Sex & the internet, by Melissa Gira Grant

It’s women that were first responsible for driving the spendy vibrator market. When sex toy buying was left to males shopping for the latest in VHS porn, manufacturers could get away with selling items made from god-knows-what toxic, off-gassing neon pink material, poured into the shape of something one would imagine men would imagine ladies would like putting inside themselves. More often than not, these insertables ended up in these men’s asses. (I say this from embedded peep show experience.) Once sex shops became friendly to women, customers finally began to influence the design process, and women-owned sex toy companies like Vixen became stars.

But more so than ladies, it’s the web. Amazon allowed anyone to buy in privacy, their purchases bundled along with any other book or item. (Imagine that scene in magnolia: “I’ll have an 8-pack box of Kleenex, and the Kindle edition of Outliers, and the Fun Factory Smart Balls for doing kegels, do you have those? Great, okay. Those, and forget the Gladwell.”) Brick-and-mortar sex shops, even the women-owned and women-friendly ones that formed the foundation of the upscale sex toy market, began to lose out. Even the grandmother of the clean well-lit places to buy things to get off with, Good Vibrations, sold to a nationwide retailer still stuck in the “adult novelty” mold. Customers just weren’t coming into sex shops to handle toys pre-purchase that they could find cheaper on Drugstore.com.

At the same time, vibrator manufacturer jimmyjane, maker of the $2000 “Little Steel Tonight” diamond-studded vibrator, has taken four rounds of venture funding. The toy itself is inspired by the lyrics of former Eurythmics-singer Dave Stewart, and joins their Little Chroma line’s other celebrity vibrator, the Ultimate Member, which is etched with illustrations by Tank Girl and Gorrilaz artist Jamie Hewlett. A special edition of the Little Chroma itself was launched in conjunction with NYC Design Week and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. It’s not just jimmyjane — Lelo offers a $1300 clitoral stimulator and a $990 anal plug. Kiki de Montparnasse sells a $1225 cock ring, which, like the Little Steel Tonight, can be worn as a necklace. But it’s jimmyjane’s toys that are becoming the iPods of the vibrator market. Like the iPod, they even come included in boutique hotel rooms.

Not only has the experience of anonymous sex toy shopping leapt in sophistication with the web, where customers (users, really) are now uploading their own unboxing videos, but the closure of so many sex shops has seen an “upscaling” in those remaining in business. This is what lures customers into stores: a chance to take in the latest, shiniest, sexiest. This is what retailers are making way for on their shelves. A woman who subscribes to the Atlantic, travels for business six months out of twelve, buys most of her music online, and even now, long after her undergrad years, still reaches for Anaïs Nin at the end of a long day — she won’t feel her intelligence is insulted by sleek, well-designed toys. This is what we’re meant to believe, anyway: this is what women will go wide-eyed over, the right way — not just because they’re expected to put it there.