 photo by Mary M. Jones
For some women, the information offered at pleasure parties can be surprising. Melody sells many women their first vibrators and is consistently surprised by the number of women who cannot find the clitoris. At one party, she met a woman who went to her gynecologist and, when asked about her clitoris, said, “No, I have two Irish Setters at home.”
Melody and her fellow vibrator vendors work to enlighten women about their bodies. She describes the collective goal of consultants as being “part of the movement that changes society’s mind about sexuality, that takes the vulgar-ness out of sexuality.” She gets calls and correspondence from women who thank her for helping them enhance their sex lives. She even once received a thank-you card from a woman’s husband.
Melody admits that she would have “killed for this information years ago.” Today, she comes off as the loud-and-proud modern woman, uninhibited about her sexuality (her ring tone is Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing"). But this didn’t happen overnight. It took years to shed the cultural message about sex that her mother reinforced: “It’s filthy. It’s dirty. Save it for someone you love.”
Melody married her first boyfriend. They started dating at 15, she lost her virginity to him at 18, and they got married at 20. “Back then, that’s what you did,” Melody says. “You left high school, you started a family.”
But the couple split up by the week of her 30th birthday. Even after Melody discovered that her husband was unfaithful, it took several years for her to go through with the divorce. His infidelity shook her confidence and made her question her own value as a person. “It really knocks you for a loop, because you think you’re doing something wrong,” she says.
“It really gives you a very incompetent feeling as a woman.” She struggled for years to move on, to reclaim her power and self-esteem. And although she says she always enjoyed a good sex life, Melody did not have her first orgasm until she met her next partner. “It was a very big awakening for me sexually,” she says.
Melody thinks her own ignorance about sex contributed to her divorce. She now strives to be an open source of sexual information for her children. Melody’s 18-year-old daughter, Dana, is allowed to ask about anything that piques her curiosity. “I don’t know if it’s a girl-to-girl thing, but from my own past experience, I want her to know more than I did and at an earlier age,” Melody says.
“I want her to be comfortable about her sexuality, I don’t want her to worry about labels, I don’t want her to worry about one-night stands, STDs, things like that. I want her to be educated sexually.” As for having sex with a partner before marriage, she tells Dana, “Would you buy a pair of shoes before trying them on?”
Soulful Stimulation
When Melody presents at a party, she imparts something else she’s gained from her own experience: compassion. Although Melody leaves personal stories out of her demo, a lifetime of dealing with her own sexual losses and triumphs gives her the ability to sympathize with her customers.
“I had a woman who was close to my age, in tears, saying, ‘Oh my god, I want to feel that way again. Help me, what do I do? My husband and I haven’t been there in about three years.’ And I gotta tell you, sometimes you can just sit down and cry with them. To be able to help that woman was a great feeling.”
Her suitcase full of toys and creams gives women both the permission and the tools to tap into a natural part of themselves that, for some, has been deeply repressed. “There’s more to it than just sex toys,” Melody says. “There’s lotions, there’s potions. There’s teaching somebody to bring communication back into a relationship and bring some intimacy back into the bedroom.”
 photo by Mary M. Jones Now Melody passes around lingerie and vibrators with the air of a natural-born salesperson. You would never guess that she initially had anxieties about sales. “I didn’t think I could ever sell anything, let alone stand up in front of a group of people and talk,” Melody says. “It’s gotta be the subject that I’m comfortable with.
I was looking for something that was specifically for a woman herself, so that when she went to a party, she could just do something for herself. If it was Tupperware, I don’t know if I could do it, really. I mean, that’s boring. You know? Sex is exciting. It’s fun. And I think the rapport you have with women, educating women sexually in more of a party atmosphere, it’s just a good time.”
After Melody’s demo, ordering sheets and catalogs get passed around the deck, and partygoers dig through wallets. One woman says this is her fifth pleasure party, and another says her mother wants to throw one. “You know, there are candle parties and stupid stuff that nobody wants to go to,” says Julie Sloan, a single nurse. “But everyone always wants to come to this.” |
