DALLAS—DallasNovelty.com and founder Nick Mahler were highlighted in a recent Mic.com article “Here’s How People With Disabilities Are Taking Back Their Sex Lives.”
Mahler's fight for making sex toys more accessible for disabled people was inspired by his own fight while suffering from fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. FOP is a genetic disorder that causes muscles, joints and ligaments to slowly fuse together, or ossify, with solid bone. Over time, the disease reduces mobility as sufferers become literally trapped in their own bodies. Mahler is one of 2 million worldwide with FOP.
When diagnosed with the disease, Mahler left his career in the mortgage industry to pay more attention to his hobby, DallasNovelty.com.
Mahler has been very open about his disease, even traveling all over the country to different medical facilities to be operated and tested on to help further research, treatment and the search for a cure for FOP, all the while managing his site, adding new products every day, and maintaining customer service. Dallas Novelty now houses almost every adult manufacturer and more than 15,000 products with Mahler managing every aspect of the business, down to writing the descriptions and measurements for each product.
He is also extremely keen on customer service, especially once his story got out and he added a Disabled category full of products to his site, huge numbers of customers started began contacting him about the section and asking him what toy would work best for their specific disability.
Mahler told Mic "Our boomer population is getting older. They still enjoy sex and masturbation and they want ways to continue experiencing pleasure even if they might be mobility impaired."
He added that most existing sex toys work well enough for the disabled if users know about a number of sex toy hacks, they can turn a toy made for able-bodied customers know how to use them in a different way."
With more than a decade of adding one sex toy at a time, Mahler has seen manufacturers start to focus on this growing population of consumers.
Earlier in 2014, Tom Stewart, founder of Sportsheets International, began developing harnesses for paraplegics and quadriplegics to engage in sexual activities. The story was covered in depth on VICE.
Mahler also revealed he is currently developing a sister site that will serve strictly as a resource to compliment DallasNovelty.com that will serve as an information resource for disabled people to find the perfect Sex Toy by searching by Disability.
To read the full article on Mic.com, click here.
To browse Dallas Novelty's section of hand-picked disabled friendly toys, please click here.
