Em & Lo’s Sex Toy: An A-Z Guide to Bedside Accessories PDF
Preview Em & Lo’s Sex Toy: An A-Z Guide to Bedside Accessories
h f&-:" ~ i"' ~ ,. t ~ {$ ,,,~ ii: f"-:- ,,~ "' '8" <?-. ~ ..:~· 11</ __ y, !.- .~">...~ ~.t· .;.:· "2> ~' ' ,_ .}<« •' .;;, '~' " . 4,; >' '~ !»: l ,...:-.-: "' ~; :Ji ,") "' .,( Toy Story There was a time, long ago, when procuring a sex toy meant either visiting the produce department or going to a seedy store with a neon "XXX" in the window, curtained booths in the back that smelled myste riously like chlorine, and a guy behind the counter with one good eye. You can thank pro-sex feminism, comprehensive sex education, Alfred Kinsey, Ernst Grafenberg (of G-spot fame), Betty Dodson, Sex and the City, et al., for contributing to the mainstreaming of sex toys. These days, countless on line retailers offer bedside props safely, securely, and discreetly (i.e., plain paper packaging and generic billing details on your credit card statement). Gone are the days of the humiliating face-to-face handover of cash for a Fleshlight. Even Drugstore.com sells sex toys! (And we're not just talking about those "back" massagers-they stock dildos and all!) The in-person shopping experience has been transformed, too, by beautifully designed and inviting toy emporiums where people can ask questions and get honest, educated answers about sexual health and exploration without feeling like they need to wash their hands thirty-seven times when they get home. Couples are even making a trip to their little sex shop on the corner part of an evening out. It's about freakin' time. Sure, dildos have been arqund since at least 10,000 B.C., and doctors were using vibrators to cure women of "hysteria" back in the nineteenth century, but it's only in the last decade or so that people have finally started to chill out and consider toys part of a healthy sex life. In l994, the fourteenth World Congress of Sexology, an international gathering of sexuality scientists, declared, "Sexual pleasure, including autoeroticism !masturbation], is a source of physi cal, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual well-being." Ten years later, Durex's annual international sex survey found that more than a third of women own a vibrator or an "intimate massager." And a nationwide study by Chicago's Berman Center found that women who use vibrators experience higher levels of sexual desire, higher levels of sexual satisfaction, and higher rates of success in achieving orgasm. Hot day-umm. Toys aren't just for the ladies, though, and they're more than just a "widow's comforter," too. The same study found that women in relationships were even more likely to use sex toys than single gals. Before this sexual awakening, the sex-toy industry was a "push" market, driven entirely by the manufacturers and distributors. The businesses were run by men and marketed to men, without much thought to women's bodies or real pleasure. But over the past decade, women who, after all, are the ones who benefit most from toys-have managed to turn the industry into a "pull" market. By putting their money where their naughty bits are, female consumers have encouraged manu facturers to invest in research and development, place quality over quantity, and listen to their complaints (at least, when old-fashioned shame hasn't kept them from piping up about defective products). Hence, sex toys have gotten a lot better-for everyone. "Boy toy" no longer means just a blow-up doll and a vat of Crisco. Vibrators are now designed with the clitoris in mind. Dildos have the G-spot on the brain. Novelties have taken a backseat to high-end sex toys and ergonomic, body-contoured vibes. Lubes got better. Condoms got thinner. Glass dildos can now pass as abstract art on your coffee table. Some of the most popular sex toys don't bear the slightest resemblance to a penis (no offense, guys, but it's not always about the dick). A miniature vibrator attached to a cock ring offers women vibrating clitoral stimulation during intercourse. Starter strap-on kits mean women across the country are saying, "Bend over, boyfriend." Bachelorette-party paraphernalia has been replaced by toys that actually get the job done. The problem is, it's still a jungle out there, no thanks to states such as Alabama and Texas, which continue to honor outmoded laws banning the sale of sex toys (which they deem obscene). Given this country's puri tanical tendencies, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the sex-toy industry is entirely unregulated, and many less-than.upstanding companies con tinue to take advantage of this fact. The most benign effect is that the market is still flooded with cheap, crappy, gimmicky toys about as likely to get you off as an episode of lan-y King live. They're often made in China, most likely under dubious labor conditions. And since they're billed as novelties, they don't come with instructions for safe use or care. More troubling, it means many toys on the shelves are made of poten· tially carcinogenic materials (see phthalates), and because there's no organization overseeing safety and package labeling, you'd never know it. That's where this book comes in-it explains why you should use sex toys, which toys you should check out, where you can buy them, and how you can use them. We even tell you how to introduce a toy to a hesitant partner (see communication) and how to hide your toy col lection from a nosy aunt (see storage)' We have personally tried just about every sex toy reviewed in this book-and, where that wasn't pos sible, for obvious anatomical reasons, we interviewed someone who has. (You should have seen the brawl that almost broke out over which one of us got to test-drive the Rock Chick vibrator.) A word on how to shop with this book: There is a dizzying array of online sex-toy retailers out there. Most appeal to more prurient inter ests and are unhelpful and ill informed. They tell you what they think you want to hear ("She'll be writhing and moaning all night long!" or "It'll make her pussy virgin-tight again!") rather than what you need to know (like, oh, say, that a toy might cause friggi n' cancer if you don"t whack a condom on it). They regurgitate unhelpful package copy. They sell "porn-star pussies." In short, they do everything that the XXX neon stores do, just on line. i\nd we think you should avoid them like the clap. So we singled out some online sex-toy retailers we like very much represented by the initials you see after each toy mentioned in this book. We'd trust these stores with our genitals and our credit card information. For the most part, we avoided the Wal-Mart-esque biggies, such as the original AdamandEve.corn-we find they leave us a little cold. Whether you·re a man or a woman, gay or straight, we believe that the smaller stores with a more feminine approach (whether they're owned and operated by women or not) will give you a better shopping experience. The best six of the bunch are GoodVibes.com (GV), Babeland.com (BL), A-Womans-Touch.corn (WT), Blowfish.com (BF), MyPleasure.com (MP), and Libida.com (LB). The first three in this list have bricks-'n' mortar stores you can visit, too, which is great for getting a sense of a toy's size, vibration strength, noisiness, beauty, etc. But when that's not convenient or geographically possible, their on line stores will do just fine. We've also found Drugstore.com (OS) to be helpful for well-priced mainstream stuff, ErosBoutique.com (EB) and ExtremeRestraints.com (EX) for BDSM paraphernalia, ComeAsYouAre.com for Canucks, and Xandria.com (XA) for price comparison and gimmicky-but-worth-it items. You can even buy high-quality silicone dildos directly from one of the best manufacturers in the biz at VixenCreations.com (VC). And when we say a toy is "available almost everywhere," we mean it's stocked at most of the aforementioned stores-we don't mean that you can pop down to the nearest Duane Reade and pick it up. One day, though ... By the way, many mom-and-pop sex toy shops aren't on line like the stores we mention here but are just as friendly, responsible, and afford able. So, check out your local alternative newspaper to see whether there's one in your town. If there is, consider it your civic duty to support it! We've included price ranges for most toys:"$" means less than $20, "$$"means Sio-$60; "$$$"means $60-$100; and"$$$$" means $100-$200. For anything more expensive than that (a.k.a. bedroom bling), we've included the actual price. Prices can vary significantly from store to store, so shop around for the best deal. And by "best deal," we mean the lowest price on that particular toy. not some cheap knock-off made in China. At first glance, you may think many of the toys we've included are quite pricey. But though high cost doesn't necessarily guarantee high quality, in this industry you usually get what you pay for: Cheap toys are typically made cheaply out of cheap materials. High-quality sex toys are an investment in the quality of your sexual pleasure and satisfaction. You probably wouldn't think twice about spending $50, even $100, on a nice meal or a new pair of jeans; aren't your genitals worth that same investment?
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