They are a tribute to sexuality, freedom and eroticism, from a place that is not vulgar, that is not pornography, that is not something you have to hide. It is something you can display and feel, let’s say, radiant through your eroticism.
This is how Ana Detraca (an artistic surname) describes the handmade glass dildos she creates in her small workshop set up in a traditional Ibizan farmhouse in the north of the island, and which she sells at events within Ibiza’s liberal community.
Trained in Fine Arts, in 2017 she left the photography school she had founded in Alicante with a partner, a project that had consumed many hours and taken a toll on her health. She also ended her relationship and, amid these winds of change, she had an impulse: to find a dildo with a galaxy inside.
“In my mind, it was an erotic fantasy. Like masturbating with the immensity of space, something like that. I looked online and there wasn’t one. There was something similar in the United States, but not the way I wanted it. I got carried away, went to England and bought myself a blowtorch.”
Her fascination with glass, which has been with her since childhood, her ability to teach herself, an advanced qualification in chemistry and the environment and, of course, her vision of a market niche, shaped her project, which she named Masstime. The name is inspired by the phrase M’estime (“I love myself” in Valencian), but also, quite literally, means Masturbation Time.
Her dildos are solid pieces, “completely safe and body-compatible”, made from borosilicate glass, a material known for its high thermal resistance as it “melts from 700 degrees” and is extremely difficult to break.
For her designs, she captures color using different techniques, such as implosion, which dates back to the Italian Renaissance and was used by Murano glassmakers to create the Postinaca Muranese, a 16th-century glass dildo that was a favourite among Venetian nobility.
Other advantages include the hygiene offered by a noble material like glass and the fact that the erotic experience “is not based on a vibrator increasing your arousal, but on you working with your mind, your body and your movement; using your breathing. That sex can be about more than directly seeking an orgasm.”
For those who enjoy anal dilation, “glass is fantastic” because it creates no friction. “That is why it is also used medically for the rehabilitation of women who have undergone vaginal reconstruction or for trans women who have had surgery and need to continue dilating,” Ana explains.
She has tested the prototypes herself, allowing her to explain, for example, that the vaginal-shaped designs “are more interesting when they are curved and have two counterweights to create a kind of internal rocking motion”.
She also invites her clients to share their fantasies so she can create bespoke designs, and she enjoys making complex pieces or symbolic sets, such as chess sets, board games or massage collections. Among her future ideas are an erotic tableware collection and designs for high-end cocktail bars and hospitality venues.
From her clients, both men and women, she always receives “gratitude”, and what she likes most is “that everyone uses them”.
The aesthetics of her dildos also turn them into decorative objects, inspired by the Venetian bourgeois families who “kept them in their homes and did not hide them”.
Because this is also her philosophy: “To bring back the idea of an object of good taste, one that represents complexity, a deeper inner world; one that pays tribute to the beauty of sex.”
