The Joy of Sex Toys: How Vibrators Stopped Being 'Shameful' Secrets

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Now 31 years old, GV is still an industry gold standard, the first place that leaps to mind for many women wanting information, even if they've never set foot in a Good Vibrations store, but have long bought the books and gotten the catalog (if this sounds like the voice of experience, it is).

Blank even invented a vibrator herself, the Joani Butterfly, a wearable item with a raised clitoral stimulator; it's popularity is evidence of what happens when you actually get women designing the toys they're going to use. When she started Tantus, Black wanted input on her own products as well.

"It was the era of dolphins and goddesses," and toys tended to be made of a lesser-quality silicone. "Nothing was there that I wanted to play with." Another gap in the market was "they were all geared towards women. No one was looking at a couples industry."

That would change, too, but in between the daring vision of the '70s and the design-conscious '90s lies the '80s -- and the AIDS crisis.

Talking about sex was no longer a coy or snickering business -- it was a matter of life and death, and discussions about condoms, dental dams, oral, anal, homosexuality, bisexuality became more and more open. Add to this the deluge of information -- and entertainment -- that would come with the Web, and the ability of people to talk frankly about sex was bound to increase.

While that legendary Sex and the City episode about the rabbit certainly opened the dialog (and the rabbit design, by the way, isn't just to make toys look cute; the little bunny ears actually have the function of clitoral stimulation), it was still primarily about women.

Eleven years after that show aired, we have made a huge leap to couples sex toys, and nothing suggests the advance in couples' open sexual communication as resoundingly as the success of the We Vibe, a small silicone vibrator meant to be worn during intercourse, which vibrates between couples.

Invented by Bruce Murison, a mechanical engineer and inventor from North Gower, Ontario, the We Vibe was named sex toy of the year by Sue Johanson and even turned up in the gift bags at the 2009 Academy Awards.

"Vibrators play a greater role in clitoral stimulation that feels good to women," Dr. Ian Kerner says. And "Men are much more conscious and accepting of female sexuality and that female sexuality doesn't always conform to how men experience arousal or how women in porn experience arousal." He would recommend vibrators to "men who suffer from premature ejaculation or a man who is concerned that he won't be able to last long enough for his wife or partner to experience an orgasm would use a vibrator in conjunction with, or instead of, intercourse."

From socially camouflaged vacuum cleaner attachments to the stuff that couples' getaway weekends are made of, the vibrator has come a long way in the America. Well, most of America. They are still illegal in some states, like Alabama, where evidently it's preferable for you to go find some stranger to boink.

If you're single (as I am), vibrators are the reason that all those nights you have to spend alone are often all those nights you get to spend alone.

Mexico, it seems, is a little more progressive. Dr. Roger Lancaster, professor of anthropology and cultural studies at George Mason University, and author of The Trouble with Nature: Sex in Science and Popular Culture, writes in an e-mail that he was recently in the conservative city of Puebla "in Sanborn's ... a rather old-fashioned chain, sort of an upscale dime store with pharmacy and restaurant. ... For at least a few years now, Sanborns has put condoms and lubricants out on the counter. ...On my last visit, I noticed they've also put out pleasure rings (I wasn't sure what one was until I looked it up on the Internet) ..."