From Vice:
What’s the Latest with the Vajankle, the Sex Toy Shaped Like a Foot? by Ralph Jones
Would you fuck the inside of a foot?
Some people would, apparently, because the Vajankle—a sex toy in the shape of a foot with a vagina attached (as seen in our Valentine's Day Gift Guide)—has been bankrolled. Last month, the item caused an international furor when news websites started reporting on it in a state of torrid incredulity. But now that the media frenzy has died down, what lies in store for the Vajankle?
What many don't know, as Bronwen Keller of Sinthetics—the company that makes the Vajankle—informs me, is that the Vajankle was in fact created in 2013 when a repeat buyer contacted the company and asked if he could put a vagina on one of the feet they'd already manufactured. "He explained he wanted to be able to see and massage the foot while having sex with it," Keller says, "and so the Vajankle was born."
Why, then, wasn't it until 2015 that the Vajankle shot to fame? Keller thinks the foot may have piqued the interest of the internet because an individual named Dixie De La Tour, founder of sex storytelling show Bawdy Storytelling, began talking about the product on Twitter. And yet, despite the ensuing media attention, Sinthetics has probably sold fewer than 100 Vajankles to date.
This is partly because the company doesn't advertise, says Keller. "But our foot guys do manage to find us. We've sold hundreds of pairs of feet over the years." If this sounds like a small figure, consider that each foot takes quite a long time for Keller's husband Matt and his production team to make. "Everything we do is individually handmade," she says. "We use medical-grade platinum silicone, which is an expensive and finicky product. The molds we produce from are made in our studio, from sculpts and life casts that we also do in-house. Each Vajankle has two different silicone parts. Then it has to be trimmed by hand, painted, sealed, finished, and, finally, given toenails."