subways and sex toys

i can’t decide whether to submit the following to overheard in new york because it’s funny, but also heartbreaking.

you’ve probably seen the posters in the subway from the international rescue committee raising awareness about darfur. besides the fact that they use the same "we are all african" hook that an hiv awareness campaign used earlier, i was glad to see ads asking for charitable donations up in the train.

yesterday as i was riding home, a man read one of these ads and then pointed it out to his friend:

man: look at this (reads) "what happens in darfur affects all of us"… "we are all african"
woman: what is it for? is it a new movie?

awsome. 400,000 killed, 2.5 million displaced and it’s probably just the newest steven spielberg movie. i guess if even the united nations won’t call darfur a genocide, then why should we expect people to know about it?

this experience may rank in my top five weirdest subway experiences ever (it’s right up there with the giant pile of poop i once saw. and i mean giant in the football-sized sense, not in the andre-sized sense).

anyway. i decided to take the local train the other morning because it is much less crowded than the express train and i had some extra time. there was a group of boys all going to school in my car and they were talking, being loud and generally being entirely too energetic for 8:00am. there were six of them sprawled on two sides of the car over about 10 seats. i was sitting right at the edge of this little group.

i wasn’t paying much attention (my head was buried in a book, what else is new) when all of a sudden all of of them stood up. they started taking off their backpacks and one kid took off his watch. they all stood in a circle and as i was sitting there trying to figure out what the hell was happening, some unspoken signal happened and they all started trying to beat the crap out of each other.

this was not friendly fighting. they were getting tossed onto the subway seats, full out punched, etc. a few other passengers got pushed and jolted as they careened around their little section of the subway car going at it like they’d all been arch enemies for years.

then, just as suddenly, they all stopped and as they were standing around panting and grinning at each other, the train pulled into the station. in all the commotion i hadn’t noticed one of the passengers go tell the conductor what was going on. the conductor found a police officer when the train entered the station. she walked on the train and offered the kids a choice: get off of the train or be arrested. they all piled out and the rest of us sort of looked at each other as if we’d survived massive trauma and then went back to our ipods and our new york posts. (well, some of us went back to the post).

one of my favorite things about working in a sex toy store is when people come in and want to argue with you about something you’ve not only read extensively about but even taught.

a customer came in last weekend while i was working and beckoned to me. he’d been at a workshop i’d taught (maybe bend over boyfriend?) and started saying that i was totally wrong about where men are most sensitive and what/where the male g-spot is. after i listened to him for a minute, i realized that he thought that the frenulum was the male g-spot (when in fact, the prostate is the male g-spot - this link has some amazing diagrams). It took me getting out two books and going through female and male anatomy for about 10 minutes before he finally said "ok, you were right, i was wrong". then he just walked out of the store.

i’m not sure if i pissed him off or helped him. maybe a bit of both. it was funny to me that he literally just came in on a mission to try convince one of us that he was right. maybe it was just coincidence that i happened to be there, i don’t know.

we should start a sex toys debate team or something for all of the myths we have to dispel.

i feel like all of my posts about the subway involve children. maybe my clock is ticking. or maybe kids are insane. oh yeah, that’s it.

on the a train on the way to whole foods at 59th street today i was watching an adorable 7′ish year old with brilliant red hair work in a little notebook. all of a sudden (as kids are wont to do) she starts having a little freak out and her mother takes the notebook from her saying "i think it’s time for a little break"

the little girl says something in a high whiny voice in response to which the mother replies, "no, i’m going to say that it’s time to get off the train and switch to the 1 now"

the little girl screams "noooooo, i don’t want to get off the train!" to which mom jadely and sarcastically responds "oh i know, switching to the 1 train is soooo dramatic"

i thought that was funny on its own until the girl responded with:

"yes! it is dramatic! the 1 train is dramatic… all trains are dramatic!!!" <insert sobs here>

all trains are dramatic indeed.

just a quick note to say that i saw a man reach into his briefcase, pull out a 10lb weight and start doing bicep curls on the subway this morning. it’s 8:30, he’s in a button down shirt, he’s sitting in between two other people, and he’s lifting weights. i’m sure it’s very effective.

ah, the contradictions of children. sometimes, they’re just so rediculous you can’t help but laugh out loud (i think it’s what keeps us from killing them…)

a little girl in a stroller and her mom sat down by me today. the girl was eating a granola/fig/bar thingy and was perfectly content. about halfway down the bar, she realized that the packaging was blocking her way to eating more and started to get upset. her mom said ‘here, let me help you’ and reached to roll down the packaging some more and the little girl flipped out.

she started yelling ‘mine! mine!!’ and at a couple of points actually tried her hit her mom’s hand away. her mom would give up trying to help and the girl would go back to her bar, only to get upset that she couldn’t get it undone. it was like some kind of fucked up kids catch-22.

it was all i could do not to laugh out loud - the poor mom. as i was getting off of the train she grabbed the bar and just took it out of the wrapper. the stealing of the bar brought on amazing screams. i didn’t get to stay to find out what happened once the bar was back in the girl’s hands. i’m guessing tears for about 10 seconds, then peace. kids. what nut jobs.

today was one of my more difficult days. or at least, it was for a stretch. there are just times when it seems like everyone who comes in is an asshole in their own particular way.

first today was a man in a rush because he’d parked his car illegally. are we so cheap that we can’t even pay for parking while we shop for sex toys? is this how much we value our sex lives and the time and money we spend on them?

then, i had a guy who was just in a rush - no explanation. he spoke quickly and asked rapid-fire questions, barely letting me get an explanation out before moving on to the next thing. he wanted to buy his girlfriend her first vibe and listened to everything i said but after i talked about each toy would say, ‘what else?’ as if nothing i’d shown him was even close to good enough. he kept demanding things and asking curt questions. he finally decided on a blueberry buzz (actually a good choice) and said please when he asked for it. hearing that please actually stunned me and i realized how few people say please when they ask for something. i suppose "could i" suffices but it was really nice to hear.

lastly, there was creepy workshop guy. to start with, he had a really weird way of moving about the store. he would abstentmindedly linger at one place and then suddenly and with a lot of purpose, he would move to a different area, only to linger there too. i couldn’t figure it out but he said he didn’t need help so i just did other things and waited.

finally, he came up and asked me about the "seminars". he wanted to know who teaches them and what their qualifications are. i explained that the people who work at the store teach them and he said ‘yeah, but do they have degrees or something? i mean, what makes them qualified to teach?" again, i explained that we have extensive training as sex educators. he didn’t seem so sure about that and he asked me if i teach and i said yes and then he asked me what my forte is. he actually said forte. i explained that we all like to teach on as many topics as we can, since we know about them all. he then asked me if we ever had outside teachers because he had a few ideas and would want to come in and teach…

first of all, what? seriously? i told him it was highly unlikely but you never know (but really, yes you do and the answer is no)

second, do you want to learn about blow jobs or not? why all this nonesense about qualifications? do you think that we’d really steer you that wrong?

lastly, it bothered me that i could somehow feel put down by that question. i love the power inherent in self and community education. knowledge should be held by everyone, not just people with degrees. running up against conventional ideas of who has the right to knowledge really throws me when i’m in a space that is normally not like that. it reminds me of all of the assumptions that get made about the intelligence of people in the sex industry that are just outright wrong. what really gets me is that this is a situation in which i actually have quite a bit of power. i have the knowledge, sitting behind my big sex toy counter; and yet..

but it really all boils down to this: you wanna learn about sex? then shut up and let me tell you how to lick pussy, motherfucker.

at the very beginning of this blog which everyone tells me i don’t update enough, (i know and i’m sorry) i wrote about people coming into the store to buy things that they weren’t intending to use in any sexual way. there was the dog collar handcuffs, the makeup removing lube, and the vibrator that was going to star in a movie.

this one has them all beat.

a man came in asking for our black latex gloves. i showed him where they were but sadly, we didn’t have his size. as we were talking, he said that he wants the gloves because he’s (now pay attention here) on a tactical bomb squad and the black gloves he can get from us are much cheaper than the gloves he can buy from the tactical supply company (because those exist, apparently).

i felt like i was in a movie. a bomb squad? and "tactical" most certainly actually means SWAT team.

holy shit! how great is that? it’s nice to know that while he’s saving the world, he’s using our gloves.

so i am in portland, oregon right now and i’m not close to either subways or sex toys but in a conversation about my job with strangers last night, i was reminded of two things that happened last weekend.

these fall under the category of: things not to say to sex toy workers. i’ll update this list as things come up.

1. there’s a regular customer who comes in every couple of weeks. we’ve struck up a nice relationship, chatting and joking when he comes in. there have been times when he’s gotten just about up to the line that i draw between funny and uncomfortable. last week, he more than crossed that line.

i had just shaved my head (accidentally, heh) and he said he was really surprised by my short hair and he reached out to touch it. i love having my head petted when my hair is short, but not by people i don’t really know… but anyway. then he said that he was dating a woman who looked alot like me with my new haircut and, oh, wouldn’t it be funny if he yelled out the wrong name during sex (insert his laughter here). i just stood there, a little shocked and not quite sure what to do. i’d rather not know information like that…

2. the next day, i was helping an older biker couple on a huge hog of a harley buy toys. first, the guy was complaining about toys they’d bought previously - that they broke all the time and that we didn’t carry one he wanted anymore. i couldn’t help but think, ‘did you come in here to complain to me? or to buy sex toys?’.

at the register, he was looking for his tes card and couldn’t find it. i told him it was fine, i knew what tes was and i’d give him the discount. he seemed surprised that i knew what tes was and mentioned that he hadn’t seen me at tes. i said i didn’t go to which he responded, "what, no fetishes?"

now, how do you answer that question (regardless of your fetish-status, if you will)? i jokingly said something about him making assumptions and he said he was asking a question. in the end, i just said that i didn’t have time to go to tes, which seemed to appease him. but really, what did he want me to say?

so, there are my two totally inappropriate moments. more to come. i’m thinking about making some rules (i.e. things not to do/to do in a sex toy shop. maybe a snarky version for this blog and a not-so-snarky version for the babeland blog.

as i said before, i know i haven’t been as active on here as i was in the beginning (the honeymoon period is over?) but there are stories and i should be telling them. it’s probably because in my blogging insanity, i’ve also taken on the task of blogging for my job a few times a week. (http://blog.babeland.com) so that mostly takes all of the “blogging” energy i’ve got in me. but speaking of that blog - if you find out about events that are sex related in some way or funny news stories, etc. then please send them to me and i’ll put them in the blog!

so, back to my first ever radio appearance. the store has a relationship with the derek and romaine show on sirius’ gay/lesbian station. it’s basically a fag and a dyke who have a talk show-type thingy on the weeknights. they get along well with each other and just talk about gay things all week long - at least that was my impression.

so we have this montly spot with them where we go talk about toys and porn and things like that. i showed up last wednesday to talk about our new massage oils/bars and lickable spray/dust stuff that we just got in under our own name. not as exciting as porn but not too bad since they got to lick things and make jokes about that.

radio is weird. you’re talking to, well, i don’t know what they’re audience is, and you can’t see a single one of them. i’m so used to teaching in front of people that it was hard to remember i wasn’t just sitting around with derek and romaine and the cute cutie of an intern. even though there was a huge mike right in front of my mouth, it just felt very weird.

also, because you can’t be seen, you can do whatever you want. wear whatever you want, walk around the studio during the show, drink tea, make jokes about spooge off the mike, chat on instant messenger….

anyway. it was the radio. satellite radio, nonetheless. and in the lobby i saw vito spatafore and big pussy from the sopranos - i don’t watch it but people i know where excited by that. and also, i saw howard stern’s new studio there which is much smaller than his old ones. i guess they’re not filming like they used to so they don’t need the space. but still, the queers had a bigger studio than he does. and what does his channel do all day anyway? they can’t have him on 24 hours…

ok, i’m just rambling now so i’ll go. you can probably listen to the show if you want. derek has a crazy story about being in the hospital and leaving early so he could get back to his tv season finales. *sigh*