Maria Kean of the in-home adult party company, Slumber Parties, displays her products.
Gathered in a South Campus Commons apartment Friday night, seven junior women sampled various lotions, powders and creams as an in-home representative showed them her line of products, allowing them to smell, feel and taste what they were buying.
Instead of the latest Bath & Body Works products, however, the wares were more along the lines of Bosom Buddy nipple cream and Lickity Stiff lubricant.
“It’s not your mother’s Tupperware party,” human sexuality professor Robin Sawyer said.
As our generation turns more in the way of Sex and the City than 7th Heaven, a growing number of female students are gathering for these sex-toy parties in their apartments and homes. And the once-taboo industry is helping students not only get off, but also open up, encouraging them to become increasingly open about their sexual needs, habits and practices.
“These parties give the idea that sex is OK,” one student who wished to remain anonymous said. “It’s OK to be sexual, and a lot of it is promoting safe sex, and it’s just a fun way to get together with your friends.”
Distributor Maria Kean, who represented sex-toy distributor Slumber Parties at the party, said the events give students an informal atmosphere to explore their sexuality.
“Women get to sample products,” she said. “They get to learn and have an opportunity to get an education about the products with other women. It is an alternative to going to a dirty bookstore; these are classy parties.”
Items like fuzzy handcuffs, Poker for Lovers, a Love Swing, naked playing cards, a penis-shaped cake pan, erotic dancing DVDs, a Good Head sampler pack (coming in various flavors from wild cherry to sexy cinnamon) and various literature to enhance sexual knowledge had been placed on a display table covered with red silk cloth Friday night as the distributor explained each product in detail.
Very much a party atmosphere as opposed to an uncomfortable sex lecture, students sampled various body products and even played games like drawing a penis on a piece of paper on top of their heads, the prize for which was a penis-shaped tube of lipstick.
The student hosting the party, who has held a party like this before, swore by the quality of the products offered for sale.
“Most of the stuff that we already tasted and smelled I have in my room,” she said. “My boyfriend loves them. I love them.”
Though the Slumber Parties line of products goes above and beyond basic sex toys, the company also offers a wide variety of mechanical tools.
Vibrators in all shapes, widths and colors were on display, each offering a unique feature for the buyer’s pleasure preference. From the beginner’s Rabbit Pearl (well known for a cameo in an infamous Sex and the City episode) to the longer, wider Dolphin Delight, to the Butterfly that glowed with multi-colored flashing lights, there was something for everyone.
Kean, who has been working as a distributor for the Slumber Parties company for three years, said that half of her events are for young women between the ages of 18 and 25. She hosts six to eight adult in-home parties a month, and she comes to women’s homes with six large suitcases and two duffel bags stocked full of lingerie, vibrators and other erotic novelty items, she added.
Students who host the parties get 10 percent of the value of the sales, a 40 percent discount on the products offered and a free gift – an easy and fun way to make money, they said.
Junior criminology and criminal justice major Marcy Groman has worked for another adult in-home party company, Tasteful Treasures, for three years and hosts about one party a week, she said. Though the process requires an initial money loss – investing in all the products – the junior has made her money back and more after her first party, she said.
Groman advocates the importance of gaining as much knowledge as possible about sex, and she has even hosted parties for LGBT crowds and all-male parties.
Though Groman’s primary objective is to turn a profit, she thinks an important part of her job is to educate women about their bodies.
“I try to leave girls with a sense of empowerment,” she said. “I am not saying that sex toys are the answer to anything. [Instead], it’s a way to tell girls they can be happy on their own and teach them sexual knowledge and learn how to feel good.”
And today’s generation of young people – sometimes referred to as the “hook-up generation” – see women’s sexuality in a different way than their parents did, said Sawyer, who has been teaching HLTH377: Human Sexuality at the university for 22 years.
“Women today are different,” Sawyer said. “Today they are more assertive and open about what it is they want.”
In fact, the popularity of these sex-toy parties could be just one example of the increased openness of women and their views of sex.
“We have come a long way since the ’60s, with regards to sexuality,” Sawyer said. “It freed women up in an evolution into equality with men. There is definitely a change in expectations for a lot of women. Perhaps sex toy parties are part of that change. Women don’t have to be so passive about sexuality as they have been in the past.”
For some of the girls, however, it’s also just good fun.
“I don’t think I see it in such noble terms,” one student said. “It’s just another idea for a party.”
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