The Super Soft C-Ring and A Lot of TMI

Oops-ing your way to your most successful toy

Tantus had a lot of successes but none so dramatic as our Super Soft C-Ring. 

Out of the gate, in 1998, the Little Flirt was our biggest seller. Shelly, the owner of Halifax Nova Scotia’s Venus Envy once said “if a customer comes in wearing a suit, I know they’re leaving with a little flirt.”  And Little Flirt was the first silicone product Adam and Eve’s catalog ever sold (they bought copper Little Flirts 500 at a time). Three years in, when I tabulated our quantities sold for the first time, not only was the Little Flirt the top sold item we had but it accounted for nearly 2/3 of our shipped product. It was a little wonder.

In 2006 we brought Mike Blacksmith, who I was dating, into Tantus. We had too many employees and the growth had become tenuous. Kris Victor was ill with a mystery ailment but he had been told by his doctor in Mexico that he was definitely dying (he’d lost a lot of weight and couldn’t keep food down- it didn’t inhibit his drinking though and the doctor told him a drink a day was OK. Miracle of miracles, he is still alive and here it is 2022 and last year I heard he finally stopped drinking). We had already separated but he’d asked, given his illness, if we could stay married— so we did for a while.

Mike had an undergraduate degree in graphic design and an MBA in marketing. He’d worked for fortune 500 companies as a manager and then as a director of marketing, and then a professional photographer, but his goal was to become a CEO. His entry into Tantus came, as many things come at Tantus, through a side door.

We were putting together our first catalog. Jenn Ramsey had a beautiful design layout in mind, one that married sex education, product shots and what I’ll call “sex lifestyle” shots. It would be clean a bold. The headlines and the products would have a 5th UV layer to make them pop. This was our goal. She got quotes and the printing would be a stretch.

In her burning man network, there were multiple photographers and she’d do that on the cheap. She started with her roommate Lucky. Lucky was a burner and the photographer at a local pro-dungeon, shooting private videos and clips for the website. He was good with live models, but his product shots had been less than stellar. Nick was a retired architectural photographer and burner; he shot our idea of lifestyle shots… and reshot the products. They did not look right.

Part of the issue was we wanted to capture them as a group, out of box and have one in a box. Jenn had designed new packaging and that was supposed to get us into more mainstream stores who hadn’t taken a chance on silicone yet. This catalog was a boastful announcement we were ready for the big time. But the products were out of focus and had shadows. They were horrible.

Jenn asked around and found some burner friends of hers who asked another photographer if he’d be willing to try. Mike was not a burner but her friends assured her that he wouldn’t have problems with the nature of our products. We always asked any vender if they were comfortable doing business with us. Better to know on the front end than find you’re midway and have them pull out, leaving you high and dry. Mike had been shooting porn so he had no trouble with dildos. But Jenn wanted to vet him none the less. Mind you, he’d be doing this for free, but she told him before she introduced him to me, she needed to know what kind of freak he was.

This story was from Mike. I had no idea any of this happened until years later.

They met at an El Pollo Loco at lunch time. Now San Diego has really good Mexican joints. El Pollo Loco is not one of those places. Mike ordered something to legitimize being there. Jenn apologized and told him all about her lactose intolerance… and that according to Mike really was the conversation. How sour milk had become. He listened and I guess he passed.

Later the next afternoon or evening he visited the dildo factory and brought screens, lights, cameras—he literally brought a studio. I remember he’s told me he wanted her just to bring the products to him because he had a studio… I’m not sure why she said no. I wasn’t a part of any of this.

He brought all the gear and then gave Jenn a tutorial in product photography. How to take multiple shots at different lighting so you could overlay them. What light shine you wanted up the side of a plug and how to get that or to remove the light shine that didn’t look right. How to use a reflector to remove shadows. Needles holding the dildo up with fishing line up to a pole out of the shot. He became a lifeline. The camera’s doing this- oh that’s how you fix it. This shot has this happening… ah that’s the trick.

Jenn made a bad ass catalog. It was stunning.

Somewhere along the line, Mike and I started dating. He was into kink, I was into kink. He was a big toy slut, I was a big toy slut. And later- I said “I really need to find someone with an MBA”. “I have an MBA.” “You’re hired!” That was literally the hook, line and sinker. We then really discussed it.

As Kris was an artist, the fact that that was Mike’s background was a big bonus. The business was 50/50 so we went to Kris and Mike made a presentation to us (the board). Kris signed off and we had a CEO.

It was that same year we bought our first small prototyping machinery. Kris was a sculptor and a machinist so we had a lathe, but we didn’t know CNC programs. Mike didn’t know it either but he was eager to learn. We bought a Roland Mill, put it in my apartment’s guest bedroom and Mike started teaching himself how to use it. I think the first projects were plugs but then he started in on rings.

Mike had been one of the unfortunate souls that had been caught in a metal cock ring with “lock up”. His vas deferens closed up as he was engorged and his could not ejaculate nor could his erection go down. He was stuck until the firemen showed up with the “jaws of life.” He saw silicone rings as a big bonus. You got lock up and snip snip released!

Our first rings were traditional in shape. We were making metal rings out of silicone. We even made the teardrop. And they were revolutionary. Silicone toys made for penises.

I think it was Rhino software he used back then. Years later he was trying his hand at Solid Works. We were in Reno by this time and Mike had another idea for a ring with a new super soft silicone shore hardness. The material had amazing tare strength- it would be perfect and not rip. So, he made one.

By this time, we were having some parts, including all the rings, made overseas. We had found a silicone shop that had equipment we did not have (we’d priced it and the electrical service we’d have to put in and it was cost prohibitive) and when we tested the silicone the chemistry was even better than our domestic. They had eliminated all of our blemished pieces, which was exceptionally high with the rings when we hand poured them. It was cost effective and it just made sense.

Dan our CFO, yes we now had grown big enough to have a CFO as well as healthcare insurance by then, had reached out to our outside vendor for a quote. He sent them three Solid Works designs, including this ring. The quote that came back was excellent for the ring… really good. We paid for the molds. We got the prototype sample and damn— Mike had fucked up the ring. He made it tiny…. Way too small. Oh well. The other two items were fine.

I told Dan to order the others. By mistake he ordered all of them, including the ring in three colors. When they came in, heads rolled. How the hell did this happen? And now we were sitting on thousands of these things, these small super soft rings.

The fortunate thing was that at least they were way less than our older rings. They had so much less material that it could be sold for a fraction of the cost. We put together some packaging for it and started selling them. And low and behold— they sold in case quantities so fast we couldn’t package them quickly enough.

We used to dedicate four shelves to the Black Super Soft C-Ring alone. Each Shelf had 4 big bins full of them. Each Bin was full with no less than 400. We would package them 1000 at a time and as soon as we were done with that work order, there’d be another on its heels.

Opportunity sometimes finds you despite your oops. It certainly did us.