because she found most previous men’s sex toys ‘very explicit’ rather than focusing on sexual wellness.
The company’s founder, Patricia Lopez, launched the MyHixel Control app and device after seeing a gap in the market (Myhixel)
Myhixel has now sold 30,000 units and rising.
The Control device works for men with primary premature ejaculation (who have always had the problem) and secondary premature ejaculation (people who develop it later in life).
‘It also works for men who want to improve their technique,’ said Lopez.
Lopez said, ‘At the end of the day, we are teaching men how to control the mechanisms involved in the process.
‘It’s surprising how most men don’t have a clue about how it works, and how they can control it.’
Lopez said: ‘It’s super challenging for a brand like ours: women talk about sexual problems in a very natural way, and openly accept them, whereas around 80% of men won’t seek professional help. They don’t talk with friends. Mostly they look for solutions on the internet.
Lopez worked with doctors and sex therapists to design an app and device that would work together to beat premature ejaculation, which affects up to a third of men at some point in their lives.
The video-based cognitive therapy in the app is progressive, and works using machine learning and AI to personalize the ‘lessons’ to each user (Myhixel)
Lopez said: ‘The doctors we worked with, they thought, “Okay, we need to include a product that emulates the sensation of real penetration, because otherwise there’s a gap between the training phase and real penetration. That way we have our users trained in a very realistic way.”’
The app uses cognitive behavioral therapy delivered via video to treat premature ejaculation; ‘It’s how sex therapists typically treat it,’ Lopez said.
The video-based cognitive therapy in the app is progressive, and works using machine learning and AI to personalize the ‘lessons’ to each user.
Lopez said: ‘The program uses machine learning from the beginning of the user’s journey to adapt to their needs, and the progress depends on their results.’
Lopez said that the device has been through three clinical trials which have been published in scientific journals including the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The Control device can help men last up to seven times longer (Myhixel)
The device pairs with a dedicated app (Myhixel)
In the trials, some men managed to multiply the time they lasted by up to seven times.
Lopez said: ‘One started with two minutes, and after the program was able to last up to 14 minutes. The whole group is considered not to be suffering from premature ejaculation any more.’
On average across the three trials, users start with three minutes and are able to last 10 to 11 minutes by the time they finish the program.
The $300 Myhixel II device connects to the app via Bluetooth, and is IPX7 rated for waterproofing so it can be immersed in water for washing.
The app also offers nutrition, fitness and mindfulness plans designed by sexual health experts to improve performance.
Having studied tourism at university, Patricia Lopez worked in marketing for a leading sex toy brand when she noticed a lack of products for men.
She said: ‘I used to attend events, trade shows in that space. It is a space where there are much more brands and products related to the female audience. Female-focused brands were the ones that typically were launching new products, updating and leading.
The company’s founder, Patricia Lopez, launched the MyHixel Control app and device after seeing a gap in the market (Myhixel)
Lopez first noticed brands moving towards a ‘health and wellness’ approach in the female market in 2016, and thought the approach was smart and interesting .
‘It’s a way to eliminate taboos, and to open up more sales channels,’ she said. ‘To me, it was pretty clever. I thought that nobody was doing this for the men’s market – most of the products were very explicit.’
Lopez talked to sex therapists, doctors and neurologists to understand how products could address male sexual conditions such as premature ejaculation.
‘The feedback I got was pretty positive,’ she said.
She pitched it to the sex toy company she worked for – ‘They were not interested,’ she said – and then resigned and started her own company in her native Spain.
She worked with a Sexological Institute in Spain to develop a product that included not only a physical toy but also educational content from therapists.
‘We detected a lack of education among men when it comes to sexual health,’ she said.
Lopez said, ‘We turn it into a gamified, online program. We provide video tutorials to educate men in terms of anatomy – and then they have to overcome different challenges using the device. They learn to control their body and their mind.’
In the coming months, the company is working on a new product targeted at men with erectile dysfunction.
