Emmanuel was confident and charming. A 22-year-old with a West African accent, he told me how he just met a girl at a club and how they immediately connected. They exchanged numbers. Soon enough, texts became sexually explicit, and they started sharing fantasies.
It was clear he was comfortable sexting. But when it came to asking about STI status and protection preferences—themes I pressed him on—he admitted feeling embarrassed and afraid.
Emmanuel is not alone.
When it comes to sex, my team and I found young men often know what to talk about, but frequently lack the language on how to talk about it. They know, for example, that it’s important for consensual sex to be specific about their desires and inquire about their partners. But how?
I heard Emmanuel’s story and dozens like them after two colleagues and I were accepted into a tech start-up accelerator funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Each of us had grown frustrated with health interventions built on the desires of policymakers, not young people. We entered the program asking ourselves “How might we harness the media preferences of young men to encourage pleasurable and safe sexual experiences?”
Eventually, our answer became Wingman, a smartphone keyboard that helps young men talk about the hard stuff. We harnessed massive amounts of open source data to build Wingman, and translated the data's reactions to what a user types into useful visuals and real-time haptic cues. More specifically, we use machine learning to evaluate the suggestiveness of conversations, showing users when things heat up with an on-screen thermometer. Wingman then suggests the right words at the right times. Friendly words for friendly times. Flirty words for flirty times. And sexy words for sexy times.
As users type, Wingman’s quick and dirty how-tos help them tackle hard-to-talk-about topics, like STI status, pleasure and fantasies, desires and boundaries, condom preferences, and more. We believe that by learning how to have these hard conversations, we can learn more about ourselves, build better connections through better conversations, and yes, have better sex.
We created and refined a pitch (and pitch deck) with social entrepreneurship investors.
Pictured is me, left, co-conducting an intercept interview with Wingman co-founder and two prospective Wingman users, in Chicago, IL, May 2019. We asked users for their opinions on four concepts, including a Wingman prototype.
Pictured is me, right, leading a prospective user, left, through a card-sorting activity I designed with IDEO, in his home in San Francisco, CA, September 2019. We asked the user to rank features of a conceptual app that enhanced digital intimacy. Photo credit: Tynan Collins, IDEO.
We found that young people want personal, intimate content to be handled with class, humor, and privacy. Across the app, web, and social channels, I created a refined identity (right) that normalized taboo imagery (like sex toys) in a luxe, sophisticated style. We talk about sex with care and intentionality but also remain approachable and easy-to-talk-to. The Wingman logo (left) is designed by Tynan Collins, IDEO.
A patent for Wingman is currently pending with the U.S. patent office.