First, I must tell you: Dildos — and we’re just talking about the plain vanilla, non-motorized types now — will do absolutely nothing for you. They were invented by the porn industry to help visually stimulate male viewers. Nothing about them–no attachments or rotating devices, for instance — will help physically stimulate you. Now, if you’ve already purchased one, don’t fret. There are other perfectly good uses for them; they do, for instance, make excellent table decorations.
And while we’re on the subject, I should ask, have you ever actually seen a dildo? If you have, you know that it looks something like a rocket ship — minus the whole launching pad and flying wings. But have you ever wondered why they so often have funny animal names, like “rabbit” or “toad” or “beaver”? Or why they sometimes have scary animal faces engraved on the head?
Well, it’s because most of these sex toys were made in Japan, where producing them is illegal. By giving them animal faces and tails, the manufacturers can sidestep regulations and market them as toys for little children.
Huh. And to think I once thought “guilty pleasure” meant eating chocolate chip ice cream right before bedtime.
Not anymore.
On a Monday night in October, I join 44 other women — including 10 Northwestern students — in the back room of the Joy Blue bar, 1401 W. Irving Park Road in Chicago, to learn all about vibrators, dildos and female satisfaction from Carissa Szymanski, an outreach counselor at The Chicago Women’s Health Center. Earlier this evening, a Chicago news station dubbed our little group “the football widows,” but Steve Wilson, co-owner of the Honeysuckle Shop, prefers to call this gathering “Girl’s Night Out.” And for most of us assembled here, that’s exactly what it is — a time to get together with our closest gal pals, partake in the free champagne and chocolate, and gossip and giggle — the way girls normally do. The difference is that most of us will walk out with dildos in brown paper bags. And for a lot of us, it will be our first ones ever.
“That one kind of looks like a hair dryer.”
“How do you get that in there, let alone out of there?”
“This one’s way too veiny. I do not need my dildo to be anatomically correct.”
“Doesn’t this one remind you of a cell phone? Just a little bit?”
The way the evening works is that we sit around in the circle while Carissa talks about the different sex toys, demonstrates a few of them and then passes the rest around. There is time for questions and testimonials, but few people volunteer, preferring instead to ambush Carissa at the end of the lecture. Questions range from “How should I sterilize sex toys?” to “Where exactly is the G-spot located?”
(Answers: Sex toys can be sterilized in a dishwasher — just remember to remove the silverware first. And if you put your index and middle fingers inside and curl them in a kind of “come hither” manner, you’ll find it.)
Afterwards, the shyest girls take a card from Carissa and tell her they will call later with questions or to schedule an appointment. The more boisterous ones take hold of the dildos from their bases and point them at each other, samurai style.
And me? Well, I wait until everyone — both the loud and the quiet girls — leaves before approaching Carissa. She is young and kind and only a little intimidating with her pink hair. We talk first about her job as the education director for the women’s center. She says that after two and a half years of giving these type of talks, she is still embarrassed at some of the questions she gets.
Not because they’re so sexual, but because they’re so not.
“The questions these women ask are things they should have been taught as kindergartners,” she says.
I nod. We talk a little about the need for better education in the schools and about the after-school lectures she gives on the topic. There’s a small silence and then it’s my turn to get embarrassed. I ask her where she learned these things. I ask her about the difference between a vibrator and a dildo. I ask about lubricants. And I ask her which sex toy she would recommend for people like me.
For this last question, she says, it helps to delve into my own sexual history. And with only the normal amount of hesitancy, I do.
Carissa nods, talks a little bit about positioning and arousal and says, “If you do not like penetration, you are not going to like dildos. For you, vibrators are a much better option. You need something that stimulates the clitoris.”
Carissa reassures me that this is how most women feel, tells me that there are 3,000 nerve endings in the clitoris (by contrast, the soft spot above your eyelid, one of the most sensitive areas on the body, has only about 300 nerve endings) and that these vibrators will hit almost all of them.
For me, Carissa suggests “the rabbit”– a funky looking device with movable attachments and ears.
But the rotating, vibrating balls on the rabbit look like a grotesque carnival ride. And the thought of putting hard plastic so close to my clitoris kind of scares me.
So I thank her but leave the bar empty-handed.
Our generation is supposed to be one of the most enlightened sexually. We are growing up on “Sex and the City.” Many of our up on “Sex and the City.” Many of our parents were flower children who practiced free love. We’ve seen world leaders use the word “condom” on the floor of the United Nations.
Yet, to learn about sex and pleasure, 20- and 30-something-year-old women are still gathered in back rooms, still hidden behind curtains. The fact that professionals in the sex toy industry have decided that vibrators, like little children, should be rated by their discreetness (the best ones, we are told, are the ones that make the least amount of noise) doesn’t exactly help matters either. Nor does the no-men policy. A few minutes before the presentation was to begin, the Joy Blue management replaced the male bartender with a female one. Add to all this the fact that these Girl’s Nights Out (two have been held thus far) have all been at bars — “I asked and was told emphatically that these wouldn’t work without the alcohol,” Steve Wilson says — and we have a real mess on our hands.
Welcome to the world of female sex and sexuality. Feel free to look around, but please do not ask any questions. Yes, Candace Bushnell (in the guise of Carrie Bradshaw as played by Sarah Jessica Parker) has unlocked this world for us, nudged the door a little, but it’s still just barely squeaking open.
Just ask Steve and Leigh Ann Wilson.
A few years ago Leigh Ann and Steve were looking to change careers. These were in the days of the internet boom (remember them?) and Leigh Ann and Steve wanted to get in on the act. While researching profitable enterprises, they found that the top three web moneymakers were pornography, sex toys and video games. The Wilsons did not want to touch pornography and did not find video games particularly exciting. So the couple, devout religious people from conservative religious backgrounds, decided to look into the sex toy business.
The couple devoted two years to researching the subject of women and sex toys only to find that there was no actual research on the subject. Says Steve, “I think we found one study — one study — that showed that 70 percent of women shopped online for their sex toys.”
So the Wilsons created their own body of research. Leigh Ann worked in a suburban sex shop for six months learning about the business end of the sex toy industry. She interviewed women who came into the shop on the kinds of things they were looking for. The Wilsons also contacted left and right wing activists –even writing to Pat Robertson — trying to get their opinions on sex toys and shops.
“We expected to be shut off by the far religious right and embraced by the left side,” Steve says. “It didn’t w
ork out that way. (The acceptance rate) was about 50-50. As long as the sexual play was within the bonds of marriage, a lot of religious right were for it. On the other hand, if you go so far to the left, you get the hardcore feminist-types who believe that any sex at all with a man is a bad misogynist idea.”
The Honeysuckle Shop, 3326 N. Clark St., opened in May and has since garnered a lot of positive press. The Wilsons are proud, but not particularly surprised, about the publicity. The couple pride themselves on the fact that most of the stuff in the shop was made by women for women. They aim for classiness: “We like to think of ourselves as the Nordstrom of sex shops,” Steve says.
I walk into the store on a Friday, halfway expecting to find Dildos R Us, but am confronted instead with a sort of higher-end Victoria’s Secret. Fancy lingerie is both hanging from hangers and lying on the tableclothed tables. The floor of the store is wooden, the walls are pastel and the music is pleasantly soothing. Steve says that sometimes couples get aroused just entering the shop — apparently, the Kama Sutra massage oils and scented incense are enough of an aphrodisiac that the couples no longer need the sex toys they originally came into the store to buy.
Don’t get me, wrong, though — this is still a sex shop, and the requisite sex shop materials are still in the store. On the wall above the cashier are rows of whips and straps and blindfolds and belts. Unlike most bondage attire, however, these are made of soft leather. And while most whips tend to leave welts, these whips leave behind only a small heart-shaped imprint.
When I enter the shop, Steve is the only one working. It is odd to see a male presence in such a female-oriented shop. But Steve says this is most likely a temporary arrangement — he is filling in for his wife, who recently gave birth to their second child. The store gets a ton of applications each day, he says. In the comment section, most of the women write that they would be proud to work in a store that is so open about women’s sexuality.
Steve and Leigh Ann, however, are very selective about the people they choose to work in their shop.
“We are not just salespeople — we’re educators, too,” Steve says. “We want people who will be comfortable with answering difficult questions. We want people who are good at making other people feel comfortable.”
Steve thinks of himself as a sex counselor at times.
“I never ask,” he says, “but sometimes people just feel the need to tell me. The most common story comes from women who in their 40s. They were married at age 18, 19 or 20. They were faithful through their entire marriage and now due to divorce or something else, they’re finding out for the first time that sex can be fun. And these people are angry. They can’t believe that they’ve missed out on this pleasure for so long.”
Then there are the women who come into the shop who do not know anything about their own bodies.
“It’s hysterical,” he says. “I’m teaching female anatomy to women. Me! For a year and a half I could not bring myself to say the word ‘vibrator.'”
Steve estimates that about one-fourth of the clientele comes into the shop alone, but I do not. Instead, I drag two of my roommates along with me. After we do our requisite initial survey of the place, the three of us immediately head to the back of the store where all of the sex toys are located. We joke about the shape of the dildos — “that one kind of looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” I say. We also marvel at the architecture of the dildos and wonder (pardon the pun) how they manage to stay erect. For their amusement, I reuse all of Monday night’s jokes and commentaries. I take credit for the lines they laugh at.
And this is how the visit goes: We look, but do not touch. Joke, but do not buy. Talk, but not really.
This is the second time I leave the place dildoless. I begin to wonder if there is something wrong with me.
Tamara Kreinin is co-author of the new book “Girls’ Night Out.” She is also president and CEO of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. Kreinin believes that the sexual revolution came about only because women finally got together and started talking about the matter. She believes that women’s groups are empowering and that without them women “would end up back scrubbing pots in the kitchen.”
“Women seek a sense of community,” she says. It is no surprise to her that girls nights out are becoming popularized events. “Women need to talk,” she says. “Men process information by going to work or going to the gym. Women need to analyze and re-analyze everything.”
This is especially true, she thinks, with issues of sex and masturbation. “They’re both such solitary acts,” she says. “And if you can’t be in the bedroom with everyone else, the next best thing is to talk about it with them.”
In her meetings with various women’s groups across the country, she has found that a lot of these groups deal explicitly with sexuality. The key, she says, is to talk about sex with humor and cheer.
Northwestern Health Services has its own version of sex talks. They’re called reproductive health educator sessions, and if you want a prescription for oral contraception or want to see a gynecologist for the first time, you are strongly encouraged to attend this meeting. At these gatherings, peer health educators talk about STDs, about the proper way to put on a condom and about the effects of accidentally skipping the pill for a day. Normally, about 10 women attend each meeting. Normally, they don’t know each other. Normally, the room is silent when the peer health educator asks if there are any questions. When the meeting is over, everyone sprints out of the room.
Once you get through these meetings, it takes about a month to schedule an appointment with a gynecologist. The ob/gyns at NU are incredibly nice. They will talk to you about relationships, about life fulfillment, and about ways to avoid urinary tract infections. But they do not want to talk about sex. They suggest I go to Counseling and Psychological Services if I want to do that.
I do want to do that — but not at CAPS. Instead I go see Amy Steinhauer, an associate therapist at Womencare counseling center in Evanston. I am prepared to talk to her about sex, but instead we spend the majority of our time talking about masturbation. It seems that talking about masturbation is one of the most powerful tools a therapist has to deal with a client’s sexual issues.
“Masturbating helps my clients diagnose their problems,” she says. “It lets them know what’s going wrong and also what’s going right. It helps women achieve orgasm or at least know what it’s like.”
She says, too, that vibrators are especially great for helping women experience orgasms for the first time. And dildos are good, she says, for people who are uncomfortable with the idea of penetration.
I ask if there is a relationship between good sex and good masturbation and she says that yes, there is a huge correlation.
Thinking of my vibratorless room at home, I ask if they sell sex toys here, but she says no, they only sell themselves and their services.
It is a Tuesday night when I head back to The Honeysuckle Shop. I am becoming a regular here — I have never been a regular anywhere before and I’m not particularly liking the feeling of it.
I say hello to Steve and he greets me by name.
I really do need to get out of here.
But before I do, I peruse the collection of sex toys once again. Only this time, there are no hovering salespeople here and no friends to joke with. By myself, I actually deign to read the literature that is posted next to the dildos. The junior pearl, for instance, is advertised for the “petite girl.” It is, the sign proclaims, “ergonomically designed to fit the contours of a woman’s body.” I look around but do not find any dildos for the “larg
e” girl. I wonder if this could be considered size discrimination and whether consumers could then sue the manufacturers for this. I think this is very funny, and I want to share it with someone. Only I have no one to share it with.
And I start to get nervous. See, without the companionship, this whole vibrator-buying experience seems almost, well, serious.
Which I guess is the point of having a female-oriented sex shop. The existence of these institutions proclaims to the world: “Look, people are finally taking women’s sexual needs seriously. See, we do care about what women want. Like personal masseurs, we are here to serve you.”
But that doesn’t make me any more comfortable here.
And all of these thoughts bring me back to something Amy said to me the other day. I said females have women’s centers and ob/gyns and even their own hallways devoted to themselves at Searle Student Health Services, but where can men go?
And Amy said to me, “Honey, they can go anywhere. That’s why we have women’s centers — because if men were not seen as the norm, then we wouldn’t need to have women’s brands of anything.”
And so, as I look at the “champ”– made for “ladies who believe that size does matter” — I think about the fact that guys don’t need mechanical devices to physically stimulate themselves — they seem to do quite fine without them. And I think, well, damn it, I’ve got 10 fingers, too. I’ve got an imagination and a bed sheet. I also think that I really, really can’t afford to part with $100 right now.
So I leave the store — once more — without buying anything. When I get outside, though, I call a few of my girl friends.
We need a night out to discuss this further. nyou
