A history of good vibrations
“Baghdad by the Bay,” as longtime Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to call San Francisco, has always been about pleasure. From the beginning, the city’s character has been shaped by wealth, innovation, diversity, and a vague sense of permissiveness, an acceptance of the “queer and questioning” in every sense.
The hedonistic principles of the city have been defined by various movements, not least the “Sex Positive Movement,” about which sexologist Dr. Carol Queen once noted, “‘Sex-positive’ respects each of our unique sexual profiles, even as we acknowledge that some of us have been damaged by a culture that tries to eradicate sexual difference and possibility.” The term sex positive may have been coined by the Austrian psychoanalyst and “sex box” inventor, Wilhelm Reich, and took root in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s.
Info
Address 1620 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA, 94109, www.goodvibes.com, +1 415.345.0400 | Public Transport Bus: 19 (Polk St & California St stop) | Hours Daily 10am–10pm| Tip To continue your sensual experience, walk six blocks north to Les Cent Culottes to shop for some fine French lingerie (2200 Polk Street).
The spirit, practice, and technology of the Sex Positive Movement is best seen in the Antique Vibrator Museum, located in Good Vibrations, a sex shop oriented toward women. The shop opened in 1977; its ethos is eroticism, as opposed to pornography. You must be at least 18 to enter.
The museum, curated by Dr. Queen, opened in 2012 and consists of a medium-sized room with display cases showing the evolution of the electric vibrator from the 1800s to the present. The presentation is superb, and the history is amusing, evocative, and enlightening. Admission is free and you can also book a private tour with Dr. Queen. Many of the early machines look like classic eggbeaters or Betty Crocker mixers. What’s interesting, of course, is that the technology grew out of a largely male conviction that women’s sexual issues were linked to hysteria and that feminine sexuality was something to be feared as well as properly managed.
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