Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Happy Hour #42: Sexism at the Sex Shop?

Transcript

Happy Hour #42: Sexism at the Sex Shop? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Danny and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you production about iHeart Radio. I was
0:18
Speaker 1: a little gruffy, there was it. I was not you
0:23
Speaker 1: meff Oh you know what gruffy is definitely a word. Well,
0:30
Speaker 1: gruffy is just fine for this Happy Hour episode, which
0:36
Speaker 1: is going to be a fun, interesting one. But I
0:39
Speaker 1: do want to put a content morning in here. We
0:41
Speaker 1: are going to be talking about sex toys, yes today,
0:46
Speaker 1: so you know you might want to take a listen
0:49
Speaker 1: if there's any younger people in your life that also listen,
0:52
Speaker 1: which is so cool and hello, but you know, maybe
0:56
Speaker 1: give it a listen before you let them check it out.
0:59
Speaker 1: And he says, I it is with these Happy Hour episodes.
1:01
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. Drink responsibly if you choose
1:04
Speaker 1: to do so. Samantha, what are you sipping on? I
1:08
Speaker 1: decided to just be real. Is it basic for me
1:11
Speaker 1: to do rum and diet coke with a little splash
1:14
Speaker 1: of lime? Is that basically it sounds good to me?
1:19
Speaker 1: Basic or not? It sounds lovely. I just see a
1:22
Speaker 1: little something peppy like caffeine to go with the liquor portion.
1:26
Speaker 1: But yes, this is what I'm drinking. For my winter cocktail.
1:30
Speaker 1: That's not I think it's a cocktail all the way.
1:35
Speaker 1: I in my continuing effort to get rid of some
1:39
Speaker 1: things that I have a lot of them, drinking bourbon
1:43
Speaker 1: and contro quintro contrue orange liqueur and lime and soda water.
1:52
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because, as I told Samantha, my landlord,
1:56
Speaker 1: my water is off and it has been off for
1:58
Speaker 1: about two days. It so he turns it back on
2:04
Speaker 1: at night. But yes, yes, so it's like a real
2:08
Speaker 1: planning gang of things. Uh So, anyway, it's gonna be
2:15
Speaker 1: an interesting day for me because he I went to
2:17
Speaker 1: go fill up my water and totally forgot. I can't
2:21
Speaker 1: do it, can't do it right now. But yes, we
2:24
Speaker 1: are talking about sex toys today, and this was on
2:30
Speaker 1: my mind because I was just thinking something we talked
2:35
Speaker 1: about it past episode. I can't remember what, but it
2:37
Speaker 1: made me think about my experience buying my first sex toy,
2:42
Speaker 1: and I was curious if that was most people's experiences.
2:48
Speaker 1: So I have said before, I did not know women
2:53
Speaker 1: could masturbate until college. Um, I think that's very demonstrative
2:58
Speaker 1: as to how little we talk about women's pleasure and
3:00
Speaker 1: women's bodies. But I did not know it was the thing.
3:03
Speaker 1: And then when I was in college, I was going
3:06
Speaker 1: to move to China, and a friend in China said, advice,
3:13
Speaker 1: BI sex story and bring it with you. And so
3:18
Speaker 1: I asked all of these women at a party for
3:21
Speaker 1: their advice, and they all had these recommendations and all
3:24
Speaker 1: these things I should look for. I happened to live
3:27
Speaker 1: across the street to my parents extreme displeasure from an
3:31
Speaker 1: insurrection sex toy store, and the night I would see
3:35
Speaker 1: the blue and pink flashing lights, and so I went
3:38
Speaker 1: over there and I was just completely overwhelmed. And I
3:41
Speaker 1: went with two friends, but I was just like, I'm
3:43
Speaker 1: pretty sure, very obvious that I'd never been before, that
3:47
Speaker 1: I didn't really know what I was doing. And I
3:52
Speaker 1: chose something that was in my price range that looked easy,
3:58
Speaker 1: easy to operate. And when I checked out, the place
4:01
Speaker 1: was drawn by a man and he was kind of
4:05
Speaker 1: following me around as I was shopping and putting things out,
4:08
Speaker 1: and it made me really uncomfortable, to be honest, And
4:10
Speaker 1: when I was checking out, um, he showed me how
4:12
Speaker 1: to operate it and like put in the batteries and
4:16
Speaker 1: did the whole thing, and I was just so embarrassed,
4:19
Speaker 1: and he was he was giving a smile that like,
4:22
Speaker 1: I don't know if I was reading too much into it,
4:23
Speaker 1: but felt very like leering looking back. And I was
4:28
Speaker 1: just thinking about that experience, and actually the six story
4:31
Speaker 1: turned out to be great, Um, it was a great purchase,
4:35
Speaker 1: but just thinking about that experience of buying it, and
4:38
Speaker 1: I was like, I wonder if that's kind of what
4:40
Speaker 1: the situation is. Because they have been since then, obviously
4:43
Speaker 1: to other obviously to other sex story stores, and I've
4:47
Speaker 1: had some different experiences, and I've just felt better when
4:51
Speaker 1: it's women who were the person selling, selling me on something,
4:56
Speaker 1: or telling me about something. But what do you mind
5:00
Speaker 1: sharing your first experience buying a sex story? So at
5:03
Speaker 1: the so I have two different stories because I absolutely
5:07
Speaker 1: knew about masturbation because I was very sexualized at a
5:11
Speaker 1: very young age. We know this conversation moving on. However,
5:15
Speaker 1: my first actual experience in a sex shop was in
5:19
Speaker 1: Paris and I went with a super nice guy. He
5:24
Speaker 1: was in my hostel room, and it was really funny
5:29
Speaker 1: because this whole story was I went to bed, no
5:32
Speaker 1: one was in there. I woke up, dude was staring
5:34
Speaker 1: at me. Shirtless, and I was like, what the hell
5:36
Speaker 1: is happening and he was like, hey, there, how are you?
5:40
Speaker 1: Very sweet, very gay, young white dude who just came
5:44
Speaker 1: by himself and was so excited to meet somebody. Turns
5:48
Speaker 1: out he was so nice. We became really good friends.
5:51
Speaker 1: I think this was my second time through. I was
5:53
Speaker 1: trying to leave France at this point. They trying to
5:56
Speaker 1: leave Europe and go back home. So I've gone through
6:00
Speaker 1: Paris only back to Paris to England, and this was
6:03
Speaker 1: my second round through with the same hostile I've been
6:05
Speaker 1: at before because I had such a great experience there.
6:07
Speaker 1: They're super nice, and before then I had only had
6:10
Speaker 1: one roommate. This one had like three or four, and
6:12
Speaker 1: I was very confused about what was happening. And he
6:15
Speaker 1: was so nice and he was like, we gotta go
6:17
Speaker 1: do these things. And we had to go look because
6:19
Speaker 1: the French openings were happening. So he's like, I need
6:21
Speaker 1: to see I think it was Andy Roddick at this time.
6:23
Speaker 1: He's like, I got I got a little cost shirt too,
6:25
Speaker 1: and I just need to see if I can see him.
6:27
Speaker 1: He was so excited, so we went there and then
6:30
Speaker 1: I was talking about pretty much my naive experience of like,
6:32
Speaker 1: I cannot believe we're this close to the red light
6:35
Speaker 1: district and we were like within I think we were
6:37
Speaker 1: in that community. We were in that area, and he
6:39
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, yeah, have you looked at
6:42
Speaker 1: the sex shops? I was like, I've never gone to one.
6:44
Speaker 1: Of course, he felt very horrified that a college graduate
6:48
Speaker 1: had never been to a sex shop, so he immediately
6:51
Speaker 1: took me in, and I was so horrified, so like,
6:55
Speaker 1: because off again Paris red Light district, they market this
7:00
Speaker 1: as being sexually open to everything, and obviously the tourists
7:05
Speaker 1: know this area, so they're gonna pump up that whole
7:08
Speaker 1: thing even more when in IM not gonna lie. I
7:11
Speaker 1: blacked out. I can't exactly remember what was in there
7:14
Speaker 1: because he was laughing at me the entire time, and
7:17
Speaker 1: I was trying to get the apt so that I
7:21
Speaker 1: didn't buy anything, because there was no way in hell
7:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy a virator, put it in my suitcase
7:25
Speaker 1: and have someone searched through it, not doing it, not
7:32
Speaker 1: doing it. So I didn't buy anything there. But the
7:35
Speaker 1: experience was so great that, like, even though it was
7:38
Speaker 1: so mortified at that time, so great I wouldn't change
7:41
Speaker 1: that for a minute. Then I came into the US,
7:44
Speaker 1: I really started thinking about my life, realized I've missed
7:46
Speaker 1: some opportunities, kind of talked about roommate about it. My
7:49
Speaker 1: roommate actually got me one. That's how we first started
7:52
Speaker 1: because she was like, girl, girl, let me help you,
7:56
Speaker 1: let me help you out. And it was great. It
7:59
Speaker 1: was great. It was very basic, and every since then
8:02
Speaker 1: I have never actually, now that I thinking about it,
8:04
Speaker 1: I bought it in person. Everything is through mail for me,
8:08
Speaker 1: and I've had some hit or missus. I will say
8:11
Speaker 1: that I have as well. Um, I definitely have one
8:15
Speaker 1: that was like highly recommended to me, but it's a
8:17
Speaker 1: little too complicated for me. But I mean, as I've
8:20
Speaker 1: said though, like not that I'm not open to exploring,
8:24
Speaker 1: because I am, but I'm pretty like I can get
8:27
Speaker 1: off pretty easy for a good amount of time. Yeah,
8:31
Speaker 1: I can't help it. Look, I can't help it. Superpower
8:35
Speaker 1: it is. It is one of my favorite pictures. If
8:39
Speaker 1: you know, if we were a different network, not a
8:42
Speaker 1: different network, a different show, i'd share it. But one
8:44
Speaker 1: of my favorite pictures I've ever taken was I went
8:46
Speaker 1: to this Harry Potter party and I was dressed this
8:48
Speaker 1: her mine, and somehow in the night we ended up
8:51
Speaker 1: at a sex story shop at the end, and so
8:54
Speaker 1: I'm dressed this her mine in this sex story shop,
8:57
Speaker 1: and I have a picture that I just happened to
8:59
Speaker 1: snap at the perfect moment where I look so like
9:02
Speaker 1: innocent and cute as her bonny and my friend is
9:04
Speaker 1: vomiting right by all these vibrators love it. It was
9:13
Speaker 1: quite a night. Now, I will say we've done past
9:29
Speaker 1: episodes past us have done past episodes, and we've done
9:32
Speaker 1: past episodes on the history of the vibrator, some of
9:35
Speaker 1: the current issues. And we talked to the founder of
9:40
Speaker 1: oh Say um, which is a type of sex toy,
9:46
Speaker 1: and I hesitate because when in that conversation we talked
9:49
Speaker 1: about why that term is problematic and kind of dismissive
9:54
Speaker 1: of women's pleasure UM, and that's just something like we're
9:57
Speaker 1: going to use that term, but that is a converse
10:00
Speaker 1: station about like better terms that we could have. Also,
10:02
Speaker 1: I was thinking about marital aids, like that's kind of
10:08
Speaker 1: um an exclusionary and interesting term right for a lot
10:13
Speaker 1: of this because again it hinges on like you have
10:16
Speaker 1: to be married and then we're gonna talk a little
10:20
Speaker 1: more about it, but the morality stuff about it, and
10:23
Speaker 1: so if you rename it, maybe it's okay. Type of conversation. Um,
10:28
Speaker 1: I know in the state of Georgia is complicated in itself.
10:31
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know people who after they got married
10:34
Speaker 1: it felt free to do such things, but buying it beforehand,
10:38
Speaker 1: and part of my shame factor and not buying anything
10:42
Speaker 1: and fearing myself out when it came to toys and
10:44
Speaker 1: such is because we are taught in religious background that
10:49
Speaker 1: this is a no no, a huge no no, and
10:52
Speaker 1: for women even more so. And so this whole level
10:56
Speaker 1: of shame factor in it. Yes, and by renaming it
11:00
Speaker 1: nal Aids Against Commission, m hmm, it's such a weird,
11:05
Speaker 1: like albeit purposeful technique to give someone permission you enjoy
11:13
Speaker 1: themselves right right, right right, And that that again also
11:17
Speaker 1: just implies like, you know, marriage is the only space
11:20
Speaker 1: you should be having this kind of pleasure and this
11:22
Speaker 1: kind of sex or yeah, any kind of any kind
11:25
Speaker 1: of sexual experience. So when I had this question, my
11:30
Speaker 1: main question was like, what is it in these sex shops?
11:33
Speaker 1: Are they are they mostly run by men? Are they sexist? Um?
11:37
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, Yeah, pretty much, but we did want to
11:40
Speaker 1: briefly go over some of the history very quickly, and
11:43
Speaker 1: then some of the things that are going on now,
11:45
Speaker 1: because despite a history of obstacles, sex toys are a
11:48
Speaker 1: very big business. UM. A lot of times the policies
11:52
Speaker 1: of banks and payment processing services don't allow anything in
11:57
Speaker 1: the vicinity of adult oriented businesses is to use their service.
12:01
Speaker 1: This hasn't stopped the industry, though, and the retail market
12:04
Speaker 1: is estimated to be well on its way to being
12:06
Speaker 1: worth fifty billion dollars. On top of that, popular properties
12:11
Speaker 1: like broad City have their own sex stories, oh, their
12:14
Speaker 1: own sex way lines. UM Target sells them now. I
12:17
Speaker 1: know that made the news recently, and I believe a
12:20
Speaker 1: couple of years ago I told this story. But I
12:22
Speaker 1: was at home with my mom and we were getting
12:25
Speaker 1: ready for Christmas and looking at this magazine she'd gotten
12:27
Speaker 1: in the mail, and it was like lawnmower like all
12:31
Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, And then we flip a page
12:33
Speaker 1: and it's entire two pages of vibrators, and I took
12:39
Speaker 1: a picture. I still have it because it was so surprising. Oh,
12:46
Speaker 1: I mean, they've gone mainstream. Did your mom react? Oh? Yeah,
12:52
Speaker 1: she did. She did but she was very much like, wow,
12:55
Speaker 1: all right, good for the ladies, get what you need. Yeah, yeah.
13:03
Speaker 1: So sex toys were first introduced directly to consumers in
13:07
Speaker 1: the US at the beginning of the twentieth century, though
13:11
Speaker 1: they were sold under euphemistic labels, often medical in nature.
13:15
Speaker 1: We part of this and promising to improve a blood flow, which,
13:19
Speaker 1: by the way, still kind of happens today, whether it's
13:22
Speaker 1: a discrete packaging. I know it's a term. I hear
13:25
Speaker 1: a lot when in referencing any of the sex toys
13:28
Speaker 1: adult toys instead of saying sex because you don't want
13:32
Speaker 1: to say sex, right right, Yeah, I mean we we
13:36
Speaker 1: do hear a lot about the medical benefits, but now
13:38
Speaker 1: that's much more of a like plus sexual pleasure, there
13:42
Speaker 1: are medical benefits. But yeah, it was they were all
13:46
Speaker 1: kinds of ads that were much more like trying to
13:49
Speaker 1: hide what it was and being like, oh, this is
13:51
Speaker 1: from medical purposes only. Uh. This started to change with
13:55
Speaker 1: the sexual Revolution in the nineteen sixties, and people didn't
13:58
Speaker 1: feel the need to hide hid anymore, or they want
14:01
Speaker 1: to hide any more of the people often still had
14:03
Speaker 1: to go into the so called red light districts to
14:05
Speaker 1: get sex toys, The growing sex toy adult novelty industry
14:11
Speaker 1: as it was called, was unsurprisingly ran by men. In
14:15
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, the Doc Johnson brand Dad of California,
14:18
Speaker 1: led by the then most successful pornographer in the US,
14:21
Speaker 1: launched and quickly became a go to. Oh so many
14:26
Speaker 1: euphemisms that would be cautious though so at the time,
14:31
Speaker 1: a majority of the sex toys available were intended for
14:35
Speaker 1: women or couples. Aside from blow up dolls and pocket
14:39
Speaker 1: pussies the flesh Light, uh, they were not at all
14:42
Speaker 1: marketed that way. In the words of Hailey Lieberman, a
14:46
Speaker 1: dildo ographer with a PhD in the History of sex toys,
14:49
Speaker 1: she says, a lot of the packaging was mail directed
14:53
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties and the nineteen seventies, with sixty
14:57
Speaker 1: women on it. Not surprising even the packaging of sex
15:01
Speaker 1: toys and geared towards homosexual men. So the men who
15:05
Speaker 1: didn't care about women women on it. Uh. And no
15:09
Speaker 1: matter the product or the intended audience, the advertising and
15:13
Speaker 1: packaging was laced with sexism and it's still kind of is.
15:18
Speaker 1: But women in feminism started to get a foothold in
15:20
Speaker 1: the industry and more and more like the feminist vibr
15:23
Speaker 1: or business Eve's Garden and the first sex positive and
15:27
Speaker 1: women friendly store, Good Vibrations. Where do we have anywhere
15:31
Speaker 1: near us Good Vibrations? I don't know, we said, looking
15:35
Speaker 1: just look into it, because all I see is Tokyo Valentino,
15:38
Speaker 1: which took over Insurrection, which sounds very the Asian fetish
15:43
Speaker 1: level of marketing, and I hate it, hate it. I
15:46
Speaker 1: hate it. So in the nineteen eighties at home sex
15:49
Speaker 1: toy parties, I started to become popular. I did go
15:52
Speaker 1: to one of those. I forgot about that. Did you
15:55
Speaker 1: go to one of those? Two? Yeah? I was so
16:00
Speaker 1: naive and I think I hadn't had sex yet. They
16:04
Speaker 1: really really the people who threw it did it for me,
16:07
Speaker 1: and they said, like they really really found joy and
16:11
Speaker 1: seeing how embarrassed I was, and so anytime they needed
16:14
Speaker 1: to demonstrate something and I'm when I say demonstrate something,
16:17
Speaker 1: it was a very sanitary. Uh, they were trying to
16:22
Speaker 1: get me to do it. I'm like, why are you
16:23
Speaker 1: doing this to me? Obviously I'm not the one, right, Yeah,
16:29
Speaker 1: I think the wee Day it was a bridle, so
16:32
Speaker 1: like a bachelor red type of thing or something, and uh,
16:36
Speaker 1: I brought some lube and I have never used, but
16:39
Speaker 1: I do still have it. I'm trying to remember if
16:42
Speaker 1: I bought anything. I think it was just so embarrassed
16:46
Speaker 1: because one of the things that I do remember them
16:49
Speaker 1: giving out was the thing that's supposed to uh allow
16:53
Speaker 1: you to have oral sex and not get like a
16:57
Speaker 1: flavor numbing agent that was supposed to help you. And
17:01
Speaker 1: I remember like we all kind of tasted it and
17:03
Speaker 1: it did like none of you a little bit. But
17:05
Speaker 1: I was like, what what is this? So that a
17:08
Speaker 1: lot of things I do remember that, Yeah, miss game,
17:11
Speaker 1: if I remember it correctly, I mean, always look into
17:15
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. Silicon and sex stories became popular
17:33
Speaker 1: by the nineties. Reuben Sterman, the so called Walt Disney
17:37
Speaker 1: of porn, controlled much of the distribution, and his business
17:41
Speaker 1: was largely focused on sex stories important. So again like
17:44
Speaker 1: a man running a lot of this industry, Yes, And
17:49
Speaker 1: I was hoping we could talk about this. Of course,
17:51
Speaker 1: in a Sex and the City episode which we will
17:55
Speaker 1: come to featured a plot line with a Charlotte and
17:58
Speaker 1: the Rabbit vibrator and nor realizing sex toys even more
18:02
Speaker 1: and the business for that specific toy Sky rocketed, and
18:09
Speaker 1: even to the point that, yes, they brought on the
18:11
Speaker 1: most naive, innocent of characters to be the one that
18:14
Speaker 1: falls to the trap of a rabbit saying that she
18:18
Speaker 1: didn't need a man because he was the rabbit was
18:20
Speaker 1: so consistent and got her off every time. My big
18:25
Speaker 1: complaint about that whole episode is it was obviously like
18:28
Speaker 1: she cancels on them, will come to it and hides
18:32
Speaker 1: the vibrator, and they kind of man handle this vibrator.
18:35
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, that's not that's nasty. Don't be touching that.
18:40
Speaker 1: I always had an issue with that whole scene. Yeah. Yeah.
18:45
Speaker 1: And Samantha's hinting at our forthcoming sex in the City
18:49
Speaker 1: Watch party series, which you talked about a lot, and
18:53
Speaker 1: it is happening. I don't know when, So that's like
18:57
Speaker 1: pretty close in the earlier y'all. It's gonna be fun
19:01
Speaker 1: because some surprises along the way. Oh my god. Yes,
19:05
Speaker 1: I will say in that conversation I had with the
19:08
Speaker 1: women at the party about what I should buy, which
19:10
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it, and I thought it was a
19:12
Speaker 1: great instance of women like women I didn't even know
19:15
Speaker 1: and something I did, but like people coming out to
19:18
Speaker 1: help me and be like, you should buy this, should
19:19
Speaker 1: buy this. A lot of people said the rabbit or
19:22
Speaker 1: some type of rabbit, and I think Sex and City
19:25
Speaker 1: might have been part of that. Uh, there's also the dolphin,
19:28
Speaker 1: which is similar to the rebit. If you so choose
19:32
Speaker 1: to use a different creature, different creature. I guess we
19:36
Speaker 1: should say we're not sponsored by anybody we're talking about currently.
19:40
Speaker 1: I do need to ask did you buy the say?
19:45
Speaker 1: I did it? God? Yeah, personal didn't. I need I
19:51
Speaker 1: need to look into it. Okay, keep going, Shall I
19:54
Speaker 1: go down the list of maybe a future episode? But okay,
20:00
Speaker 1: so we've got this normalization of of women using these items,
20:04
Speaker 1: but still we do have a huge hang up around
20:07
Speaker 1: female pleasure. Recently we saw ces provoking an award from
20:11
Speaker 1: a sex story that won, and again sex story feels
20:14
Speaker 1: so like minimal compared. This item had patents like eight
20:18
Speaker 1: patterns if I remember correctly around it, and then cs
20:23
Speaker 1: unrevoked the whole thing and then they apologized it was
20:26
Speaker 1: a big deal. We did a whole episode on it,
20:28
Speaker 1: and then we did a follow up episode on it.
20:30
Speaker 1: We did talk about it in the episode we did
20:32
Speaker 1: with oh Say, and a lot of the advertising as
20:35
Speaker 1: you said, Samantha is still very very sexist, and a
20:38
Speaker 1: lot of it is fat phobic, agist, body shaming. A
20:41
Speaker 1: lot of women who enter the industry have said it's
20:44
Speaker 1: very slut shaming to them in a way that it
20:47
Speaker 1: is not to their male counterparts. Right, and as like
20:51
Speaker 1: social media has kind of grown too, uh, it's interesting
20:54
Speaker 1: to see how the men will comment and really be
20:57
Speaker 1: visibly I guess angry because that like they're typing out
21:01
Speaker 1: the comments about how this is so bad, and it's
21:03
Speaker 1: typically men just being angry about it, and it's like
21:06
Speaker 1: very in so e we'll say that when I see
21:10
Speaker 1: these comments, um so as of sene of sex toys
21:15
Speaker 1: industries belong to men, even harder to get into the
21:20
Speaker 1: business for women of color, and we've seen that in
21:22
Speaker 1: every route. I think, even when there are businesses by women,
21:25
Speaker 1: unless it's a woman of color who runs these industries,
21:28
Speaker 1: it's still hard for women of color to be a
21:30
Speaker 1: part of it, no matter what I think. There was
21:32
Speaker 1: a complaint at one point it spanks. Even though it's
21:35
Speaker 1: an amazing company and they are fairly diverse. The handful
21:39
Speaker 1: of women that you could see when they had their
21:40
Speaker 1: like announcement for the giant like giving away and it's
21:44
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. She treats her employees really well, it seems,
21:48
Speaker 1: but you can only see like a handful of black women,
21:51
Speaker 1: a few Asian women. You're like, okay, but a whole
21:56
Speaker 1: other story. Yes, some stores have women in trans hours only, though,
22:03
Speaker 1: with the option of buying sex toys at places like
22:05
Speaker 1: Target and Amazon, this has threatened the existence of feminist
22:08
Speaker 1: sex toys shops, with which has been a big topic
22:11
Speaker 1: of conversation lately. Right, which is partish really why I
22:15
Speaker 1: also do it online? Then there are laws, and it
22:19
Speaker 1: wasn't until two thousand eight. The nineteen seventy three Obscene
22:22
Speaker 1: Device Law was declared unconstitutional. But laws in Alabama and
22:28
Speaker 1: Georgia outlaws sex toys, and that includes vibrators. And yeah,
22:32
Speaker 1: if you go and look, everything is very obviously like
22:35
Speaker 1: it has to be blacked out. You can't have any
22:38
Speaker 1: advertisements for it. It can't be called I don't think
22:41
Speaker 1: it can be called sex toys. Is called it has
22:44
Speaker 1: to be called novelties even today. Yes, yeah, and I
22:48
Speaker 1: mean that just compounds. If you're already nervous, or you're
22:50
Speaker 1: already unsure, you feel ashamed of your body, you're like pleasure,
22:56
Speaker 1: then this is just telling you, like, oh yeah, you
22:58
Speaker 1: should be like obscene. It's against the wall. It's a
23:02
Speaker 1: weird black bag that you have to use when you
23:05
Speaker 1: check out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I mean that's that's
23:11
Speaker 1: kind of what I wanted to talk about. Is I
23:13
Speaker 1: feel like it's still as much as we've made a
23:18
Speaker 1: lot of ground, and if we're talking about it, more
23:20
Speaker 1: and more women are getting into it. When I look
23:22
Speaker 1: back on my experience buying the first my first sex story,
23:26
Speaker 1: just I just felt so sexualized in there, right, even
23:29
Speaker 1: though for me, yeah, and and all the movies are
23:33
Speaker 1: depicted and I think for the most part, I would
23:35
Speaker 1: say probably I'll run these lines because there was definitely
23:38
Speaker 1: a Buzzfeld article about a dude who weren't there and
23:41
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, his experience there, But many
23:45
Speaker 1: of them just seemed bored and like I really could
23:48
Speaker 1: care less. All Yeah. I feel like that was a
23:50
Speaker 1: special level of humph for him to explain all those
23:52
Speaker 1: things because even like maybe like the few times I've
23:55
Speaker 1: heard people going I did actually go with I did.
23:57
Speaker 1: I did go with a friend to help her find
24:00
Speaker 1: a sex toy because she was having some complications of
24:03
Speaker 1: like let's go do this, we'll buy it together. They
24:05
Speaker 1: could care less. They're like, yeah, it works. You can't
24:08
Speaker 1: bring it back like that, right. Oh yeah, they're very
24:13
Speaker 1: they're very key on that, and I get it, but
24:14
Speaker 1: you cannot bring it back. Yeah. Well, and that was
24:19
Speaker 1: my curiosity because I've only been like a handful of times.
24:22
Speaker 1: No matter what I'm making it sound like, but I
24:24
Speaker 1: just I just remember so clearly that first time in
24:26
Speaker 1: thinking like, you know, no wonder women right have troubled it,
24:31
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad I had like two friends is
24:32
Speaker 1: back up? That does seem like it's changing? Um I did?
24:36
Speaker 1: I found these like list of etiquette and tips for
24:40
Speaker 1: anybody who hasn't gone, and maybe as curious. If you're
24:43
Speaker 1: really worried, you can call ahead for rules, and the
24:46
Speaker 1: rules are generally like don't ask about the employees preferences
24:51
Speaker 1: or sex lives, Like maybe they'll offer something about that
24:53
Speaker 1: to you, but they don't want anything about that to you. Yeah,
24:56
Speaker 1: if it's your first time and you're really nervous, ask
24:58
Speaker 1: for an overview of the store and then go in
25:01
Speaker 1: kind of thinking about your own experience and what you want.
25:03
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be super like firm, especially if
25:06
Speaker 1: you're new and you're not sure, but just kind of
25:09
Speaker 1: think about those things and you you won't feel as
25:11
Speaker 1: overwhelmed as idea when I first walked in where I
25:13
Speaker 1: was like, maybe I should just walk right back out.
25:16
Speaker 1: I don't know that I should be in here. Yes,
25:21
Speaker 1: So cheers Samantha, cheers friend, cheers to you listeners, and
25:28
Speaker 1: Cheer's your Christina whose birthday it is? Today's your court
25:31
Speaker 1: that happy birthday. Yes, yes, and as always, we would
25:37
Speaker 1: love to hear from you if you would like to email,
25:39
Speaker 1: as you can our emails Stuff Media, mom Stuff at
25:41
Speaker 1: iHeart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
25:43
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or Instagram and stuff I've Never
25:45
Speaker 1: told you. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina
25:49
Speaker 1: Birthday Girl, Yes ed, thanks to you for listening so
25:53
Speaker 1: I never told you. His protection of I Heart Radio
25:55
Speaker 1: for more podcast. When I hear radio, is I hear radio?
25:57
Speaker 1: App Apple podcast already listen to your favorite