Company Moves The Dildo Into The Mainstream -- One Housewife At A Time

[matcom]

<snip>

There's a rising star in Bay Area business, headquartered in the anonymous warehouses near San Francisco International Airport. It's a private company for which few people would have predicted great things when it began a decade ago. From barely $5 million in revenue in 2000, the firm expects to top $45 million in sales this year. Owned by a respected San Francisco attorney and an investor who is a retired CPA, the company is poised to rack up 50 percent sales growth for the third straight year.

The firm isn't just successful; it's become a part of American popular culture, with a top product heralded on a hit cable TV show. And, as anyone who recalls a particularly well-known episode of Sex and the City knows, the Rabbit Pearl is neither a rabbit nor a pearl. Rather, it's an anatomically gifted, soft-jelly vinyl version of the penis.

If rave reviews by satisfied female customers are any indication, the $140 Rabbit Pearl -- equipped to run on three C batteries (not included) -- can apparently keep going longer and do more tricks than a porn stud on steroids, which is great news for Passion Parties Inc., the Brisbane-based sex toy company.

Passion Parties is trying to do for dildos and penile vibrators what Tupperware did for plastic tumblers and Jel-Ring molds. If its sex toys -- which also include the Thumb Pleaser, the Chocolate Thriller, and the Honey Dipper -- seem like standard sex shop fare, that's because they are. What makes the enterprise, tucked in a nondescript office park next to San Bruno Mountain, unusual is the old-style formula with which it markets its products: the in-home party.

http://sfweekly.com/issues/2004-09-15/feature.html

[SarahB]

1. Those are the only type of home parties I'll go to.

I have gotten invited to more of those stupid parties than I can handle- candles, scrapbooks, tupperware, cookware, you name it. It's the hazards of being a mom in the burbs. I generally politely tell the people, "Sorry. I can't make it." The one exception being the sex toy parties! Only one neighborhood lady apparently had the nerve to have one, but the infamous "she's thinks she's better than everyone" SarahBelle shows up. It's not that I think I'm better, I just hate chit chat about boring things. Once you get past having spawned people around the same age, I have nothing to talk about with these people. I bring up anything substinative and I get looked at like I have two heads, so hey, I'm a snot. Cool by me. B-)
The funniest part was how the most uptight woman I know bought some "Happy Penis Cream". It was worth going just to see that. :D

[commander bunnypants]

2. my wife goes to those

thast is all I will saqy

DDQM

[Book Lover]

3. $140 !?!?

I mean, good for them; get the cash from those that have it I always say, but sheesh! I'm in the wrong business...

[skygazer]

5. Too steep for me

Guess the husband will have to do!

[commander bunnypants]

4. had a friend once

who family owned the stores here.

Mark-up is like 90%

DDQM