Generation B—
The Adult Store Goes Mainstream
by Michale Winerip
The New York Times
June 28, 2009
Source
MORE than four decades after the sexual
revolution, the word “vibrator” still
has the power to elicit blushes, discomfort, snickering. And yet, according
to the first academic, peer-reviewed studies of vibrator use, it is nearly
as common an appliance in American households as the drip coffee maker
or toaster oven.
Fifty-three percent of women and nearly
half of all men report having
used a vibrator, according to two new national surveys from Indiana University
recently published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
And what the surveys make clear is that the vibrator—dismissed
as a “masturbatory machine” for “sexually dysfunctional
females” in The Journal of Popular Culture back in
1974—is
being used by couples for shared pleasure. Eighty-one percent of
women and 91 percent of men who’ve used one report having done
so with a partner.
“What this tells us is we’ve reached a tipping point,” said
Debby Herbenick, an author of the studies along with her Indiana University
colleague Michael Reece. “Something once regarded as
exotic has become commonplace.”
The surveys, conducted in April 2008 and paid for by
Church & Dwight,
which makes Trojan condoms and a line of vibrators, document vibrator
use and the related sexual practices of 2,056 women and 1,047 men; 93
percent of those surveyed said they are heterosexual.
While baby boomers, the first Americans to come of age in an era of
loosened sexual strictures, were pioneers of vibrator acceptance, the
data make clear that succeeding generations have surpassed them. Among
boomer women, ages 45 to 60, 46.3 percent reported having used a vibrator
at some point in their lives, compared to 59.5 percent of women, ages
23 to 44; and 32.7 percent of women, 18 to 22. For men, 45.2 percent,
ages 45 to 60 reported having used one; 51.5 percent, ages 23 to 44;
and 15.5 percent, ages 18 to 22.
The researchers attribute the widespread use to easier
availability and a cultural shift away from the bad ol’ boy,
Triple-X-rated sex toy industry. Vibrators are now sold
at Wal-Mart,
7-Eleven and CVS;
new Internet sites for sex products feature middle-aged models and aim
at mainstream couples. Several companies market sex toys to women as
young as sorority sisters and as old as postmenopausal golden girls through
Tupperware-style home parties.
“You can now buy your toothpaste, shampoo and vibrator at the
local convenience store,” Dr. Herbenick said. “They’re
not hidden in a dark corner of some adult store.”
This is the first vibrator research based on a sampling
reflective of the nation’s demographic mix, so there is no means
of authoritatively measuring changing use over time. But earlier research
gives some hints.
Studies by Alfred Kinsey in 1953 and by Shere Hite in
1976 concluded that vibrator use was “not appreciable” and “less than
1 percent.” A 1992 National Health and Social Life survey done
at the University of Chicago indicated 2 percent of women 18 to 59 had
bought a vibrator in the previous 12 months, with 17 percent finding
the idea of using one “somewhat or very appealing.”
Making the vibrator mainstream has been a career for Patty Brisben,
53, who in 1993 started Pure Romance, a home party company that sells
sex toys to women in their living rooms. Today, Ms. Brisben employs 120
workers at an office in suburban Cincinnati, along with 30,000 party
hostesses around the country, who, she says, make sales pitches to 1.2
million women a year.
The Indiana researchers also published a third survey
in April, in the American Journal of Sexuality Education, which polled
more than 1,000
of Pure Romance’s party hostesses, who range in age from 18 to
75, about their clients.
Ms. Brisben estimates that about one-third of these
customers are boomers, and the Indiana survey documents their sexual
concerns. One-quarter of
the hostesses reported they’d been asked questions at their last
party about sex after menopause; one-fifth about sex after a hysterectomy;
and two-thirds about lubricants.
Pure Romance also has a specially trained group of hostesses
who do 400 to 500 parties a year for cancer survivors, a largely middle-aged
group, according to Ms. Brisben. “They’re in recovery, but
surviving’s not enough, they want to put pleasure back in their
lives,” she said.
The Journal of Sexual Medicine survey found that 39 percent of middle-aged
women had used a vibrator for masturbation; along with 53 percent of
women 23 to 44; and 30 percent of women 18 to 22. The more religious
a person, the less likely she was to use a vibrator, and the more educated,
the more likely, according to the survey.
Men and women who had used a vibrator in the last month scored
higher on sexual pleasure scales that measured arousal, orgasm, lubrication,
pain and erectile function than those who had never used one.
Having children under 18 in the house had no impact
on the rate of use, and Dr. Reece believes that’s partly
a result of the creativity of a new generation of suppliers. “A
lot of these are very discreet—it’s
not all the Hitachi magic wand. They’re so innocuous, even
if children saw, they wouldn’t know.”
In 2001, Sandor Gardos, who has a doctorate in psychology
from the University of Connecticut and works as a sex therapist, founded
MyPleasure.com,
an Internet site that sells sex toys. “We designed it to be a comfortable
site for the baby boomer in Peoria,” he said. “We don’t
have nudity, we don’t sell pornography, although I have nothing
against pornography. We built it to be a very safe, comfortable place
for men and women relationship-focused.”
He says his site is one of the top five Internet sellers
of sex toys. His typical customer is a woman in her late 30s to late
40s, married
with children at home. “This woman is in a relationship, she wants
something a little more exciting, but not swing clubs,” Dr. Gardos
said. “Something that’s fun to play with her husband.” His
fastest growing market, he said, is men and women from their mid-40s
to mid-50s.
Jim Daniels, vice president of marketing for Trojan,
said the company began conducting focus groups in the early 2000s and
was struck by how
many women and men talked about vibrator use. “We wanted to fund
a study that would quantify consumer interest for us,” he said.
Trojan, too, is seeking that boomer market; TV commercials
for the Trojan Vibrating Touch Fingertip Massager that made its debut
in 2008 feature
a middle-aged woman. “Our products are sold in all major retail
outlets,” Mr. Daniels said.
Even through bad economic times, vibrator sales are
up 20 percent in the last year, he said. The Trojan people know a good
thing when they
see it, and have been busy inventing a new vibrator product each year.
Last April, it was the Trojan Vibrating Mini Personal Massager. “We
keep adding bells and whistles,” Mr. Daniels said.
E-mail: generationb@nytimes.com
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
