The Fleshlight® is a sex toy, designed for use as a masturbation aid for men, simulating the sensation of various sexual acts. The Fleshlight® is named for the flesh-like material used in its inner sleeve, as well as the plastic case that houses the sleeve, which is fashioned to look like an oversized flashlight. The inner sleeve is available with vagina, mouth, and anus shaped openings, as well as a non-descript slot opening, all with a choice of various internal sensations and colors.

The Fleshlight® was designed by a former police officer who was suffering a period of forced abstinence while his wife was pregnant. He was granted a patent in 1998 for his invention, as a "device for discreet sperm collection". The Fleshlight® is stated to be made of medical and food grade, phthalate-free, polymers.

Interactive Life Forms, or "ILF" for short is the company behind the popular male sex toy The FleshLight®. The inventor, Steve Shubin, invested "Eighteen months and 0,000." into his sex drive;

From Steve Shubin
"About seven years ago, my wife and I got some good news and some bad news. The good news was that she was pregnant--with twins. The bad news was that she was over 40 at the time. She'd already had several miscarriages. And the twins were identical, meaning that they were developing in the same sac. These factors added up to a very fragile, high-risk pregnancy, with a big risk of miscarriage. Our obstetrician told us: No intercourse until the twins are born."

Interactive Life Forms, Inc. began product development in 1994. The original idea was apparantly, to make realistic body scultures:

"In 1995, we got a patent on the idea -- injection-molded full body sculptures, not blow-up dolls. They were very realistic and beautiful. But they were also very expensive. After retiring from police work, I'd run a few small businesses, and had a good feel for what it takes to make a business work. It soon became clear that we could never make the business fly financially by just selling full-body sculptures. So we decided to focus on the removable orifices, hence the artificial vulva/vagina."

The Fleshlight® is today the best selling male alternative-sex product in the world. The term "Fleshlight" now receives 4 times as many searches on the internet than "male sex toys", making the brand more popular than the entire class of products it belongs to. We've not only overtaken the male sex toy market, we've become a new genre, winning mainstream acceptance along the way.

Patented products includes:
• "Female Functional Mannequin." Application date: March 1995. Patent received: November 1995.
• "Device for Discreet Sperm Collection" (Fleshlight). Application date: September 1996. Patent received: July 1997. European patents also have been issued.
• "Insert Gel Formulation." Patent received: 1998.
• "Prophylactic and Prosthetic Device," a penis-size enhancer and sensitivity-reducer. Patent received: 1998.
• Interactive Life Forms, Inc. has other products currently in development and will inform its customers and vendors when patents are approved and products are available.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_life_forms" and "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight"

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