It's no news that women's sexual health is often overlooked/regarded as shameful and hidden, occupying a very bottom-shelf, brown-paper-bag spot in our culture.� (Or, at best, it gets wrapped up in a pretty pink bow for TV commercials played during "women's programming.")� And for cancer survivors and post-menopausal women, it gets even trickier.� So when A Woman's Touch Sexuality Resource Center developed the new Oasis vibrators as a way of helping cancer survivors and menopausal women reclaim their sexuality, we were first in line to get an earful.We love these vibrators for their multiple size/girth options (which mean great choices for every woman, regardless of health status), and for the way they seamlessly blend women's sexual pleasure and health.� It's a natural marriage!� Read on for what the pioneers at A Woman's Touch have to say about the Oasis vibrators and how they came into being.Babeland: What prompted your creation of the Oasis line?A Woman's Touch: We created the Vaginal Renewal program in 1998 to help women who were struggling with vaginal atrophy and painful penetration; we were talking with breast cancer survivors who had been thrust into menopause quickly by their treatment, and who could not use estrogen without raising their risk of recurrence.� Estrogen facilitates blood flow to the vaginal skin, and when estrogen is no longer being produced in the body, something has to take over to keep the blood flowing (which in turn helps with skin regeneration). While women can get decent results by using a variety of vibrators or having regular penetrative sex with a partner, most find that they need to add vaginal massage to their self-care routine to be able to have comfortable penetration.� We developed vibrators (which work to increase blood flow to an area) as we learned that women found it to be too much work to use a non-vibrating object to massage the vaginal walls.As the news came out that it may not be wise for women to use Hormone Replacement Therapy, even when they're not dealing with an estrogen-responsive cancer, we began seeing many more women who were struggling with painful penetration and who needed a non-hormonal solution that was easy to use.� We had been talking with Vibratex about this, and eventually joined forces to create vibrators with the specific size, material, shape & vibration that we learned would work best.Babeland: And what makes this material work best, as opposed to a softer material?AWT: We� want the vibration to be fully transmitted deep into the skin to promote blood flow and to break up any scar tissue, and softer materials absorb too much of the vibration to do that effectively. So between the need to not tear delicate skin (so that it doesn't repair itself with scars, further decreasing the vaginal tissue's flexibility), and the need to transmit the vibration fully,� the wands need to be a hard, smooth, and gentle material.If a woman has a condition where she needs do desensitize to something inside her vagina (vaginismus) to avoid muscle spasms, then a softer material makes sense. But not for the purposes for which the wands were designed.Babeland: How are these different from vaginal dilators?AWT: Dilators are intended to be used to help women learn to get comfortable having something inside the vagina when they are experiencing difficulty doing so.� Dilators are insertable, non-vibrating object of increasing width, so a woman can practice relaxing her pelvic floor around these objects. Vibration for women with pelvic floor muscle tension (vaginismus or high tone pelvic floor dysfunction) will make that tension worse, so the dilator shouldn't vibrate.Dilators are also used for women who've undergone radiation therapy for vaginal/cervical/uterine cancer, and for those with reconstructed or newly constructed vaginas, but we've found (and a formal study of this is being conducted now at the University Of Wisconsin) that vibration actually works better for these women, increasing blood flow to the surface of the skin and breaking up scar adhesions so that the vaginal skin regains its flexibility.Babeland: That makes sense.� So what's unique about the Oasis vibrators, as compared to the other vibrating wands out there?AWT: First, the Slim wand allows women who can't be penetrated comfortably with more than one finger to experience therapeutic vibration internally.� Second, the type of vibration in each wand is specifically chosen to encourage blood flow and collagen development in women with vaginal atrophy, and will help break up scar tissue caused by surgery or radiation.Babeland: What kind of feedback have you gotten from women who've tried the Oasis vibrators?AWT: We have many women who've been following the Vaginal Renewal program using these vibrators and they report good, quick progress toward their goal of comfortable vaginal penetration and more comfortable pelvic exams when they follow the program daily or every other day.Babeland: Do you have plans for other toys/products that combine pleasure with women?s health?AWT: We're exploring a variety of possibilities...our goal is to continue making sure that both women and men (we have several ideas for products to address men's sexual health needs too) can enjoy the sexual wellness and pleasure that they seek, using non-pharmacologic tools whenever possible.Babeland: We're all for that, and can't wait to see what's in store!ors are insertable, non-vibrating object of increasing width, so a woman can practice relaxing her pelvic floor around these objects. Vibration for women with pelvic floor muscle tension (vaginismus or high tone pelvic floor dysfunction) will make that tension worse, so the dilator shouldn't vibrate.Dilators are also used for women who've undergone radiation therapy for vaginal/cervical/uterine cancer, and for those with reconstructed or newly constructed vaginas, but we've found (and a formal study of this is being conducted now at the University Of Wisconsin) that vibration actually works better for these women, increasing blood flow to the surface of the skin and breaking up scar adhesions so that the vaginal skin regains its flexibility.Babeland: That makes sense.� So what's unique about the Oasis vibrators, as compared to the other vibrating wands out there?AWT: First, the Slim wand allows women who can't be penetrated comfortably with more than one finger to experience therapeutic vibration internally.� Second, the type of vibration in each wand is specifically chosen to encourage blood flow and collagen development in women with vaginal atrophy, and will help break up scar tissue caused by surgery or radiation.Babeland: What kind of feedback have you gotten from women who've tried the Oasis vibrators?AWT: We have many women who've been following the Vaginal Renewal program using these vibrators and they report good, quick progress toward their goal of comfortable vaginal penetration and more comfortable pelvic exams when they follow the program daily or every other day.Babeland: Do you have plans for other toys/products that combine pleasure with women?s health?AWT: We're exploring a variety of possibilities...our goal is to continue making sure that both women and men (we have several ideas for products to address men's sexual health needs too) can enjoy the sexual wellness and pleasure that they seek, using non-pharmacologic tools whenever possible.Babeland: We're all for that, and can't wait to see what's in store!