Hey, Faggot:
Whenever I need the vibration record set straight, I access one of my many lady friends in the retail sex-toy industry. Carol Queen works at San Francisco’s Good Vibrations (1210 Valencia in San Francisco, 2504 San Pablo in Berkeley, 800-BUY-VIBE, www.goodvibes.com). Good Vibrations is the 20-year-old grandmammy of the woman-owned, anticreepy, sex-positive sex-toy-store movement. Queen has been pushing vibrators at Good Vibrations for the last seven years, and “I’ve been using them for longer than that,” she says.
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In all those years, she hasn’t become incontinent herself and has never heard from or of a single woman who became incontinent as a result of vibrator use. And that’s saying something: In 20 years, Good Vibrations has sold more than 300,000 vibrators to women in San Francisco and beyond. If even a tiny percentage of their customers were pissing all over themselves, you can bet Queen and Good Vibrations would know. And they would tell us, even if it meant going out of business. Because they’re women. And women are better than men.
I have recently added the use of toys to my playtime. What’s with the warnings about the use of vibrators and “unexplained thigh or calf pain”? Is there some kind of weird medical condition that could develop with the use of a vibrator? –Kid with a New Toy
I’m 30, female, bisexual, and just started having orgasms three years ago with the help of a vibrator. I didn’t masturbate a lot as a teen or a young woman and have never actually had an orgasm by simply stimulating myself with my hand. I have also never had one with a partner that didn’t involve me using a vibrator to get myself off. When I discovered I could orgasm with the help of that miraculous tool, I got addicted. Furthermore, I have never actually been able to come while someone else is holding the darn thing.
Furthermore, Barnard feels that the problem may not be your vibrator, but you. “It sounds like she may have some control issues. If she can’t have an orgasm without holding [the vibrator] herself, she may need to be entirely in control of the process of having an orgasm. She may need to learn how to let go of herself, not her vibrator. [And] why is it important for her not to use the vibrator? Orgasms are only a small part of sex. If she needs a vibrator to have orgasms, well, that may be how she orgasms. She shouldn’t feel like she’s flunked sex–there is no right way or wrong way to have orgasms.”
