Good Vibrations Magazine

by Erin Martin

The first sex shop I went to was a run-down trailer full of negligees. They were playing “Hungry Like the Wolf” on the radio as my friend and I walked warily around the store. She was wearing a t-shirt that read “Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History.” We could not yet bring ourselves to admit that we were there as more than a curiosity, as something we thought every red-blooded feminist should do. After walking through aisles of penis-shaped straws and boob-shaped macaroni, we finally made our way back to the wall of vibrators.

“I didn’t expect them to look so much like penises,” I said.

“I know,” my friend replied. “They have veins and everything.”

Distinctly uncomfortable, we stared at the wall in silence for a few moments before. The radio station cut into Lee Greenwood singing “Proud to be an American” with clips of George W. Bush’s post-September 11 speech spliced in. I felt as out of place as I did in an auto parts store, trying to pick out motor oil and having no idea what all the different numbers and symbols mean.

To get my own engine revving, did I need flickering bunny ears? Was that too close to bestiality? Battery or electric? I tried to remember if there were an outlet close to my bed and couldn’t.

After what seemed like forever, my friend spoke.

“Anything will work. I’m not a penetration kind of girl,” she said.

She pulled an unassuming teal vibe off one of the hooks. My face flushed with peer pressure. Did I have to buy something here today too? I couldn’t buy the same one she had, but I didn’t want to buy anything too weird.

Some of the boxes had pictures of so-called “gypsies” draped over guitar cases while masturbating with some vibrator that claimed to be based on an ancient Roman secret. Not one of those. Maybe one of the small, delicate vibes in disguise? I could buy just a little one that looked like lipstick. Easy, discreet, and I could always claim kitsch value. I looked at my friend’s t-shirt. Would she think I was giving in to patriarchy if I bought something discreet?

My head hurt.

Finally, I settled on a simple purple device named something like the Hawaii 5.0, although, thank God, there was no police imagery on the packaging.

At the sales counter, my friend asked how this charge would show up on her credit card, whose bill apparently went to her parents’ house. We left the store and mutually devised some reason to stop and buy groceries at a place where we each just happened to pick up some batteries.

“It’s always good to have them around,” she said, and I think I made some reference to power outages and flashlights. She dropped me off at my apartment and went back to hers. I spent the whole evening doing a ride-along with the 5.0, and I can only suspect that my non-penetration-kind-of-girlfriend had a similar night.

We never talked about our trip to the sex toy shop again.

That was the first time I went to a sex shop. The last sex shop I went to was in a strip mall beside a hipster record store and a swanky Indonesian place. There was no trailer and the boob pasta was thankfully hidden away in a bureau labeled “Novelty Items Inside Drawers.” I didn’t have any friends along this time, and the embarrassment was much less. (Except, of course, for my ex-boyfriend calling my cell phone as I was browsing dildos and me telling him I couldn’t talk because I was in traffic.)

This shop had display models lined up like trophies on top of a spotless display case. Each vibrator had a notecard with descriptions of its functions and benefits. Like a wine connoisseur, I was beginning to master the lingo of the trade — twice-as-nice, waterproof, and softskin.

These terms had nothing on me. I had mastered the art of the technologically-assisted orgasm, and I was proud that I was not one of those nervous girls who pretended to be looking for something else. I was finally a real feminist, and I had the Rabbit Pearl to prove it.

I smiled to myself as I picked up the display models, running my fingers along their surfaces. Were they ribbed for my pleasure? Was the outside easily washable? As I scrutinized my options, I became aware of another customer in the shop. An elderly man had entered the store. He wasn’t looking at anything. He was just lingering in the middle of the store, looking almost like he might have been there by accident.

I smiled at him.

“Excuse me,” he whispered. “Do you work here?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

Emboldened by my confidence as a sex-toy shopper, I turned back to the man. “Were you looking for something in particular?”

“Um, yes,” he said, his hands deep in his pockets. “I want a massage unit for my wife.”

“Maybe I can help you pick something out.”

He looked relieved and embarrassed all at once. “I want something for general and sexual purposes,” he said.

We danced around the issue for the next few minutes. Eventually he confessed that he wasn’t able to pleasure his wife like he could when he was younger. He said it broke his heart not to be able to make love to her as he once had and he wanted to make up for that.

“I know it won’t be the same, but I was hoping I could help her feel good again,” he said.

I felt a lump in my throat. I’ll admit that my eyes welled up as I showed him some of the different models. He said he didn’t know if his wife had used a vibrator before and wanted something simple.

“Nothing too fancy,” he kept saying. He picked out one that looked subtle enough, but still eyed it warily. “I don’t know if she’ll even like it,” he added.

I thought of my first date with my Hawaii 5.0.

“I’m sure she’ll like it,” I said. He thanked me for my help and went off to buy his massage unit for general and sexual purposes.

I looked at the display case and considered my next purchase. It had taken me years of women’s studies classes and sloganized t-shirts to get up the guts to help myself have an orgasm.

Now I realized that it’s not reading Betty Friedan or memorizing a Hitachi catalog that I need to do to before feeling (finally) free and in charge of my own body. Sometimes it’s just an old man in a sex toy shop who reminds me that every woman deserves all the pleasure she can get.

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Erin Martin is an MFA student at the University of Alabama. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in can we have our ball back?, Coconut Poetry and Unpleasant Event Schedule.