Eyal Feldman
Eyal feldman
I’m Eyal Feldman, I’m 46, and my schtick is creating personal lubricants that look like grocery store products so that people won’t be embarrassed or ashamed. That’s the idea behind my company, Boy Butter — making people smile, but also making really good lube. It’s about great performance, novelty, and a little tongue-in-cheek fun.
Occupation: Founder and owner of Boy Butter
Location: New York City and Los Angeles, United States
The Sex in My Business: Boy Butter makes sexual products, so the connection is pretty explicit. We offer a whole range of lubes in different sizes and formulas, along with various numbing and desensitizing creams, performance enhancers, etc. I call myself the “mom and pop of lube” because I put myself out there and sell it myself, and no one can sell it as well as me.
How I Got Here: I grew up in Calabasas, California, and went to UC San Diego, where I majored in history with a minor in comparative religion. If you’d have told me I’d one day start and run a successful lube company, I would never have believed you. But right after I graduated from college, in the year 2000, it became immediately clear that my degree was totally useless. I met the owners of (gay) men’s fashion and fetish-wear brand Nasty Pig at Fire Island through a mutual friend. When I learned about their company, something clicked right away. I told them I was moving to New York and that they were going to hire me. I didn’t ask them, I told them. I said I’d do whatever they wanted and would learn everything they could teach me. And that’s exactly what happened.
While I was at Nasty Pig, I was introduced to the adult industry and made a lot of contacts. I came to the idea that I could have a product myself. One day, while working in the back room, I thought to myself, straight people have a euphemism for cum, they call it “baby batter.” But gay guys aren’t going to have babies, so what would the gay version be? Boy butter! I should make a lube called Boy Butter! I envisioned a butter tub with a logo that was half Country Crock, half Arm & Hammer baking soda. Nine months later, ironically enough, the product came to market.
A Typical Day: I have a lot of emails to take care of, purchase orders to fulfill, and components to order. I’m constantly busy trying to make sure we can keep up with demand. We sell our product in different ways: in bulk to distributors or individual stores, and we also sell retail at BoyButter.com. One great aspect of running a West Coast-based company from the East Coast is that you’re always three hours ahead, which means I never need to get up super early in the morning!
The Best Part: I make my own commercials, which is definitely one of my favorite things. It’s not only creatively fun, but I love being able to push boundaries. We’ve been airing 30-second television commercials for 13 years now. They initially only ran on Ru Paul’s Drag Race, but as we grew, so did our reach. Our ads have run on CNBC, Fox Business in the morning, and many other networks. Gay and bi people are everywhere, and straight people need lube too!
I also enjoy the fame of being known as the Boy Butter guy. More than anything, though, I just like making sales and creating new products, like You Won’t Believe It’s Not Boy Butter or Boy Butter Clear or Boy Butter Bonerz Male Enhancement. The Butter spreads, you might say. I’m a natural salesman.
The Worst Part: Accounting! I’m not a numbers guy. I let other people do that.
What Society Thinks: There is something a little bit subversive about Boy Butter — the way it sounds and how it plays off of traditional branding — but the public reaction is mostly positive. Most people smile when they see the brand, and where there’s a smile, there’s a sale. I used to think straight people would see Boy Butter and think it was a “gay product”, but that’s not the case. It might have started out that way, but straight people are about half of my customers these days, thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations. A gay man’s best friend is a straight woman, and straight women are generally the ones who make the purchase decisions for sexual products in their relationships. At the end of the day, it’s damn good lube and the company has been around for 21 years. Word travels.
When I’m Not at Work: I’m a marathon swimmer, so I do a lot of swimming, weight lifting, yoga — a lot of exercise. I have a place upstate in the Catskills with a bunch of chickens, so I like running around the forest with my chickens and just being in nature. I love spending time with my family, being with friends in NYC, and hanging out in LA. And lots of international travel (I’m in Italy right now). I’m always doing something.
Published in Issue XIII: Heretic
