Trouble With Sapphic Toys? Meet Banana Split, A Company By And For Us
GO spoke with Katie Davis, the founder of Banana Split, a sapphic sex toy company with a brand-new, patent-pending design.
Featured Image: Banana Split founder Katie Davis holding The Split. Photo courtesy of Davis.
Picture this (or perhaps you’ve lived it): you and your partner want to enjoy dual sex play by sharing a toy. But the toys on the market take a “one size fits all” approach that doesn’t bode well for mutual pleasure in different bodies. Adding to that, the double-ended dildos you see online are blobby, veiny, and generally don’t look very appealing—let alone like something you’d want to put inside yourself and your lover.
Enter Banana Split, a sex toy company that, according to its vibrant website, “is dedicated to celebrating and empowering all forms of sapphic partnership with toys created and designed just for us.” The company’s flagship product, The Split, was made specifically for sapphic play. With a variety of sizes and attachments, a patent-pending universal adaptor, and a soft, colorful design, this dual-ended dildo guarantees hours of eclectic gay fun. “Let’s come together,” entices Banana Split’s landing page.
And Banana Split doesn’t just sell sapphic sex toys; it shares educational and community resources through its website and cheeky Instagram. With everything from the “10 Common Myths About the Vagina” blog post to an Instagram post commemorating Butch Appreciation Day, Banana Split seeks to educate and grow the sapphic community with accurate information and celebration. And at 25 years old, Banana Split founder Katie Davis is aiming to revolutionize the world of sapphic sex—one cute, customizable toy at a time.
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“I still have imposter syndrome thinking of myself as an entrepreneur,” Davis tells GO. As an undergraduate, she studied English and neuroscience at the prestigious University of Chicago, which was “fun for me, but then presented no life path I could really take.” Back home in New York and working part-time, Davis had the idea for a partner toy designed specifically for sapphic play that went beyond the monotonous designs currently on the market—that aren’t functional or pleasurable for most queers looking to have a good time together.
“I did a ton of research and I found that the vast majority of our community had the exact same issues with not being able to find a size or a combination of sizes that worked for them,” says Davis. “You get a partner toy, it doesn’t work for one of you, and then you just [sank] $150 into it.” After a lot of trial and error, Banana Split—and the Split toy—was born.
“I wanted to pay attention to aesthetics as well, [creating a toy with] more of a fluid abstract shape, very soft-feeling, not too big,” Davis says. “The majority of sapphic people can’t use double dildos because they’re all just too big.” As someone in the sapphic community herself, Davis says, “I’m not a big company trying to take advantage of people. I’m trying to solve a real problem and create the best toy I can possibly create.”
Davis isn’t exaggerating when she says Banana Split isn’t a big company. While she collaborates with industrial and graphic designers and other professionals, Davis is currently the company’s only employee. “I do the social media, I do the shipping, I do all of it,” she tells GO. “It’s so funny, sometimes I meet with people and they’re like, ‘Oh, can you connect me to your sales rep’ or whatever, and I’m like, ‘I am all of the things!’”
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Image courtesy of Banana Split.
Davis has grown as an entrepreneur thanks to queer mentorship and community. “Something that surprised me in a very wholesome way was just how excited people were to help me,” Davis says. “I’ve heard that the startup world is so cutthroat and so stressful. But everyone I reached out to…wanted to meet and share their experience with me. I could not have done it without them, because I wouldn’t have had the confidence, [and] I probably would’ve been too scared. That’s a really refreshing thing in a competitive capitalist economy.”
Of course, entrepreneurship is more than good vibes (of all kinds). Davis has encountered her fair share of challenges in starting and maintaining Banana Split. Or as she puts it, “the products were ready [and then] a lot of sh*t happened.”
First, the initial batch of toys arrived with cosmetic defects. “They were still totally functional and everything, but I was just like, this isn’t the perfect product,” Davis recalls. “I don’t want to open with something that looks kind of sloppy. I had all of this product that I didn’t know what to do with, and I had to get a new order.” It was then, she adds, that Trump’s tariffs hit, along with ensuing complications. “The whole situation we [were] in was a nightmare,” she says. “I definitely was not expecting to launch during this time.”
But like any entrepreneur worth their double-ended sex toy, Davis made the best of it. First, she did some impromptu product-testing. “I got to gift [the Split] to a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to afford a product like mine, but were excited about it and would benefit from it. And then I got a lot of user testing feedback and a lot of support.” Davis also focused her efforts on enhancing other aspects of Banana Split. “I got to pivot to more marketing, community building, building the brand,” she says. “I got to do that because our operating cost is so low, just me and product costs. I focused on making a ton of connections and spent a lot of time promoting different events.”
mix-and-match internal coupler. Images courtesy of Banana Split.
When her next order arrived, not only were the Splits ready to go, but so was Banana Split as a company. “When we launched a few weeks ago, people were so supportive, sharing our posts and telling everyone. It paid off and felt really rewarding that we took that time.”
While political unrest isn’t going anywhere for a long while, Davis feels good about launching her sex toy company right here, right now. “This is definitely a moment when it’s so valuable and powerful to feel seen as a queer person, and find little sources of joy and pleasure,” she says. “On the one hand, the timing is rough. On the other hand, it feels more valuable.”
Despite a rocky climate, never-ending tariffs and the day-to-day challenges of solo entrepreneurship, the future looks bright for Banana Split. “The overarching trend is Gen Z is the queerest generation ever,” says Davis. “It’s like one in five of us, and most of those are women who could benefit from toys like this. And also [there’s] the macro trend of people buying more sex toys. That makes me really hopeful for where this is all going.”
For more about Banana Split, visit the company’s website or follow them on Instagram.
