I’M GIVING YOU A choice: We can either (a) discuss the possible privatization of Social Security and its impact on twenty-first century macroeconomics or (b) go shopping for sex toys. May I see a show of hands? Okay, so that would be countless women ready to hit the stores, and one retired stockbroker from the suburbs of Detroit who’d be ever so grateful if I’d start writing for BusinessWeek. Sorry, Dad—the people have spoken.
With friends like Hilda Hutcherson, M.D., my go-to sexpert and the author of Pleasure: A Woman’s Guide to Getting the Sex You Want, Need, and Deserve, who needs sales help? I call my fearless pal and offer to buy her lunch in exchange for a guided tour of the best sex toys currently on the market.
My education begins in the personal massagers section of a discreet midtown Manhattan shop called Eve’s Garden. I check out a shelf of architecturally unobtrusive little gadgets as Hilda heads straight for a periwinkle-blue confection. “See how pretty,” she says, grouping it with the chartreuse and salmon ones. “They’re so sculptural, you could really have them on your coffee table without anyone realizing they’re vibrators.” But before I can lay out what I feel is a rather cogent argument for not displaying an assortment of pastel sex toys in the middle of my living room, Hilda has moved on. “Ooh, look, Lisa—it’s the smoothie!” She picks up an ultrasleek tiger-stripe number and turns it to low. “Smoothies are a bit more phallic,” she says as it dawns on me that Hilda’s idea of a bit more phallic is my definition of the Washington Monument. “These are terrific for women who are just trying to get their feet wet.”
As the smoothie buzzes away, I start to offer her a little free advice: “Technically, Doctor, it’s not the feet that need to get—” But before I can finish, Hilda is zeroing in on an odd contraption.
“Here’s one based on a medical device for women with arousal disorder. This piece suctions the clitoris,” she says, holding up a rubbery thimble, “while this cylinder vibrates. I write lots of prescriptions for these,” she says matter-of-factly.
“But isn’t everything here over-the-counter?” I ask. “Aren’t sex toys more about leisure activity than medical need?” I can’t help picturing an operating room in which a dedicated young surgeon calls out for instruments: “Scalpel! Sutures! Box of remote-control panties!”
Hilda puts down the sample of edible Kama Sutra Honey Dust she’s been enjoying. “When I write a prescription, I’m giving a woman permission from a doctor,” she says. “And some of us need that. Ten percent of the sexually active female population have never had an orgasm, and God knows how many women have trouble climaxing with a partner. I prescribe a vibrator for use during intercourse. Toys give you control and provide extra stimulation.”
I wish I’d met Hilda thirty years ago.
Remember kissing with your clothes on? In 1977, a boy named Brad could bring you down to his parents’ paneled rec room, put a little Abba on the turntable, toss your algebra homework off the olive green vinyl beanbag chair on which the two of you perched pretending to study, mumble sweet nothings into your newly pierced ear, and from 4:30 to 6:00 P.M., when his stay-at-home mom would call down that dinner was almost ready, that boy could have his way with you. Of course in 1977 “his way” was to dishevel your shag, eat off your Bonne Bell lip gloss, and maybe, maybe, if he was a true sexual sophisticate, unhook your Olga bra using nothing more than his left thumb and forefinger.
My partner in crime wasn’t actually named Brad and—hell, who are we kidding?—I didn’t actually need a bra, but there was a boy and he was on the swim team and he drove a white Trans Am, and in tenth grade that meant something—though, to this day, I’m not exactly sure what. It was Saturday night, the one evening a week when husbands wore leisure suits and wives wore Wind Song, and you’d be left with a pepperoni pizza, a phone number in case of emergency, and a house to yourself, whereupon this sort of gawky, sort of sexy swimmer would appear at the front door, settle into the sofa, and kiss me with his eyes closed for the next three and a half hours. Because back in the day (the day being two years before my current assistant was born), making out wasn’t a means to an end, it was an end unto itself. There was no such thing as a good Merlot, a brazen double entendre, a smooth transition to the bedroom. There were only tentative mouths and hungry hands and wild chestnut hair falling all around the Marimekko throw pillows until it was time to stop.
“So, uh, I guess I should get going,” said Brad who wasn’t Brad.
“Oh, umm, okay,” I answered.
I smoothed out my Huckapoo blouse, raised myself up, and reached across him for the Tab on the coffee table. But a funny thing happened on the way to that can of metallic-tasting soda: My arm accidentally grazed his lap. It couldn’t have been more innocent, a split second, an inadvertent brush across a pair of button-fly 501s. And yet…
“Or,” he said (after a slightly startled pause), “I could stay.”
Huh? Wait a second, what just happened here? And suddenly I got it! With nothing more than a strong thirst and a light touch, I had gone from coquette to femme fatale. I possessed the power to make him stay!
And there you have it.
Hard to imagine how anyone could have been so naïve, but this was back when I was still a rough draft. It was before we all had to be responsible for our own orgasms, before eHarmony or match.com, Facebook or MySpace, Viagra or Cialis. Rock Hudson was still chunky, Ecstasy was still legal, and foreplay was forever—or at least it was in my little corner of the suburbs.
Hilda just keeps picking sex toys up, then calling out to the cashier for the price. Now, I’m aware that at this point certain readers (and you know who you are, cousin Myrna) would just as soon have me cut to waves pounding against the shore, but for my friends with a healthy curiosity—here goes nothing.
“Hilda,” I say, pointing to a gigantic vibrating penis that looks and feels just like the real thing…and then some, “you don’t think most men would find this a touch daunting?”
“Well, you can always start small. Here,” Hilda says, handing me the Fukuoko 9000. “This finger-puppety vibrator slips over any digit, looks totally nonthreatening, and still gets the job done. How could this tiny toy make a man think he’s being replaced?” She pauses a beat, shifting into pleasure-activist mode. “But I’m telling you, Lisa, that other one is definitely worth a try. I mean, for one thing, it’s dishwasher safe!”
“Thank you, Happy Homemaker.”
And on that note, life as I understand it officially ends. I see the sign that informs customers of a 10 percent discount on floor models, I check out the make-your-own-dildo kit containing special molding powder, patented “liquid skin,” stir stick, vibrating unit, easy-to-follow instructions, and I suggest we break for lunch.
Over Cobb salads, I ask Hilda if there’s any truth to the rumor that vibrators are addictive.
“That’s ridiculous,” she says. “Granted, if you’re using it five or six times a day, it’ll be hard to go back—”
“Or hold a job or raise a family or…walk,” I chime in.
“But,” Hilda goes on, “the thing most of us love junkies ache for can’t be found in a toy. They’ve yet to come up with a vibrator that whispers in your ear or holds you tight at three A.M.”
“They’ve yet to come up with a lot of men who do that.”
“True, but toys do tend to put the oomph back into long-term relationships, so you start releasing those hormones that actually do keep couples close.” Hilda spears a cherry tomato. “And if you don’t have a steady partner, they help your body remember how to respond. If you’re menopausal—and not sexually active or taking estrogen—they keep the blood flowing through those vessels. You’ve got to prevent your vagina from shrinking and getting dry—a dildo is fantastic for that,” she says as I watch the busboy who’s refilling our iced teas go pale and back into a waiter.
“It’s a brave new world, my dear,” Hilda says as she gives me a hug, gathers her three shopping bags worth of erotica, and heads home to celebrate her husband’s fiftieth birthday. With Johannes in Europe, I’m having a girls’ night in—just me, Julia, and Angelina Ballerina. Someday Julia will go through my drawers just the way I did my mother’s (and by the way, Mom, I now know for a fact that a diaphragm is not a kitty cat’s bathing cap…my first clue being that we didn’t have a cat), and who knows what she’ll come across. Maybe I’ll take that moment to tell her how you have to work at relationships, and how you have to care for yourself, and how—unless you want to be surrounded by a SWAT team and two dozen bomb-sniffing beagles—you have to take the batteries out of toys when you travel. Or maybe I’ll just send her out to lunch with Auntie Hilda.
Two days later, I’m Sauvignon Blanc-ing with my friend Laurie when she announces that after almost five respectable weeks of movies, dinners, walks in the park with “adorable, divorced, one-kid-lives-in-Brooklyn, struggling architect guy,” the two have finally gone to bed together.
“And did the earth move?” I ask.
“Lisa,” my slightly rattled friend replies, “the duvet cover didn’t even move.”
I do the only thing a person in my position can do: signal the waitress for a dessert menu as my beautiful, size 8 friend admits that he wanted the lights on so he could see her and she wanted the lights off so he couldn’t.
Sex—when it’s meaningful—can be a sublime expression of love. When it’s not, well, it can be even better. And do you know why that is? Neither do I, but that’s exactly my point: Sexual pleasure is an elusive little critter. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, something happens—you realize you’re in your no-human-being-must-ever-see-these-panties panties, he accidentally elbows you in a way that may require a kidney transplant, the dog appears to be staring, the other people on the subway appear to be staring—well, you get the idea.
So once again, I go to my go-to girl for enlightenment. Hilda and I sit down at the little blond wood table in her slightly academic, slightly comfy, very lived-in office and cut straight to the chase.
“I’m mad at women,” I tell her.
“Something we said?”
“Sort of. I’m just so sick of nearly everyone I know—myself included—walking around feeling crummy about our bodies to the point that it’s actually hard to accept pleasure.”
“I know what you mean. If you don’t feel at ease with your body—this package that carries your mind and your soul around every day—then how can you really enjoy anything, especially sex? You’re as close as you can be to another human being and instead of feeling his lips, and his fingers, and his heartbeat, you’re thinking, Oh my God, he’s near that spot of cellulite by my thigh or He’s going to realize that my boobs are drooping, that they’re not the same size…”
I make a mental note to buy a new bra immediately, and she continues. “It’s pretty amazing. I’ve had patients say, ‘I’m only thirty-seven, but I can’t have oral sex because I’ve got gray hair down there and he’ll think I’m old.’ The things we obsess over.”
“So do you prescribe Clairol for those patients?”
“I say, ‘Honey, if he’s down there doin’ that, the last thing on his mind is a little gray hair. He’s looking to give you pleasure, and it’s up to you to let go and be in the moment.’ Another thing I get all the time is, ‘I can’t have oral sex because I don’t think I smell right, or it won’t taste good.’ I always say, ‘Please, tell me how it’s supposed to smell. I don’t care what the commercials say, it’s not supposed to smell like a spring rain or an English garden…unless, of course, you’re trying to attract bees.’ Lisa, do you know what a vagina should smell like?”
“The thing is, Hilda, my parents are still living…”
“It should smell like a vagina! It has a natural scent and that scent is there for a reason; it’s an aphrodisiac. It’s part of the mating ritual. As far as taste goes, how many women have actually taken the time to taste themselves?”
“Umm, I’m gonna say…eleven?”
“I encourage women to taste their own secretions, rather than constantly worrying about them. Self-knowledge makes you more accepting of your body.”
“But,” I say, both in complete agreement and in desperate need of a subject change, “all the knowledge in the world doesn’t guarantee a girl an orgasm.”
“You know,” she says, filling our coffee cups, “orgasms are intensely pleasurable, but you can’t go chasing them. You can’t say, ‘Okay, if I try really, really hard, I’m going to have an orgasm’—it doesn’t work that way.”
“How exactly does it work?”
“You have to really concentrate on what all five of your senses are experiencing.” Hilda sees my skepticism and elaborates: “When I was in college at Stanford, I liked going to Los Angeles to party. I used to hop in my car and race to get to that party.” She smiles. “Then one day, I decided to take the scenic route. It was longer, it was slower, but my God, it was incredible! I remember pulling over, listening to the ocean, looking at the seagulls, smelling the air. I actually forgot all about L.A. I mean, this was the kind of place that makes you believe in a higher power.” She seems momentarily lost in the memory. “Anyway, if I had missed the party altogether, the trip would not have been a failure because I took in so much beauty and I had so much fun.”
“Let’s hear it for the Pacific Coast Highway,” I say, getting back to matters at hand.
“All I mean,” she continues, “is that pleasure comes in many forms. Your partner may be kissing your earlobes and stroking the back of your knees, but if you’re thinking, He’s gotta make me climax or this isn’t great sex, then you’re missing out on some extraordinary sensations because your head just isn’t in the game. I’ve got a whole other group of patients who actually do have orgasms but are upset because they’re not having Sex and the City orgasms.”
“Is that where this sort of lightning bolt comes roaring through you at a Manolo Blahnik sale? Because I once saw these scrunchy suede boots in navy, and for a minute there…”
Hilda interrupts: “Sex and the City was a double-edged sword, and I think we’re still feeling its effect. That show obliterated many taboos and got women really talking, but it also made us question ourselves: How come I’ve never had that female ejaculation thing that Samantha had? or Why aren’t I able to achieve multiple orgasms the way those women seem to?
“I always ask, ‘Did the sex leave you feeling good about yourself? Did it leave you feeling connected to your partner?’ If the answer is yes, then I say quit running after that multiple thing, enjoy the pleasure you are having, and go to sleep in his arms.”
“Hilda, how did you get so comfortable with all of this?”
“When I started my ob-gyn practice, women would say to me, ‘I’ve heard about this thing called a clitoris, but I don’t know where to find it.’ Or they’d ask for advice about anal sex, or they’d want to know if there’s a vibrator I like. Believe me, I could go on and on.”
“I believe you,” I say quickly.
“These women forced me to face my own demons. I had to look at all the negative messages that were fed to me over the years. I realized the only way I could help people deal with their issues was if I dealt with my own. So I educated myself into feeling good about my body, good about sex, and free to talk about everything under the sun. I tell my patients, ‘If I can go to a sex shop and buy a vibrator, then so can you.’”
“You learned to ask for what you want in bed.”
“That’s right. And there are all kinds of ways to ask for what you want. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, ‘Darling, let’s trying something new.’ Sometimes it’s going out and buying a book of erotica. Sometimes it’s putting his hand right where you want it to be and showing him the pressure and tempo that feels good to you.” She refills our cups and goes on. “The thing is, if you tell your partner what you want, most of the time you’ll get it.”
“And if you don’t?”
“If someone isn’t open to giving you pleasure, then I’d say you’re probably with the wrong person.” We sit and sip for a minute. Out the window I can see the sky streaked with gray and the students looking a little eager, a little anxious—as though they were born with too much homework. Hilda is the first to speak: “There are an awful lot of reasons in the world to feel bad right now,” she says finally. “But how amazing is it that we have this built-in capacity for pure joy?”
And how amazing is it that we also have the Fukuoko 9000?