… and had something of a ‘heck, yeah!’ moment. Mainly because Betty had managed to articulate in less than 140 characters something that has been bugging me for a long time: sex toy manufacturers’ use of annoyingly euphemistic language within their instruction manuals. Or, put another way, their ridiculous insistence on providing virtually no practical instruction whatsoever when it comes to anything other than nuts and bolts functionality.

When I questioned her further about her tweet, Betty went on to say:

If you own a vibrator, or a dildo, or a cock ring, or a butt plug, or any other kind of sex toy or implement, you’ll likely understand exactly what it is she and I are talking about. How many times have you taken something out of the box, perused the manual, and gotten a run-down on Button A and Button B but nothing whatsoever about how or where to insert it? Looked at something online, twisted your head sideways and thought ‘how the hell does that work?’ Turned something over and over in your hands and, after scratching the old noggin, thought ‘well, I get the basic idea, but is this the front or the back?’ Granted, most of us can work out where to stick a dildo or a vibrator but as toy designs evolve and change, become more sophisticated, it’s not always as simple as it might seem to navigate the parameters of functionality.

How about the WeVibe, which Betty mentions in her tweet above:

Image: Lovehoney

Or the Metal Worx Double Trouble Dildo (which, confusingly, and despite its name, has three protrusions):

Image: Sex Shop 365

It should come as no surprise that I’ve bought a truckload of sex-related paraphernalia over the years. And, yes, most of the time, I know what I’m supposed to do with the various toys and instruments at my disposal. But that’s no excuse not to explain clearly and in plain language what something actually does – for safety, if nothing else – and how it should be used to best advantage. Because for every person who can use that triple-armed vibrating dildo with patented electro-pulse feature blindfolded and hanging by one foot, there’s going to be someone who can’t.

As far as the woolly language of sex toy manuals goes? Well, the only thing I can deduce is that that while companies are perfectly happy to sell us all sorts of wonderful baubles, they’re less comfortable with, oh, I don’t know … actually talking to us about them in real terms. It’s almost as if they think we’re incapable of handling the truth of our purchases; God forbid we see words like ‘vagina’ or ‘anus’ or ‘vibrator’ anywhere on the product box or in the manual. And the irony is that in trying not to (I can only assume) ‘embarrass’ users by coming up with all sorts of flowery phrases to explain what their product is and what it does, they actually manage to do just the opposite, i.e. turn something that is completely normal – sexual pleasure – into a shameful thing that can’t be overtly referenced or named.

Need convincing? Check out the below extracts from the manuals of a number of well-known sex toys. (And just in case the intent of the various excerpts escapes you, I’ve included helpful ‘Jane translations’.)

‘Continue pressing the button, and you are gradually elevated through all of the SWAN’s variable motions until you find yourself at an intense fluttering sensation.’

– Kissing Swan rabbit vibrator

Jane translation: Hold it against your clitoris, and keep pushing the power button until you find a setting/speed that brings you to orgasm.

‘This innovative technology has you lost in your thoughts and holding on for more pleasure.’

– Explaining the purpose of the Kissing Swan’s ‘press and hold’ feature (which is billed as a function that ‘mimics the natural escalation of human passion’).

Jane translation: Hold the button down to make the vibrations stronger and get yourself off more quickly.

‘Congratulations on acquiring the ELISE / IRIS pleasure object. Before getting more closely acquainted with your ELISE / IRIS, please take a moment to review the information in this user manual.’

 

– LELO Iris vibrator

Jane translation: Thanks for buying this vibrator. Before you put it in your vagina, please read the instructions.

Manufacturers! Hear my plea! I have bought something to stimulate my clitoris/vagina/anus/breasts/[insert relevant body part]. You really do not need to try and fool me into thinking that I have bought a ‘massager’ or a ‘pleasure object’ or an ‘objet d’art’. I’m a big girl; I think I can handle the truth – and my sexuality.

*A big ‘thank you’ to Betty for allowing me to use her tweets in this post. Want to know more about her? You can find her at Betty Herbert – This is Love or follow her on Twitter, @52Betty.

The post Sex toy manuals: puppies, kittens and a whole lot of nonsensical fluff appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

EBOOKS

*The following books were listed as free at the time of this post’s publication. Please double-check that that’s still the case before you hit the download button.

The Lady Submits – Chloe Cox

• Kindle – Amazon.co.uk
• Kindle – Amazon.com

Loving the premise of this one. (The warning is more of an incitement to read, as far as I’m concerned!)

‘Sometimes a highborn Lady needs to be brought low…

It’s the decadent, raunchy holiday of Bacchanal, and the Lady Lucrezia Grimaldi cannot find a man to satisfy her. Worse, she’s been saddled with the brutish Carlo Castellan as her bodyguard for the last night of Bacchanal. There’s only one thing to do: escape to the fabled House of the Severille…

The imperious Lady Lucrezia expects to sate herself by dominating some poor house slave. What she gets instead is the harsh touch of a Severille Master who will stop at nothing to make the Lady submit. 

The Lady Submits is a 12,000 word erotic historical fantasy novelette featuring strong BDSM themes. If you don’t like bondage, leashes, public display and humiliation, or alpha male doms who brook no dissent, then this probably isn’t for you.’

Strangeville – Kenneth Tingle

• Kindle – Amazon.co.uk
• Kindle – Amazon.com

This one sounds extremely odd, but thoroughly intriguing.

‘Need a good laugh? Strangeville is a different kind of story that draws the reader in and keeps them wondering what will happen next. The story is a dark comedy about a suicidal young man named John Campbell who, after a failed suicide attempt, heads to Virginia to visit an aunt he hasn’t seen in ten years. But his rental car runs out of gas deep in the mountains. When he decides to walk in the middle of the night, he winds up in a town that is isolated from the rest of the world—Strangeville. Unable to leave, he meets an assortment of loveable oddball characters—the beautiful Delilah, Klemm Johnson, Clarissa Puddworthy, Biff Flannigan, Jeboriah Varmint, Cleetus McChoparooski, and others.

So if you want a different kind of reading experience, and you’re tired of the same old cookie-cutter writing, check out Strangeville . Readers love it!’

Covet (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series #1) – Felicity Heaton

• ePub – Kobo 

This could go either way – really good, or really awful. The star rating on Kobo seems decent, though, so I’ve got my fingers crossed for the former. And who could possibly resist the idea of ‘vampire erotic theatre’?)

 ‘They’ve burned for each other for two years, the forbidden attraction between them growing each night. Now resisting the sinful desires of their hearts is becoming impossible.

Javier knows better than to succumb to his hunger for Lilah. The mortal female belongs to a powerful aristocrat patron of Vampirerotique, the theatre he runs with three other vampires. A single touch is all it would take to break the sacred law of his kind, sentencing himself to death, but his passion for her has become too fierce to ignore and he will risk everything to make Lilah his.

Lilah has fought her desire for Javier since arriving at his theatre as a servant but each glance he has stolen, his eyes promising pleasure that will satisfy her longing for him, has chipped away at her defences and she can no longer deny her need and her forbidden feelings for the powerful vampire male.

 When they find themselves alone in a private box during one of the erotic performances, will they surrender to their passion and live out their wildest fantasies in a night of wicked pleasure or will the threat of Lilah’s master keep them apart forever?’

TOYS

ohtique
Are offering up to 50% off selected items, including vibrators, dildos and plugs. Like the full feeling? They’ve reduced the Sportsheets Menage a Trois harness and dildo set from £49.99 to £35.99. A fan of stainless steel toys? The Metal Worx Luv Plug is a smidge under half-price at just £24.00.

Lovehoney
The Lovehoney crew are having a warehouse clearance sale and are offering up to 75% off selected toys and lingerie, including Soft Line Flower Girdle Garter Knickers (reduced from £14.99 to £9.00), the Rocks-Off Finger Tingles clitoral vibrator (reduced from £16.99 to £8.50), and the Jimmyjane Afterglow massage candle in Grapefruit (reduced from £19.99 to £15.00).

SexShop365
Are offering 5% off orders placed with them this week. Use the discount code ‘shiny5’ at checkout. More details here.

The post Freebies and discounts: vampire erotic theatre, stainless steel, wax, and ladies bought low appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

If you follow the Chintz Twitter account, you may have seen the tweets I posted following the show’s the conclusion late last night. They were, largely, to do with the colour pink and how annoyed I was that sex toy manufacturers-slash-sellers seem to think that every women wants something that looks like a piece of rock candy to stick between her legs. However, for me, this gripe was really the tip of a much bigger iceberg.

A quick recap for those who didn’t see get the chance to see this documentary … Eight everyday women – the ‘O Team’ – are recruited by adult toy/lingerie giant Ann Summers to produce a range of sex toys for ‘real women’. A camera crew follows them around for a year as they share their thoughts and ideas, and documents the Summers team taking them from concept to completion. The final (pink/purple) products are unveiled, everyone claps, and Ann Summers make a sh*t load of money. The volunteers? Oh, they get the kudos of having designed something for Ann Summers. And maybe a few free toys.

Really? Are we honestly still in that pastel-coloured place in which ‘acceptable’ sex toys look like they were produced for Barbie and fashioned from bubblegum? Are we actually cheering the fact that a massive, multinational retailer, with an annual turnover of £117.3 million in 2007-2008, was happy to exploit the ideas of eight – albeit willing – volunteers for profit?

Er, yeah, apparently.

Companies are there to make money. I get that. However, I have a big, big issue with them making it off the backs of volunteers and trying to portray their actions are magnanimous and benevolent (‘Here, have an orgasm, love’). How much would the time of those women have cost Ann Summers if they’d used a market research agency? A damn sight more than two airfares to China to see a sex toy factory, I’ll bet.

Back to the toys themselves, the tooth grinding started the moment the slightly more alternative suggestions were pushed to the side in favour of more traditional approaches. The lady who suggested an erotic dressage range? Uh, uh. No ‘scary’ BDSM-esque products allowed. The great grandmother who came up with an idea for an electrical-based product to stimulate the breasts? No, no. Health and safety issues. (Hello? Tens machines? Violet wands? The former are used during childbirth for crying out loud.) As one participant said on camera (and I’m paraphrasing rather than quoting here): ‘It’s like they’ve [Ann Summers] already decided what they want and our ideas don’t matter.’

And that’s the crux of it. This program was supposed to be about what women want from their sex toys when, in reality, it was about taking some interesting (free) ideas, sucking the most profitable into the Ann Summers’ brand machine, giving the participants contained choices so that they felt like they had options, and saying: ‘Look!’ This is what women want! Pink things that vibrate!’

I can tell you right now that not all women want those things. Heck, at least two women in that group didn’t want those things. But were they listened to? No. Probably because their ideas weren’t going to increase Ann Summers’ already significant bottom line to the required extent.

On top of the fact that these women weren’t being paid for their time, there was another moment of blatant disrespect in this thing that increased my digust to epically high levels. It came when the Ann Summers team didn’t even have the good grace to show up on time to their own product review meeting and left the eight participants sitting around until they had themselves sorted. So long, in fact, that one of them had to leave before she was able to see what she’d helped them to create. Rude. Plain rude. And disrespectful. And a very good indicator of how the eight participants were treated by Ann Summers in general.

Sex toys have come a long way in the past decade. They are a big part of my sex life and the sex lives of many men and women that I know. I had hoped that Sex Toy Stories might show that we were continuing to move forwards, that manufacturers are really listening and acting responsibly towards consumers. Being open-minded about their wants and needs. But, disappointingly, it showed that we’re going to be stuck in this vibrating pink bubble for the foreseeable future.

My kingdom for a camouflage-coloured dildo, a set of electrical nipple clamps, a melting butt plug, and a burnt umber cane. (All credit to @DomSigns for that last idea.)

* Total kudos to those eight women who were involved in Sex Toy Stories – I applaud them for taking part and being so candid. And Ann Summers? Why are only three and not the entire eight credited on your website?!

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