love & sex
Healthy Sex Toys
Pleasure parties for the eco-inclined
“I
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
s show up and transform their living room into a sex toy store. Lots of samples, lots of testers,” Kim
Marks says. Marks is the proprietor of Oregon’s As You Like It – The Pleasure Shop and she devotes
many of her evenings to putting on PleasureWare Home Parties, showcasing the store’s many
ecofriendly and ethical sex toys and products, from glass dildos to phthalate-free vibrators.
Marks has put on her body-positive sex toy parties from Eugene to Montana, and while her nights
are often spent showing the merits of a vibrator made without sweatshop labor, as a long-time activist as well as
a purveyor of sexy goodies, she spends her days putting on “know your rights” and strategic campaign training
for environmental activists. While As You Like It is currently online only, Marks hopes to open a storefront in
Eugene or Portland and employ environmental activists as sex educators.
When it comes to setting up a house party, Marks says she has found that “talking about sex is so taboo the
host doesn’t know what her friends are OK with talking about.”
Parties often start off with an “icebreaker” game, Marks says, that she devised from her years of training in
the environmental movement, which “allows me to tailor the house party on the spot.” She adds, “I don’t want
to assume that someone knows where their labia is, where their clitoris is.”
Party guests write a question they’ve always wanted to have answered about sex toys and sexual health on a
piece of paper, crumple it up and have a snowball fight with them. They read aloud the question that they pick
up, and Marks facilitates an answer.
“My parties range in age from 19 to women in their 70s,” she says. She tells of one party where the youngest
woman was 64: “One woman walked up to me and said ‘I’m not talking to you about sex; you are a stranger.’”
So Marks started off with the icebreaker game and soon the women started answering their friends’ questions
before Marks could say a word. “They are older ladies; they’ve been there,” Marks laughs. “Next thing I know
they are on the floor pushing vibrators on each others’ arms, saying ‘Check out the power on this one.’”
Marks says most people don’t have a comfortable way to talk to each other about sex and get advice, but “If
you are having problems or about to launch into something new, chances are someone you know has been there,
but we don’t have a healthy way in our communities to talk about it.”
The parties showcase Marks’ products, which are for sale at the end of the night, but also create a space that
allows friends to help each other problem solve and get their sexual questions answered.
“Sometimes at these parties people still need to be told it’s OK to say ‘No,’” she says. Discussing anal sex is
still taboo for many people, and couples are often looking for a way to negotiate that conversation. “Porn does
a disservice” when it comes to anal sex, she says, and it’s important for someone to be able to say, “We are going
to try, but if it doesn’t feel good, we are going to stop it.”
The PleasureWare parties are not limited to women, Marks tells EW. “A lot of my parties have been very
gender mixed, cisgendered, trans men, trans women; most have been cisgendered women except for during Pride
Week. Some states don’t allow men to be present at sex toy parties; Oregon is not one of them.”
Cisgender is a term used to refer to people who identify with the gender they were born with. As You Like It
is gender inclusive, Marks says, with products for anyone from straight women to transgender men.
Many of As You Like It’s products are Oregon made. “My glass is made in Hood River; a lot of my leather
and crops are made in Eugene by Painful Pleasures.” She sells lube products made by Eugene’s Good Clean Love
and she recommends vibrators and erotic toys from Fun Factory, which are made in Germany and not in
sweatshops.
“Most of my products are rechargeable, and completely submergible in the bathtub,” she says.
As You Like It sells leather and nonleather whips, and its website marks products that are vegan. Not all
condoms are vegan, Marks says, and the ingredients in both artificial and natural flavors can raise some
eyebrows. “Some of the natural flavors come from body parts of animals that you don’t want to be licking off
someone else,” she says.
Want to have a pleasure party? Marks recommends leaving the words “sex toy” out of the description because
“people hear sex toy and think orgy,” she says. She recommends starting off with a question like, “Hey, did you
know that not all sex toys are body safe?” and keep the focus on “education and being comfortable and safe like
a Tupperware party.” ■
Romance
Schmomance
What’s a single guy to do?
BY KEVIN PIASKOWSKI
V
alentine’s Day is frustrating. We either spend all
of our energy on our beloved partner because
society tells us that this is the day to do so, or we
wallow in the fact that we don’t have a special
someone in our lives. So, don’t stress out and
keep it simple, stupid.
“Being newly single, I think that I’m going to be going
out, and I doubt it’s going to be much different than any
other weekend,” says Jourdain May, a single male
student at the UO. “I think any girls in similar situations
are going to be out also seeking, and that’s what I’m
banking on.”
“I spent the last four years doing the same thing every
night so I want to do something exciting,” May says. “I
might go to the bars, but I’ll have to ask some seasoned
single friends for advice. I know a girl in a similar
situation, and I might take her out but I think the dinner-
and-a-show thing is overdone but I’m also not feeling
romantic. It has to be something obscure and extremely
casual.”
Granted, sometimes there’s nothing that can substitute
for your couch and a bottle of whiskey. Or a 22-ouncer
(or two or three) of your favorite beer, if you’re so
inclined. You don’t need to show off your six-pack, unless
it’s a six-pack of Ninkasi you’re prepared
to share. And if you’re feeling extra
homebound, just play a bad
romantic comedy and laugh your
way into a drunken stupor or a
blissful celebration of love or
lack thereof.
And if none of that appeals
to you and you’re feeling lonely
on Valentine’s Day, there’s
always the Silver Dollar, right? ■
For more information go to asyoulikeitpdx.com
GLASS DILDOS AND BUTT PLUG BY CRYSTAL DELIGHT. RECHARGABLE, WATERPROOF VIBRATOR BY FUN FACTORY
PHOTO BY ROB & TRACY SYDOR | DIGITALLATTE.COM
eugeneweekly.com • February 14. 2013
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