People ask me why a woman my age would start a company about intimacy. The honest answer is that I did not set out to start a company at all. I set out to find one thing that worked for me, could not find it anywhere, and got angry enough to build it myself. This is the whole story, the parts I usually keep quiet about included.
It started in a parking lot
I went to my doctor because sex had started to hurt. Not a little. Like sandpaper. Like razor blades. I had been quietly dreading it for months, cancelling plans with my own husband in my head, inventing reasons to go to bed first.
I thought my doctor would have an answer. Instead he shrugged and said, "That's just what happens."
I sat in the parking lot afterward and cried. Not because of the pain. Because of the shrug. Because someone I trusted had just told me that this part of my life was simply over, and that I should accept it quietly.
I am not a quiet-acceptance kind of woman. So I went looking.
What I found made me angrier
I expected to find help. What I found was a marketplace that clearly had no idea I existed.
- Bright pink toys that looked like they belonged at a bachelorette party.
- Loud websites built for twenty-five-year-olds, all neon and slang.
- Cheap foam wedges that looked like medical equipment, the kind of thing you would hide in a closet and feel embarrassed owning.
- Lubricants that worked for about a minute.
- Pills I was honestly scared to take.
Nothing was built for the woman I had actually become. A woman who used to feel beautiful. A woman who still wanted to be close to her husband. A woman who had been told, in a thousand small ways, that desire was something she was supposed to retire from.
That was the moment the anger turned into something useful. I realized the problem was not me. The problem was not my age. The problem was that nobody had bothered to build the right thing for women like us.
So I built it
I had no background in product design. What I had was a very clear list of everything that was wrong with the options I had tried, and a stubborn belief that it could be done better.
I worked with pelvic floor specialists and gynecologists, because I wanted real bodies and real anatomy to lead the design, not marketing. I insisted that whatever we made had to look like something that belonged on a nightstand, not in a drawer you are ashamed of. And I insisted it ship in a plain box, because privacy is not a luxury, it is the bare minimum of respect.
The first night I used the pillow we made, I cried again. This time from relief. After months of dread, something finally felt simple. It felt like getting a piece of myself back.
Why it is not just one product
I could have stopped there, with one thing that worked. But a woman is not one problem to solve. She is a whole person, moving through a whole chapter of her life. The dryness, the angle, the sleep, the confidence, the quiet distance that grows between two people who still love each other, it is all connected.
So Moodie became bigger than a pillow. It became the place I wished I could have turned to in that parking lot. A brand that grows with you. A brand that talks to you like a woman, not like a problem to be managed. A brand that, above everything, never lets you feel alone in this again.
The promise I will not break
Every Moodie product comes with a 90-day promise. Use it. Live with it. If it does not feel right, for any reason, big or small, write to us and we refund you. Send it back if you can. Keep it if you cannot. No questions, no awkward emails, no fight.
I built that promise into the company on purpose. I started Moodie because I wanted women to feel safe trying something for themselves again, and you cannot feel safe if you are afraid of being stuck with a mistake. The guarantee is just one of the ways I keep my word.
If you have ever felt invisible
If any of this sounds familiar, the dread, the shrug, the sense that the world quietly stopped seeing you somewhere in your forties or fifties, I want you to know two things. You are not broken. And you are not alone.
This brand is for you. It always was.
With love,
Claire
Claire Bennett is the founder of Moodie. You can read more about the brand and the team behind it on our Our Story page, or browse what we have built so far.
