KY Intense Gets In Bed With Lesbians

Carolyn’s Team Pick:

This commercial for K-Y Intense is adorable. And look, lesbians!

Look, in an ad about something to do with sex but also inferred monogamy! I always feel left of the massive dude- and/or condom-oriented advertising campaigns in Pride season and really the rest of the time, and so this is excellent on at least three levels.

This ad begins airing on September 5, but you can watch it here right now!

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Ryan Yates

Ryan Yates was the NSFW Editor (2013–2018) and Literary Editor for Autostraddle.com, with bylines in Nylon, Refinery29, The Toast, Bitch, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, and elsewhere. They live in Los Angeles and also on twitter and instagram.

Ryan has written 1142 articles for us.

44 Comments

  1. If I wasn’t an advocate for using chemical-free lubricants, I would be 100% into it… :)

    As it is, if I see the commercial on TV maybe I’ll buy a bottle to vote with my dollars for lesbians appearing in mainstream ads.

  3. I’ll believe it when I see it (being broadcast on TV, that is). I can already imagine the sort of Christian Family [insert organizational name here] homophobic campaign that will wind up to try to get this ad quashed.

    Also, does anyone else find the ad a wee bit cheesy? Just sayin’…

    • Those adds are always cheesy, though. They also always feature a het couple in a seemingly steady relationship. So to indicate that lesbians also have steady relationships similar to het couples, that’s fantastic!

    • Oh yeah, they’re gonna fucking HATE this ad. Not only does it feature sex, it features LESBISEX and WOMEN EXPERIENCING SEXUAL PLEASURE. Nothing is more gross for them.

      It just delights me.

    • Thing is, fundamentalist Christian homophobes aren’t likely to buy this sort of product anyway, so I’d be surprised if the company even cares whether they make a fuss about it. I suspect this type of bigot is likely to be grossed out and upset simply because it’s an ad for a sex product: the gay aspect will just add to that pre-existing upset.

      Non-Christian bigots, on the other hand…

  4. I love it! I like it when lesbians are represented like we are NORMAL PEOPLE. And it’s sad how unusual that is.

    • that is legit something i would say after sex, though. about a new toy or new lube or whatever. so yeah, the commercial might be cheesy, but that part is SPOT ON.

    • Yes, we’ll be blamed for the inevitable wave of apoplexy to follow.
      Let them, I’ll buy stock in the makers of nitroglycerin tabs.

  9. This commercial made me want to buy KY Intense… good job KY! But I really am a little giddy about this, I really hope it gets aired!!

  11. Yeah, something tells me this is gonna be way bigger than it should be. 30 second TV ad for arousal gel…30 days (at least) of talking, blogging, making statements, bitching, pissing, and moaning about it.

    • In other words, lots of free advertising for KY Intense. Hmm. Seems like a smart commercial move to me. Even if they do end up pulling the ad as a result of complaints, they’ll have had a shed-load of free advertising already.

  14. Yaaa FINALLY…they’ve made every type of couple but a lesbian couple..its sad it took this long tho!!!

  16. When is it airing? For how long? On what stations? We know nothing about the ad buy, other than it starts next week. For all I know, this is a well-placed and deceptive web ad.

    • It will begin airing nationally on September 5th and we were told about it directly from the source (the ad agency who handles their LGBT market).

      • Right, but how big is the ad buy? That is my question — is this a token ad buy or a real ad buy?

        This could easily be a token ad buy, where they do a very minor TV run, but publicize the ad to gay websites/newspapers to hit the gay market directly, without paying big bucks to run a gay ad on actual TV. Political campaigns that don’t have money will do that — make tiny ad buys so they at least get the news coverage in the paper and attention about the ad since barely anyone will actually see it on TV.

        The fact that the ad agency publicized this without telling you how long the ad will be running, one what channels or how much the ad is worth is very fishy to me. This could really be an advertising strategy about publicizing the ad, not the ad itself.

        • @riese and I also saw coverage of this ad on other gay websites. Is it normal that companies go out of their way to alert the media to a new ad before it starts running? I’m just skeptical because there is a perception that when you run “gay ads” you ignore the larger straight market. Would a company make a significant buy of an ad that alienates probably the largest segment of their market? (I’m no expert on people’s sex habits, but I would think lesbians would actually be the smallest market for a product like this.) I guess we’ll find out in a week or so.

          Don’t get me wrong, on one hand it’s great that they see lesbians a demographic one worth marketing to and produced an ad that shows a positive, realistic portrayal of a monogamous lesbian couple. And I did like the ad. I just wonder how honest they are being and if they are taking advantage of the fact that we really want ads about us, get excited about it, share it/write about it and are a pretty loyal group of consumers.

  18. How cute. I’ve never even heard of it, but it’s worth my monetary contribution in honor of their well spend advertising budget. Way to be bold, KY! :)

  20. Awesome ad!

    D’y’all think it could bring us any closer to having dental dams available along with all things hetero in the condom/lube aisle?

    I mean, I hear there’s always saran wrap, but that’s generally in the food aisles, soooo….

    • THIS. SO MUCH. I’ve checked every drug store and supermarket and cannot find dental dams anywhere. Why should I be forced to purchase contraception online and pay for shipping? Such bs. I don’t want to have to cut a condom. I want a real dental dam.

      • Oh my gosh, thank you! I have gone to so many stores in my area looking for dental dams. SO MANY. And while they had condoms, but no dental dams. UGH.

  22. YESSSSS.

    Also I love how they’re kind of playing on the stereotype of ‘lesbians process their feelings/communicate a lot’ in the beginning of the commercial.

  29. Okay, so far I’ve only seen this ad on logotv.com during my Drag Race marathon. Has anyone seen it in a non-gay space yet?

Comments are closed.