I was on a video chat with Ti Chang, vice president of design and founder of Crave, a San Francisco-based sex toy company, to literally build their newest product, the Duet Pro. It’s a customizable vibrator with vibrations you can program yourself through its associated app. That’s not the most intriguing part, though. The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to order the vibe as a kit of parts and join a Zoom session—with strangers and a Crave technician—to build it together. Crave was conducting these Build-a-Vibe sessions in person at design conferences and events before the pandemic hit. Now, it’s taking them to Zoom. This tracks with recommendations about sex in a pandemic: Both the Mayo Clinic and the City of New York say the safest sex you can have is with yourself. (People seem to be heeding that advice—sex toy sales have increased since the pandemic hit.) “The whole reason we’ve decided to do this build [...]