Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure by Lynn Comella (review)

Vibrator Nation by Lynn Comella is the result of the author’s investigation of and immersion in the field of feminist sex-toy businesses in the United States. It chronicles how such businesses emerged and thrived from the 1970s to the present day, exploring how a feminist, sex-positive approach transformed the industry. Drawing on ethnography, interviews, and archival research, Comella unpacks the complexities of balancing “sexual commerce and politics” (14). As the “nation” in Vibrator Nation suggests, this is a wholly United States–centric study, and the author does not remark on the development of comparable businesses in other international locales.¹

The book begins by charting the emergence of Eve’s Garden in 1974 New York. Comella shows how the ethos of the store was shaped by the sexual politics of the women’s movement, packaging these values into a program of sex education and empowerment for women. By contrast, San Francisco’s Good Vibrations, which opened in 1977, was informed by its owner’s therapeutic approach, which relied on a foundation of “sex-positive” feminism. Both stores were founded on a vision that placed education and social consciousness first, business second. However, Comella is rightly critical of the taste hierarchies and exclusions involved in the shaping of these early sexual spaces “for women,” a theme that runs throughout the book.

The third chapter goes on to explore the replication of the Good Vibrations model around the United States. The philosophy of sex positivity was enshrined in stores such as New York’s Babeland, where Comella worked as part of her ethnographic fieldwork for the book in 2001. In this store and others, experience, education, and mission transcended the products themselves and the need to make sales; owners, staff, and customers were drawn to the shared “mission” of sex positivity and sexual empowerment. Success was predicated partly on the businesses’ explicit distinction from “sleazy,” “dirty,” male-oriented, “old-school sex shops” (92). While this has allowed feminist businesses to claim legitimacy, Comella argues that it can implicitly shape representation in ways that are “highly gendered, class-specific, and racially coded” (99).

The fifth chapter shifts focus to the making, stocking, and selling of the products themselves, decisions, Comella argues, that have always been made by business owners based on a feminist, sex-positive framework that prioritizes the “mission” over quick profits. Historically, pornography and sex toys that combined quality with positive messages about gender and sexuality had been difficult to find. Over time, feminist entrepreneurs have become a catalyst for change in the industry, leading to an emphasis on female pleasure, product quality, decreased environmental impact, and body-safe materials.

Chapter 6 of Vibrator Nation explores in detail the sex education model promoted and practiced in feminist sex-toy businesses, where staff are not only salespeople but also educators, even “sexperts.” Education became a valuable commodity and an effective sales tool, with businesses thriving on the social scarcity of transparent sexual information. Comella’s discussion of the normalization of this drive to sexual disclosure within these stores is particularly interesting, as she rightly points out that such a culture does not suit the needs of all potential customers.

Vibrator Nation explores discourses of identity and belonging, particularly feminist and queer politics. Comella pays particular attention to the construction and negotiation of the category “woman” in these stores, where “woman” has often meant cisgendered, white, and middle class. There have been radical challenges to inclusion in recent years. Comella examines an African American–owned business in Oakland and details the increasing centrality of a queer politics that seeks to challenge binary and heteronormative framings of sexuality.

Chapter 8 moves the discussion to twenty-first-century challenges to the retail sector, particularly the increased competition brought about by online retailing. While the first feminist sex-toy businesses deliberately did not prioritize business strategy, in the 2000s entrepreneurs...