Tanya Griffin knows how to run with her dreams in business. She is a serial
with over 30 years of growth management experience that spans two continents and several industries, including cannabis, financial services, medical devices and practices, restaurants, retail and so much more!Griffin also knows a thing or two about sexual
for women. Her knowledge on the subject is vast. With the feeling of the 1960’s “Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-Roll” vibe, she created the brand — a line of products formulated to rock your world and deliver a truly cannagasmic experience.We sat down with Griffin to learn more about her business, the products and the online quiz that oOYes has created to find and share your kink online, either on your own or with your partner.
A Passion for Cannabis and Sex
High There: What made you decide to start a company solely meant to infuse cannabis into sex products?
Tanya Griffin: So, I have been starting companies for the last 33 years. And I think, oOYes, it’s born out of this work I’ve done with women in families over three decades. The first company I started was a restaurant, but once I got through that and got pregnant, I created these retail stores that I put in the Midwest and Europe called Kangaroo Kids.
I’m a lactation consultant, which means I help women breastfeed. I built these stores really around solving a need for parents and always with a focus on women. We had an organic coffee shop. It was a high-end resale. And then we had everything needed for breastfeeding and now my four kids — they’re all grown. They’re out of the house. So I get to have lots of sex.
Fast forward to 2008, I moved back from Europe and started building health care companies. Then, in 2012, it was coming through the grapevine that they would allow medical cannabis in Illinois. I just saw a future in it. I understood the plan. I knew it made sense.
Long story short, I built the country’s first vertically integrated national cannabis franchise. I won licenses near my hometown in Illinois. I eventually sold those licenses and exited to a large multi-state operator, which allowed me to dive into what I know and love, which is cannabis and sex.
HT: It is refreshing to see such a passionate, sex-positive product line with cannabis products!
Griffin: I think you’ve heard of “Reefer Madness” and what was happening in the late ’30s and ’40s. We always understood that if you gave cannabis to a woman, she would become sexually active and do crazy things. Well, of course, that’s overreaching.
But we do understand that when you stay present in sex when you free your mind when you show up: sex is better, quite frankly. I always understood that it wasn’t necessarily cannabis itself doing it, but it’s when you became mindful, stay present, enjoy cannabis and become introduced to new experiences. Those are things that help you do that.
That’s what I did when I started Kangaroo Kids in 1995. Fast forward to now with oOYes, the same principle for delivering an experience. I would argue it’s less about the products, although I spent two years building formulations of all-natural botanicals, CBD, CBG and this patented bee-infused honey and terpenes.
That’s why I built the oOYes Sex quiz, but that is super interesting and fun. You could do it on your phone. You say, “Oh, yes, oh no. Oh, maybe so” to 100 different sex acts, and we give you fun descriptions. But it’s we give you your kinks score for fun, but really what it’s about is allowing you to share it with a partner or partners and to open the communication and explore what you’re willing to do together. It falls back on this open communication, and staying present and staying in the moment is what I believe makes sex great.
Get Your Kink Score With This oOYes Quiz
HT: What does this Kink Quiz provide to your customers?
Griffin: It all falls back on filling a need and creating an experience. At this stage of my life, I’m 53. This was never about building another lube company. It was about creating an ecstatic lifestyle brand or an ecstatic sex experience.
So to me, that was about not only opening communication. We throw great parties, do pop-ups, and partner with different yoga and fitness experiences. It’s about looking at sex as an opportunity to do new things and experience them.
The oOYes Sex quiz was just a part of that. You know you can learn about what products are suitable for you. For example, Going Down is our oral sex elixir, Roll Baby Roll, [is] a different kind of lube, or our Groove Grease massage candle. It is the whole experience that is important to me.
Break Out the Old Bed Sheets
HT: Can you tell us more about creating these lovely products?
Griffin: One of the keys is we make it with a patented BeeFused Honey at our organic farms in Santa Maria, California. What we’re doing and what these global packs allow us to do is feed honeybees organic hemp and organic nectar. Because usually, bees obviously wouldn’t feed on cannabis. They love pollen, so these are happy and free-range bees; you can go on one of our websites UhHuhHoney.com and watch the bees make this honey, and it’s remarkable.
They eat this organic hemp, and not only do they eat organic hemp, but they eat aphrodisiac herbs that you can eat off each other and have aphrodisiac qualities. So the bees eat this organic hemp, take the beeswax, propolis, and honey, then mix it with soy wax, but I also add a thousand milligrams of CBD and CBG.
So CBD, you’ve heard of, but CBG is a minor cannabinoid precursor to THC. It’s been known to affect mood and cell regeneration. It’s antibacterial and it’s anti-fungal. So, I’ve mixed these things and then flavored them with limonene or citrus orange blossom terpene.
Everything is edible, tastes and smells like a creamsicle. So now you’ve got this combination of CBD, CBG, beeswax, and Beefed honey flavored with terpenes that you pour over each other and pairs well with every drug. It instantly relaxes your body. It works as lube, so you don’t need your Unplugged, silicone or water-based lubes.
Here’s my suggestion: Bring out the old sheets because it’s oil. It will get in your hair. It’s lovely for your hair, but it’s hard to get out like I did my partner suave, you know, just to get it out of my hair the following day. But, you know, you can stay in this for hours. So just think it’s giving each other a massage and then having this excellent oil that smells delicious seeping into your pores, full of CBD and CBG.
The Cannagasmic Experience
HT: How has your brand built a community around what you describe as cannagasmic experiences and open communication?
Griffin: We meet the customer just through that retail experience. We meet them online through the sex quiz. But, probably my favorite place to interact with customers is our events and our pop-ups. We do a lot of that here in Denver, but we’re in Chicago and do some stuff in L.A.
The whole vibe of the brand is like where my love is. I use vintage resale shops throughout the Midwest, so I always dress and love the 1960s. So this brand is squarely in the sex, drugs and rock and roll revolution. I love our branding. I bought an old 1969 Globetrotter Airstream, so if you don’t know what that is, it’s like a big bubble of silver, remember? Like the old school one. I got it. It. I rehabbed it. So we show up with pop-ups to that.
We lean into the music when we throw parties. It’s about the whole experience. I’m probably in a mini skirt and go-go boots if you see me, as is my team!
We are always really just staying very mindful of that entire experience. So that’s really where we build community, and you know, and I love other women entrepreneurs. My whole life, for the last three decades, I’ve been helping other women grow their businesses, whether it’s Madeleine Stegman, who is CEO of Motherfunk. She’s awesome. She throws these significant events. She throws events all over Denver and all over the country.
Rhythmic Metamorphosis, we do a lot of sponsored events at this. I would call them yoga, but they’re really in body dance coupled with music. They always bring a DJ to the event, and you’re dancing and incorporating some yoga. But you can see why, whether going to a party or indulging in embodied dance, in my opinion, leads to great sex and writing.
I write articles, and you know, for different magazines that I’m writing right now, one I called Fast and Fitness and fucking for routine to ritual because I felt we needed that. So I believe that when you incorporate these things into your life, fitness doesn’t have to be, you know, extreme. But it can be moving your body and a body dance or yoga and, of course, regularly bringing sex into your life. And, you know, making that a priority if you incorporate those things into your life.
I’m going to argue having some experience at it. Your life is pretty fucking awesome when you do that. But, you know, if you’re having sex every day that or at least have some insane endorphins, you know, serotonin, dopamine, prolactin, like what that does to your oxytocin, what that does to your body. So an orgasm can get you through a day when otherwise you may not want to get through that day.
Griffin Wants You to Have More (and Better) Sex
HT: What does the brand’s slogan of “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll” mean to you?
Griffin: I have spent the last 13 years in the cannabis business, and I have a deep understanding of psychedelics, too. All plant-based medicines. I believe that there is a place for plant-based medication as it relates to sex.
I told you my love is the ’60s, ’70s. So music, whether the newer EDM music or my Love, which is cuts from the ’60s and ’70 and disco, has a place in setting the mood and freeing your mind. I think when you can get rid of the clutter in your mind, orgasms are better, right? So you get all that out of your space and lean into music or allow yourself time to smoke a joint or lube is fantastic.
Your vagina is like a bloody open mouth. It’s like a mucous membrane. So when you’re using an oil or water-based lube or even the massage candle in those areas, it helps not only free your mind but increase blood flow; just get things acting in those areas that can take a great orgasm and just make it better. And that is really what I’m into. I want to have more and better sex. That is my goal.