Intimate Transactions

Sexuality & Culture (2017) 21:96–120
DOI 10.1007/s12119-016-9383-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
Intimate Transactions: Sex Toys and the Sexual

Discourse of Second-Wave Feminism
Hallie Lieberman1
Published online: 9 September 2016

Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract This article examines customer correspondence to Eve’s Garden from

women throughout the United States from 1974 to 1989 to determine how ordinary
women at the height of the second-wave feminist movement grappled with fraught
issues surrounding changing conceptions of sexuality. These exchanges show that
feminist sex debates were incorporated into women’s everyday lives, often in terms
of a conflict between sexual desires and feminist principles, providing evidence that
the personal truly was political. My article shows that sex toys helped women
envision their sexuality in new ways. Letters show how ordinary women struggled
to take control of their sexuality by creating relationships with commercial estab-
lishments in a world awash in social and political changes. Three principal themes
emerge from customer correspondence. First is that many feminists were initially
skeptical that sex toys could be reconciled with feminist political beliefs. Second is
the ambivalence about using an inanimate object, a machine, for sexual pleasure.
And third is the complicated role of sex toys in relationships, both lesbian and
straight, particularly when women desired vaginal penetration with dildos.
Keywords Sex toys History of sexuality Second-wave feminism Dildos

Vibrators Dell Williams
During the 1970 and 1980s, a powerful but nearly culturally invisible technology
was transforming women’s sexuality, helping many women experience sexual
freedom and independence for the first time (Juffer 1998, pp. 86–87; Comfort 1972,
p. 220; Dumont and Dumont 1970, p. 7, 8). Most women used it in secret, stashing it
away in their bedside tables and medicine cabinets (Heiman et al. 1976, p. 149).
& Hallie Lieberman

hallielieberman@gmail.com
1
Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI,
USA
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Intimate Transactions: Sex Toys and the Sexual Discourse… 97
Many ordered it surreptitiously through a mail-order store in New York City

(Williams and Vannucci 2005, pp. 179–183). Sometimes even their partners didn’t
know that they had it. This technology was the sex toy.
Sex toys weren’t new technologies in this era, but their cultural meanings were.
In this paper I will argue that in the 1970s sex toys in the United States were
transformed into feminist devices. Although many people had a hand in this
transformation, an unlikely person played a leading role: a former advertising
executive and actress named Dell Williams, who founded the first feminist sex-toy
store in America.
In this article, I examine customer correspondence to Eve’s Garden from
predominantly middle class women throughout the United States from 1974 to 1989
to determine how ordinary women at the height of the second-wave feminist
movement grappled with fraught issues surrounding changing conceptions of
sexuality. The second-wave movement is generally understood to be a period of
women’s rights activism and organizing between the late 1960s and the early
1980s.1 During the second wave, the women’s movement ‘‘championed both
women’s equality with men in work and politics and women’s difference from men
within the areas of reproduction and sexuality’’ (Freedman 2002, p. 5). Williams
provided a commercial space where women could not only buy products, but also
discuss intimate details about their sex lives. A few other spaces, including some
radical-feminist consciousness raising groups and self-help women’s health groups,
allowed such discussion, but such groups were concentrated on the East Coast and
weren’t widely distributed across the United States (Echols 1989, pp. 20–21).
Exchanges with Eve’s Garden show that feminist sex debates were incorporated into
women’s everyday lives, often in terms of a conflict between sexual desires and
feminist principles, providing evidence that the personal truly was political and that
sex toys played an important role in women’s liberation. Letters show how ordinary
women struggled to gain knowledge about their sexuality by creating relationships
with commercial establishments in a world awash in social and political changes.
My article begins by examining the historiography of second-wave feminist
sexuality. Next, I provide background on the feminist sex-toy movement by
detailing Williams’ founding of Eve’s Garden, activist Betty Dodson’s influence on
Williams, and Williams’ role in the National Organization for Women. The rest of
the article is an analysis of three principal themes which emerge from customer
correspondence. First is that many women who self-identified as feminists were
initially skeptical that sex toys could be reconciled with feminist political beliefs.
Second is the ambivalence about using an inanimate object, a device, for sexual
pleasure. And third is the complicated role of sex toys in relationships, both lesbian
and straight, particularly for women who desired vaginal penetration with dildos.
Customer correspondence tells a story that has been rarely discussed: the
transformative effect that masturbation and sex toys had on the lives of ordinary
women. Historians of sex have very few records of sexual experiences outside
clinical settings (Freedman and D’Emilio 1990, p. 482; Duggan 1990). Institutional
1
I extend the period to the late 1980s because the third-wave of feminism is believed to have begun in
the early 1990s (Siegel 2007, p. 16, 17).
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98 H. Lieberman
archives rarely collect such records, so historians have had to be more creative in
finding sources. For examples, some scholars have examined pornography to get at
the history of dildos (Arondekar 2009). Arnodekar argues that relying on
pornography as a source is difficult because it ‘‘resides at the borders of the official
archive,’’ and since authors used pseudonyms and copied each other it is nearly
impossible to determine the original text (p. 98–99). Scholars of asexual history
have had similar problems, as it is not well documented in archives, as Przybylo and
Cooper (2014) have noted. They suggest that historians of asexuality explore
sources beyond institutional archives, by thinking more creatively of what an
archive is. Such an approach would also be useful in exploring the history of sex
toys because masturbation and sex toy archives are hidden since people are reluctant
to discuss masturbation even with therapists, and masturbation practices are almost
never included in diaries.2 Analyzing non-institutional sources, like personal
collections of historic sex-toy ephemera and oral histories of second-wave feminist
sex-toy users can provide a way into this hidden archive. The rare customer records
at institutional archives offer unique insight into how sex toys were used and what
they meant to users.
As the letters reveal, many women had been shamed into believing that
masturbation was wrong, so they chose not to masturbate. Because masturbation is
one of the more common ways for a woman to achieve orgasm (Zietsch et al. 2011),
the taboo against masturbation could possibly have affected women negatively
because it probably caused some women to refrain from masturbation and prevented
them from having orgasms. When Eve’s Garden’s catalogs spread throughout the
country, many 30 and 40-something women were able to obtain their first vibrators,
which led to their first orgasms (LoPiccolo and Lobitz 1972; Hurlbert and Whittaker
1991). These orgasms were profound experiences that caused women to reexamine
the most fundamental aspects of their lives. Women questioned their sexual
orientations, chafed at traditional gender roles, and decided to end their marriages.
These letters also reveal the limitations of the so-called sexual revolution of 1969, a
revolution that was largely patriarchal, demonstrating that the sexual revolution was
focused on partnered sexual practices, leaving masturbation and the tools used to
engage in it to remain taboo.
Few women spoke openly of their masturbation practices during the 1970s and
1980s. Most popular sex manuals and sex toys ads framed masturbation as a second-
tier sexual activity, a way for a woman to ‘‘train’’ herself to have an orgasm with a
man (Comfort 1972, pp. 237–240). The few books that presented masturbation as a
healthy practice on par or superior to coupled sex were feminist sex-advice books,
such as Betty Dodson’s Liberating Masturbation (Dodson 1974; Wallace 1975;
Godiva 1975, p. 64). Despite the continuing taboo against openly discussing
masturbation, women became surprisingly open about sex toys during commercial
transactions.
2
The notable exception to this is Samuel Pepys, (Stengers and Van 2001, p. 36).
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The Absence of Sex-Toys in the Historiography of Second-Wave

Feminism
The history of sex toys is a very underdeveloped field. The early history of vibrators
has been detailed by Lieberman (2016), who argues that in the early twentieth
century electric vibrators became publicly visible and socially acceptable because
they were marketed as health devices and home appliances, not as sex toys, in a
successful attempt to evade obscenity prosecution. While Maines (1998) argues that
vibrators gained popularity because they were used by doctors on female patients to
cure hysteria in the early twentieth century, others scholars have questioned her
interpretation. For example, British historian of science Iwan Rhys Morus stated, ‘‘I
can safely say that I have come across nothing in my researches on late nineteenth-
century electricity and the body that lends any support at all to Maines’s argument’’
(Wypijewski 2012).
Beyond the early twentieth century, scholarship on the history of sex toys is
scant. The history of vibrators in the 1970 and 1980s has been briefly examined by
Juffer (1998), who argues that vibrators gained ‘‘relative mainstream legitimacy,’’
during this time. Juffer says that vibrators were also contentious because they were
considered unnatural, alienating, male-identified, and addictive. However, Juffer
leaves Dell Williams and Eve’s Garden out of the story, and does not mention dildos
(pp. 84–93). One of the few scholars to note Williams’ importance is Comella
(2004). Comella’s work is more ethnographic than historical, but she draws on the
history of Eve’s Garden and sex-toy retailer Good Vibrations (founded in 1977) to
tell the story of how feminist sex-toy stores spread throughout the U.S (Comella
2013). Comella argues that ‘‘Eve’s Garden was a direct outgrowth of second-wave
U.S. feminism and the fervid politicization of female sexuality that was occurring in
certain corners of the women’s liberation movement’’ (2004, p. 127).
In contrast to the minimal historiography of sex toys, a large body of literature on
second-wave feminism exists, most of it is focused on feminist gender theory. The
literature on feminist sexual theory is much smaller, despite the importance of
sexuality in the movement, as historian Jane Gerhard argues (2001). Feminists were
divided about the importance of sexual pleasure to women’s liberation. Cultural
feminists argued sex wasn’t very important. These feminists celebrated gender
differences between men and women and believed in gaining women’s rights
through political channels. Betty Friedan, founder of NOW, criticized the radicals
for their ‘‘orgasm politics’’ and thought change should happen in ‘‘City Hall not the
bedroom.’’ Many of NOW’s members agreed with Friedan when she said, ‘‘I didn’t
think a thousand vibrators would make much difference…if unequal power
positions in real life weren’t changed’’ (1991, p. 86). On the other hand, most radical
feminists didn’t think that there were essential differences between men and women
and believed that change happened on an individual level—hence Hanisch’s (1970)
catchphrase ‘‘The personal is political.’’ Many of these feminists argued that sex
was important, but they couldn’t agree on how a feminist should behave sexually.
As Echols (1989) details in her history of radical feminism, some groups,
including the majority of The Redstockings, believed that women’s sexuality should
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100 H. Lieberman
be used to transform traditional marriage. As Shulamaith Firestone said, ‘‘a

revolutionary in every bedroom cannot fail to shake up the status quo’’ (Echols,
p. 82, 145, 146). But not everybody agreed with this view. In fact, a group of leaders
in the Redstockings left in protest to found The Feminists. This group insisted that
‘‘heterosexual desire was nothing more than a male fabrication designed to keep
women enslaved to men’’ (Echols, p. 149). Similarly, the radical feminist group Cell
16 argued that women’s sexual liberation should mean ‘‘liberation from sexuality’’
through celibacy. One of its leaders, Dana Densmore, said that most women didn’t
have sex for pleasure, because they ‘‘don’t have orgasms’’ (Echols, p. 163).
According to historian Jane Gerhard, desires for orgasm were considered masculine,
so some radical feminists groups redefined women’s sexuality as focused not on
genitals but on ‘‘belonging and social bonding’’ (Gerhard, pp. 111–112).
The radical feminists who did think female orgasm was important had very
particular ideas about how those orgasms should be obtained. Koedt (1973), a
founding member of New York Radical Feminists, argued that the vaginal orgasm
was a myth constructed by men who asserted that penetrative sex was superior. All
orgasms were clitoral, Koedt claimed. Even though Koedt’s pro-orgasm stance was
liberating for some women, other feminists argued that re-centering the ‘‘loca-
tion…of the female orgasm’’ to the clitoris was problematic, because it denied
women ‘‘the ability to define and control sexual experiences for themselves’’
(Snitow et al. 1983, p. 27). In contrast to Koedt, who advocated clitoral orgasms
through both heterosexual sex and masturbation, The Feminists claimed that women
should avoid sex with men completely (Echols, p. 173). Instead, they argued that
women could meet all their sexual needs with masturbation.
Although masturbation was considered a feminist act by some groups, using sex
toys was not always acceptable. In part because of Koedt’s belief that the vaginal
orgasm was a myth, dildos were thought by many to be male-identified tools that
provided women with no sexual pleasure (Juffer 1998, p. 84). Debates about
whether the dildo was a penis substitute (and therefore patriarchal), simply a neutral
masturbatory device, or even a subversive instrument, played out in feminist media
in the 1970s. Eve’s Garden did not carry dildos for its first few years in part because
they were controversial. Although historians have not analyzed these second-wave
feminist dildo debates, other scholars have addressed similar contemporary dildo
debates. Heather Findlay argues that dildos can be both penis substitutes and
subversive devices at the same time (Findlay 1992). Similarly, Das (2014) claims
that dildos should be ‘‘viewed simultaneously as a tool of oppression as well as
liberation.’’ The dildo ‘‘has the potential to be recoded as a post-gender, non-phallic
signifier,’’ asserts Hamming (2001), but only if we stop thinking of objects in terms
of gender.
Dildos were not controversial among second-wave feminists just because of their
symbolic meanings, but also because they were products of capitalism, as were all
sex toys. In recent focus groups, self-identified second-wave feminists were critical
of the 1970s era British feminist magazine Spare Rib for coming with a vibrator as a
free gift, saying the magazine was ‘‘tarnished in its relationship with capitalism.’’
(Evans and Riley 2015, p. 110). However, feminist attitudes towards vibrators
during the 1970 and 1980s have not been fully analyzed, nor has Williams’ or
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Dodson’s impact on second-wave feminism been fully addressed. One exceptions is

Juffer’s (1998) analysis of Dodson’s impact on masturbation attitudes (pp. 69–70,
72, 78–79).
Yet this history is central to major themes in the historiography of second-wave
feminism. Historians have noted that sex was important to the feminist movement.
For example, Freedman (2002) argues, second-wave feminists ‘‘showed that sexual
self-determination—was critical to women’s empowerment’’ (p. 263). But she only
mentions sex toys briefly in her book (p. 264). Including sex toys in the story
changes our ideas of feminist attitudes towards sex.
Customer correspondence sheds new light on the importance of consumer culture
in women’s sexual lives. Much scholarship on second-wave feminism and
consumerism is critique: either of how corporate advertisers co-opted the tenets
of feminism or how women’s magazines ‘‘sold out’’ by accepting this advertising.3
For example, Ruth Rosen details what she calls ‘‘consumer feminism,’’ which she
says arose through corporate advertising in women’s magazines and ‘‘helped
translate and transform American feminism into a universe of goods and services
that promised liberation.’’ Consumer feminism ‘‘tended to equate liberation with the
purchase of things—liquor, tobacco, vacations, stereos, cameras, and clothes’’
(2006, p. 308, 312). Notably absent from her list are sex toys and other items sold
and produced by feminists like books, buttons, and t-shirts.
A few scholars have analyzed consumer feminism, including Spain (2016) and
Enke (2007). Enke argues that during the 1960s and 1970s few places existed for
women to discuss their sex lives, so women created their own spaces, many of
which were commercial. Enke says that ‘‘feminist commercial spaces,’’ like
bookstores and coffee houses, were ‘‘an integral and constitutive component of
feminist emergence…that popularized a movement’’ in the 1970s (p. 100). Spain
makes a similar argument that women carved out new ‘‘feminist spaces’’ during the
second-wave movement, some of which were commercial spaces. Like Enke, Spain
focuses primarily on bookstores, which she says served a role for women to explore
their sexuality and were a ‘‘significant event in the coming out process for lesbians’’
(p. 108).
Although Enke and Spain don’t mention sex-toys in their analyses, feminist sex-
toy stores fit into the model of feminist spaces. Like feminist book stores, feminist
sex-toy stores allowed women to explore their sexuality and grapple with feminist
theory in a commercial space. While Enke argues that these spaces were rooted in
the physical environment of cities, I argue that Eve’s Garden helped create a
nationwide network of feminist commercial spaces through mail-order sales.
Before Eve’s Garden, few spaces for women to discuss their sexuality existed.
Many feminists in the 1970s, particularly radical feminists, formed women’s health
clinics and consciousness-raising groups. But these spaces were rarely geared
towards discussing sexual pleasure, focusing instead on health and reproduction.
Occasionally orgasm would be addressed, but talk of masturbation was still largely
taboo. Nevertheless, Eve’s Garden’s was influenced by second-wave feminism’s
emphasis on bodily knowledge (Kline 2010, p. 3).
3
See, Douglas (1995), pp. 245–268, Howard (2010), Frank (1998), Siegel (2007), pp. 63–68.
123
102 H. Lieberman
Masturbation, Women’s Empowerment, and the Founding of Eve’s

Garden
Although the sexual revolution had helped normalize such sexual practices as
premarital sex and oral sex, the taboo against masturbation, particularly female
masturbation, remained. This taboo was in place even though sexual scientists were
discovering that female masturbation was, statistically speaking, normal. Biologist
and social scientist Alfred Kinsey (1953) reported in Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female that 62 % of his female sample had masturbated (p. 142). In Human Sexual
Response, gynecologist and sexual researcher William Masters and his research
assistant Virginia Johnson (1966) showed that women in the lab could have multiple
orgasms while masturbating, which they couldn’t do while having partnered sex.
Women’s orgasms were more intense during masturbation than ‘‘coitus,’’ they
found (p. 65, 133).
Masturbation was also a focus of Columbia University graduate student Shere
Hite’s (1973) sex survey, The Hite Report. Hite found that a majority of women
masturbated (82 %), and many of them used vibrators (she did not quantify how
many) (reprint 2004, p. 452). Hite concluded that most women masturbated by
stimulating their clitorises and did not insert dildos or other objects into their
vaginas. This finding was a double-edged sword for women: on the one-hand it
legitimized clitoral stimulation and provided a good explanation for why women
didn’t orgasm during intercourse. On the other hand, women who did receive sexual
pleasure from penetration felt as if their desire for penetration and dildos wasn’t
‘‘normal.’’ Ironically, The Hite Report and other feminist sexuality texts ended up
replacing one ideology with another, the vaginal orgasm supplanted by the clitoral.
As female masturbation became more accepted among some feminists, it
remained threatening to the larger culture because it upended deeply ingrained
gender and sexuality norms. The knowledge that women could have better orgasms
during masturbation than with their partners raised the possibility that women would
choose to either abandon their current relationships or decide not to start new
relationships. Since sex toys were the tools that brought many women solo orgasmic
experiences, they were particularly threatening, even to the leading male sexologists
of the day. For example, in the best-selling sex-manual The Joy of Sex (1972),
British physician Alex Comfort advocated the use of vibrators and dildos, but with
much reassurance to male readers. Comfort advised women to use vibrators during
masturbation, but said that ‘‘vibrators are no substitute for a penis’’ (p. 220).
One of the few women working to reduce the masturbation taboo was Betty
Dodson. Dodson’s pro-masturbation theories, as well as the philosophy of Wilhelm
Reich, became the inspiration for Eve’s Garden. Williams was particularly drawn to
Reich’s beliefs that more frequent orgasms could cure psychological problems.
Williams shared Dodson’s belief that women’s liberation was impossible without
sexual freedom, and sexual freedom was impossible without masturbation (2010,
p. 105).
According to Dodson’s philosophy, women who couldn’t bring themselves to
orgasm would always be dependent on a partner. If a woman did not know how to
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bring herself pleasure, she could not take control of her own sexuality. Women
would be unable to have successful sexual relationships if they could not give
themselves orgasms because they would not be able to instruct their partners about
their sexual preferences.
Williams got her idea for Eve’s Garden in 1970, when she attended one of
Dodson’s bodysex workshops. These workshops were a variation of feminist
consciousness-raising groups. Dodson’s workshop was designed to teach women
how to bring themselves sexual pleasure through masturbation. As Williams and a
number of other participants removed their clothes and gathered in a circle, Dodson
led them in a discussion of their perceived flaws with their bodies, teaching them
that their bodily dissatisfaction was being driven by false cultural norms, not by
actual shortcomings. After giving women the advice to love their bodies, Dodson
taught them to bring themselves pleasure by both touching their genitals and by
using vibrators, devices unknown to many participants (Dodson 1974, p. 30;
Williams and Vannucci 2005, pp. 140–145). After the workshop, Williams, like
many of the other women in attendance, went on a mission to find a vibrator
(Williams and Vannucci 2005, pp. 140–145).
However, this was no easy task. In the late 1960s, a woman who wanted a sex toy
had to navigate the seedy underbelly of America. Sex toys, if openly marketed, were
marginally legal. According to the Report of the Committee on Obscenity and
Pornography, most adult bookstores that sold sex toys were located in dangerous
areas, as zoning laws relegated these stores to the outskirts of town, far away from
schools, churches, or playgrounds. Adult bookstores were not hospitable places for
women. They were morasses of unchecked male id, filled with porn magazines
displaying gynecological close-ups of vulvas. Their sex-toy selection was also slim:
usually just a few hard plastic dildos and phallic vibrators (United States 1971,
p. 101). So it was no wonder only 1–3 % of adult bookstore patrons were women.
Instead, the typical adult bookstore shopper was ‘‘white, middle-aged, middle class,
married male.’’ (United States 1971, p. 129).
Instead of shopping at an adult bookstore, Williams went to Macy’s, a store that
had been stocking vibrators under the guise of medical devices since 1910.4
Williams asked the two-decades younger sales clerk if he could direct her to where
the ‘‘body massagers’’ were. ‘‘What do you want it for?’’ he crowed ‘‘loudly enough
that people turned to look’’; chastened, she responded by mumbling ‘‘something
about having a bad back.’’ She ended up buying the vibrator, but not without ‘‘a
sense of guilt and shame.’’ It was this feeling of embarrassment, along with the
empowerment she had felt at Dodson’s workshop, that laid the foundation for her
sex-toy store (Williams and Vannucci 2005, pp. 146–147).
In the meantime, Williams had been active in NOW, and she increasingly
believed that sexual liberation was key to women’s liberation. In 1973, Williams co-
organized the first NOW sexuality conference with Laura Scharf (Williams and
Vannucci 2005, pp. 148–152). Williams was somewhat at odds with the established
NOW leadership from the beginning. Williams, as well as Dodson, fell in line with
4
Jan. Sale of Drugs Toilet and Manicure Goods ad, Macy’s Department Store, 26 Jan 1910, New York
Times, 7.
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104 H. Lieberman
the radical feminists who argued that ‘‘the personal is political,’’ and said that
change needed to happen on an individual level. ‘‘Some of my sisters dismissed the
significance of the conference because of ‘our many political struggles.’ If freeing
ourselves from sexual imprisonment is not political, I don’t know what is,’’
Williams said.5
Although she had the idea for Eve’s Garden before the conference, it wasn’t until
Dodson’s ‘‘Liberating Masturbation and Orgasm’’ conference workshop that she
was spurred to start it (National Organization for Women 1974). It was particularly
enticing to Williams that Dodson, who’d brought a dozen vibrators with her to sell,
sold out her stock to NOW members within a half hour (Dodson 2010,
pp. 180–182). The NOW conference began the public association of vibrators with
feminism (Dodson 1974, p. 2).
Within a year, Williams was challenging the system of sex-toy distribution and
offering an alternative model informed by second-wave feminism. Williams
developed a feminist sex-toy store whose purpose was allowing women to become
emotionally and sexually liberated. Only then could women unlock their true
potential and change the world, Williams argued. By shifting the meanings of sex
toys and reducing the stigma surrounding masturbation, Eve’s Garden transformed
women’s lives.
When it opened in September 1974, Eve’s Garden was a mail-order company that
Williams was running from her New York City apartment. It sold only three
products ‘‘the Hitachi Magic Wand, the Prelude 3, and Betty Dodson’s book,
Liberating Masturbation’’ (Williams and Vannucci 2005, p. 180). A year later
Williams created a small showroom for Eve’s Garden. In 1979 it became a retail
establishment, and its stock expanded to include more vibrators, and a larger
number of books, including Our Bodies Ourselves and The Hite Report. Eve’s
Garden was as much about education and empowerment as it was about selling sex
toys. Williams empowered women to see consumption as political, turning women’s
traditional role as consumer on its head. Consumer culture no longer had to be
repressive; it could be an expression of sexual awakening.
Women-owned sex-toy stores gave women a connection to the radical feminist
orgasm politics on the coasts.6 Customers felt connected as part of a ‘‘sisterhood’’ of
sexual change, a community of women who were exploring their sexuality.
‘‘Sisterhood, especially erotic sisterhood, is powerful,’’ wrote a customer to
Williams in 1975, to which Williams responded, ‘‘Right on, erotic sisterhood can
indeed be powerful, why do you think I’m selling vibrators?’’7 This sense of
community helped to reduce the stigma of sex toys and masturbation for women
across the country.
Customers of Eve’s Garden treated Williams as both a health professional and a
sex therapist, asking for advice on sexual problems and reassurance that using
5
‘‘To Explore Define and Celebrate Our Own Sexuality,’’ p. 6–7, 6. In Women’s Sexuality Conference
Proceedings. New York: National Organization of Women, 1973.
6
Similar to what Beth Bailey describes (2002, pp. 169–174).
7
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 3 Apr 1975. In Customer Correspondence, Box 5, Folder 3, Dell Williams
papers, #7676. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New
York (Hereafter referred to as ‘‘Williams Papers’’).
123
sexual devices was normal. Williams fostered this intimacy through her catalog,
which always began with a letter addressing her customers with the designation
‘‘Dear Sisters.’’ In these letters, Williams relayed stories about the founding of
Eve’s Garden, her participation in NOW, and how sexual repression led to women’s
repression. The closeness that women felt to Williams was evident in their letters.
For example, one woman wrote, ‘‘I know we’ve never physically ‘met’ but I miss
hearing from you. I felt I’d found a friend—someone who understands so much
more about being a woman than most other people ever could.’’8
Williams helped transform sex toys from unseemly objects to devices of feminist
empowerment. In her catalogs, she educated consumers about sex toys in two ways:
practical advice on how to use them, and the arguably more important information
on why women should use them. The ‘‘why’’ helped to allay women’s fears that
using a vibrator would make them less of a feminist. For example, she contrasted the
reliable vibrator with the unreliable man in one of her earliest catalogs, from 1975:
THE LIBERATING VIBRATORS!
‘The vibrator is the best thing to come along since the wheel,’ said a woman
sex counselor psychologist…and, by Goddess, she may be right! It never has a
cold, snores, talks back, sulks, rejects, is too tired or out of town! It’s always
there when you need to massage away an ache, turn yourself on, or come.9
For Williams the vibrator was a tool that allowed women to stop relying on men for
sexual pleasure, a radical idea in line with the feminist ideals that she set forth in her
opening letter to customers: ‘‘All the problems of the world were created because
it’s been run by men only and the way they kept women down was to take away our
sexual rights.’’10
Yet creating a store would have made no difference without customers. After
Williams founded Eve’s Garden, she drew upon her experience as an advertising
executive to create a marketing strategy. Because mainstream magazines refused to
run advertisements for sex stores in their pages, she couldn’t target a general market.
The only available options were niche publications: feminist and lesbian magazines,
as well as independent newspapers. Williams’ limited budget meant the early ads
were small classified ads. Williams credited her ads with making her store a success.
All of my customers were generated through a four-line advertisement in the
classified section of Ms. Magazine—‘‘Liberating vibrators and other pleasur-
able things for women from a feminist-owned business. Send 25 cents for our
catalog. Eve’s Garden, 119 W. 57th St., NYC.’’ (Williams and Vannucci 2005,
p. 179)
Although the early ads weren’t flashy, the message in them was revolutionary. By
modifying vibrators with the adjective liberating, Williams rebranded vibrators as
tools of the women’s movement. Later ads became bolder and contained drawings
8
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 7 Feb 1985. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 3.
9
Eve’s Garden Catalog, 1975, Sex Aids Dealers 1960–1979, Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex,
Gender, and Reproduction. Indiana University. Bloomington, Indiana.
10
Eve’s Garden Catalog, 1975, 2.
123
106 H. Lieberman
of nude women holding apples or sketches of female goddesses with flowers

emerging from their laps, with ad copy that said ‘‘Celebrate your sexuality. Proudly.
Joyously. At Eve’s Garden an elegant sexuality boutique, owned and operated by
women.’’11 She also marketed her business to psychologists and sex-therapists,
giving them catalogs to hand out to their patients.
Methods
All of the letters were obtained in the Dell Williams Papers in Cornell University’s
Human Sexuality Collection. Although the letters were restricted, Williams gave me
permission to use them. The archive contained customer letters from 1974 through
2002, but I chose to end my analysis of the letters in 1989 for two reasons. One, the
correspondence after the 1980s is scant, and, two, Eve’s Garden began allowing
men in the store in the mid-1990s, so it stopped being a space just for women
(Williams and Vannucci 2005, p. 203). Because I was interested in examining
women’s attitudes towards sex toys, I only studied the approximately 60 letters that
mentioned dildos or vibrators from 1974 to 1989. I coded the letters according to
specific themes, initially coming up with about 15 different smaller themes, and
then classifying these themes into three main categories: feminist skepticism of sex
toys, women’s ambivalence towards using machines for sexual pleasure, and sex
toys’ effects on relationships. I left out some themes, like fear of sex-toy addiction,
because I felt that was adequately covered by fear of machines. Each of these
themes sheds new light on how second-wave feminists reconciled their sexual
behaviors with social norms and feminist sexual theories.
Skeptical Feminists
Williams’ store was positively embraced by many in the feminist movement, but not
all. The reaction among feminists was ‘‘mostly good,’’ Williams said. However, she
added, ‘‘Some of my feminist friends…kind of snickered. That’s because they
didn’t get the political meaning.’’12 Correspondence to Eve’s Garden reveal that
Williams’ concept of women’s liberation through vibrators wasn’t uncritically
embraced by all members of the feminist community. Letters written to Eve’s
Garden from 1975 to 1989 show that women had mixed feelings about sex toys,
revealing a community of women unsure of how to reconcile their sexual practices
with their feminist beliefs and whether it was even possible to do so.
Some women were overjoyed to discover Eve’s Garden, believing that it fit
nicely within the feminist movement. One customer wrote to her, ‘‘As a woman and
an active feminist, I greatly appreciate efforts by other women to liberate the minds
and bodies of our sisters…I am grateful that there are caring women such as you, to
provide us with information and quality merchandise, to help us understand and
11
Ad Proofs. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 106.
12
Interview with Dell Williams, 9 Jan 2015.
123
release the full beauty of our sexuality.’’13 Similarly, another woman wrote, ‘‘I have
been wanting to get a vibrator for some time and it feels really nice knowing that I
am purchasing it through a feminist based company.’’14
Not everybody in the feminist community was enthusiastic to learn that a
feminist was selling sex toys. Even though Williams was a member of NOW and
flaunted her feminist credentials, many women were critical of the concept of a
feminist sex-toy store. Vibrators and dildos were controversial within the feminist
movement, the former because they were accused of being ‘‘unnatural’’ and
addictive, the latter because they were seen as too male-identified. Sex toys were
also controversial because they were sold alongside pornography in sleazy adult
stores that catered to men. The 1970 and 1980s saw raging feminists debate about
pornography’s harm towards women and protests against adult stores that stocked
sex toys. At least one such protest involved activists pouring blood on dildos.15
Many customers insisted that Williams prove her feminist bona fides before they
agreed to order from her. In 1975, a year after Williams began Eve’s Garden, one
woman sent this letter to Eve’s Garden: ‘‘Dear People: I’m not quite sure what
feminists are doing in the vibrator business (it seems rather anti-social or anti-people
to me) but please send me your catalog anyway. Thank you.’’16
Williams took such challenges head on, providing an argument that seems drawn
from Carol Hanisch’s personal-is-political philosophy (Hanisch 1970). ‘‘What a
feminist is doing in the vibrator business,’’ Williams wrote back, ‘‘is creating space
for women to touch base with their potential power which lies in the release of the
orgasm…the ability to sense more pleasure and change the world from the
standpoint of pleasure-based power rather than hostile/anger-based power.’’ She
also took aim at the writer’s assertion that vibrators were an anti-social technology.
‘‘P.S. Vibrators are not meant to replace people…they’re fun things too.’’17
This skepticism persisted. One of the letter writers to Williams was a member of
Women’s Forum Against Media Violence, a group that was part of the larger
feminist anti-pornography movement. It’s remarkable that the writer was even
willing to give Eve’s Garden a chance, considering that swaths of the movement,
including one of the most prominent groups, Women Against Violence and
Pornography, were not just opposed to pornography, but also to adult bookstores, of
which Eve’s Garden could be classified (Bronstein 2011, p. 141). The writer began
her 1984 letter hesitantly: ‘‘As a feminist and an activist against pornography and
other forms of violence against women, I am somewhat skeptical in writing to you!’’
The writer said she had heard about Eve’s Garden from the feminist magazines Ms.
and New Directions For Women and was ‘‘proceeding in the hope that these two
magazines wouldn’t steer a feminist wrong.’’ That she continued to be wary of
Eve’s Garden even after learning about the store from feminist magazines shows
13
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 5 Aug 1983. Williams papers, #7676. Box 5, Folder 1.
14
Customer to Eve’s Garden, circa 27 Mar 1986. Williams papers. Box 5, Folder 13.
15
‘‘Crimes Against Women: Pro Se Defense Victorious,’’ The Amazon Vol. 8, No. 6, Oct/Nov 1980,
pp. 36–37.
16
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 6 Nov 1975. Williams papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
17
Williams to Customer, 1 Nov 1975. Williams papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
123
108 H. Lieberman
how much of a challenge Williams faced in convincing fellow feminists that a sex-
toy store was compatible with their ideology. ‘‘If you are another sleazy sex-
company parading as a feminist erotica store, that is not what I’m looking for,’’ the
prospective customer said.18
Eve’s Garden created a commercial space for women that was unique within the
feminist movement. While other commercial spaces like bookstores and coffee
shops provided feminist communities, they were primarily sites for discussions of
gender and political action, not personal sexual practices. But Eve’s Garden did not
just give women a sense of sexual community, it also gave women the opportunity
to browse a sex-toy store in public without fearing social stigma or harassment from
male customers. ‘‘I know I would never go into a store to buy a vibrator, but thanks
to you I don’t need to,’’ wrote a woman to Williams on April 5, 1975.19 Similarly,
another woman wrote, ‘‘I’ve been struggling to accept my sexuality and, being
single and celibate, decided to try to get a vibrator. I supposed the Louisville ‘sex
stores’ have them but I wouldn’t be caught dead on that street.’’20 Even the women
brave enough to enter porn shops couldn’t bring themselves to buy sex toys:
‘‘Sisters, I have wanted a vibrator for years. Each time I’ve gone into the local porn-
shops I’ve been thoroughly disgusted (with the sexist material and the scummy
salesperson) that I have never even asked to look at any.’’21
The women who did ask for sex toys in adult stores paid the price for it. Good
Vibrations sex-toy store founder Joani Blank (1976) wrote in her guide to vibrators
that when her friend was shopping for a dildo in an adult bookstore, the clerk said,
‘‘Boy, you must really need it bad, sweetie pie’’ (Blank, p. 6–7). Because sex stores
were located in ‘‘bad’’ areas of town, usually because of zoning restrictions, women
had to travel to seedy locations, which lent the stores and their products an aura of
shamefulness and dirtiness. One Eve’s Garden customer relayed her experience
shopping for Ben-Wa balls in Boston’s ‘‘Combat Zone.’’ ‘‘The whole experience
was really awful; I attracted a crowd wherever I went—wow! Lookit [sic] the
woman looking at the dirty books! Ugh.’’22
Even if adult stores were in a woman’s vicinity, restrictive obscenity laws meant
that the stores were always in danger of being shut down. ‘‘The few places on Long
Island available to buy an Orgo Stimulator were raided recently and closed on
obscenity charges (which is ridiculous). I’m happy that Eve’s Garden is available
for mail and phone orders,’’ a woman wrote to Williams.23 Eve’s Garden’s mail-
order business made shopping for sex toys a safer and more reliable experience,
while also reassuring women that their desire for vibrators was not only legitimate,
but also feminist.
18
Customer to Eve’s Garden, March 1984. Williams papers. Box 4, Folder 2.
19
Customer to Eve’s Garden, April 1975. Williams papers. Box 5, Folder 1.
20
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 21 Sept 1986. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 14.
21
Customer to Eve’s Garden, circa 1975–1985. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 1.
22
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 3 Apr 1975. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 3.
23
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 9 Aug 1979. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 1.
123
Ambivalence Towards Machines
Sex toys didn’t become socially acceptable overnight. Even the women who wrote
enthusiastic letters to Williams that detailed their life-changing experience with sex
toys sometimes felt ambivalence towards vibrators. For example, in 1975 an Athens,
Ohio, woman wrote to Williams to share her profound experience with the Prelude
vibrator, which provided her with the first orgasm of her life. She was so awed by
the experience that she composed a poem. In abstract language, the first two stanzas
described her experience of masturbation, or as she puts it, ‘‘sink[ing] into the warm
sweet cave that is me.’’ In the third stanza she detailed her orgasm, calling it an
‘‘orange tingling spasm,’’ and concluded with the sentence: ‘‘I AM POWERFUL.’’
However, immediately after writing about her-post orgasmic revelation of personal
strength, she began a stanza full of ambivalence about vibrators.
I rejoice in finding a part of me
lost since birth. In a horrible age of
machines it is in a paradox that a machine
led me to rediscover my offended birthright.24
The vibrator may have transformed her life, but she still viewed it as a part of the
‘‘horrible age of machines’’ that she lived in. In the seventh and final stanza she
ended with this goal: ‘‘One day…I will again look to find intimacy with another
human being.’’ For her the vibrator was not an end in and of itself, but a means to a
relationship with another person, with something that wasn’t a ‘‘machine.’’
Vibrators were in some ways opposed to the 1970s-era counterculture mindset
wary of technology, the belief that natural was always better. Many people in the
conservationists movement were anti-technology and ‘‘tended to view the twentieth
century as a steady decline into chaos and environmental collapse, brought on by
rampant population growth and unregulated technological expansion’’ (Kirk 2002,
p. 358). Therefore it made sense that some women during this era felt ambivalence
towards vibrators. Sex therapist and masturbation-advocate Lonnie Barbach (1976)
argued in her sex-advice book For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality
that ‘‘Some women who object to the technological computer-instant-freeze-dried
orientation of society may classify vibrators with frozen TV dinners, tape-recorded
answering services, and microwave ovens. These women generally prefer a return to
the more natural, slower, less complicated human functions. Thus, philosophically,
they might be unwilling to use a vibrator’’ (p. 119). Similarly, anthropologist
Margaret Mead argued in a 1976 issue of Redbook that vibrators were an unnatural
technology that dehumanized sex: ‘‘We have invented [vibrators] to substitute for
what is natural. Machines alienate people from their bodies and their emotions’’
(Safran 1976, p. 85). In fact, women’s sex manuals of the time, obviated such
arguments. ‘‘If you see the use of a vibrator as unnatural, perhaps you can try
thinking about it as an extension of yourself’’ (Heiman et al. 1976, p. 105).
24
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 4 Oct 1975. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 6.
123
110 H. Lieberman
But it wasn’t just the fact that the vibrator was a machine that complicated the
Athens, Ohio,-based poet’s feelings towards vibrators, it was also her fear of her
body’s response to it. In fact, she couldn’t even bring herself to masturbate with it
initially. ‘‘I sat and stared at my vibrator for some days before I turned it on,’’ she
wrote. ‘‘It was 2 months before I really used it and a few weeks after that before I
felt the warm sweet rush of orgasm quaking in me.’’ She was worried that her
experience with the vibrator wouldn’t be as positive as other women’s. ‘‘One hears
so often ‘it’s sure fire even if you’ve never had orgasms,’’’ she wrote. ‘‘These are
intimidating words.’’ The vibrator also created anxiety for her because she viewed it
as her last hope. ‘‘If that doesn’t work…perhaps I am destined never to have
orgasm.’’ The vibrator performance anxiety she experienced was rarely publicly
expressed by women; her admission demonstrates an infrequently noted negative
effect of feminist championing of the vibrator.25
While anxiety towards sex toys was sometimes generated by the vibrator’s status
as a machine, some women’s vibrator fears came directly from the medical
establishment. At the time, the medical establishment was being criticized by many
in second-wave feminism. An alternative health movement arose out of conscious-
ness-raising groups; this movement engaged women in group exercises like pelvic
self-exams (Kline 2010). One woman who wrote Eve’s Garden worried because her
doctor told her that her vaginal infections were caused by excessive vibration.
Having few authoritative sources to turn to for advice about her doctor’s diagnosis,
Emily, a woman in her early 20s from New York, wrote an anxious letter to Eve’s
Garden. ‘‘My gyn said not to ‘overdo’ the vibrator,’’ she wrote. Emily’s
gynecologist was not only suspicious of vibrators, the gynecologist was suspicious
of vibration in general, telling Emily ‘‘that the vibrations from [her] motorcycle’’
were inflaming her vagina. Emily felt torn between heeding her doctor’s advice and
giving herself orgasms. ‘‘I feel so guilty every time I use it that I’m hurting my body
or maybe starting another infection, that it deprives me of the total pleasure (but not
enough to stop, however!). Could my excessive use of my favorite toy have started
my infection in the first place?’’ she asked Williams. Although Emily thought that
her vibrator might be causing her infections, she still praised Williams for ‘‘making
vibrators available through the mail, or I would never have gotten my Prelude
II…now I know what coming is all about.’’26
Why did Emily seek out a feminist sex-toy store for medical advice? Like many
other women in the feminist movement, she distrusted the medical establishment
and sought out medical information from non-professionals in the women’s
movement. As Kline (2010) notes, many second-wave feminists ‘‘believed that
women’s experiences, not clinical research produced by physicians, represented the
most empowering, most liberating source of knowledge’’ (p. 42). However, it wasn’t
just medical advice that Emily was seeking. She wanted an authority figure to give
her permission to masturbate with a sex toy. She trusted Eve’s Garden even though
her only contact with the store was through commercial transactions.
25
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 4 Oct 1975. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 6.
26
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 1, Aug 1976. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 3.
123
Williams reassured Emily by undermining the authority of Emily’s gynecologist.

‘‘Although I am not a doctor, I am willing to state almost unequivacbilly [sic], from
all the reading I have done, that orgasms are the healthiest thing for the body,
including the uterus,’’ Williams told Emily. ‘‘I just get hoppin’ mad at the doctor
who says, ‘well, don’t overdo,’ when it comes to women’s sexuality…Overdo all
you damn well please and have your doctors look to other answers to the infection if
it continues.’’27
For Emily, Williams’ response was transformative. ‘‘First I want to thank you for
your concern and immediate answer. It came at a time when I needed reassurance
that my doctor couldn’t (or wouldn’t) give me,’’ Emily wrote back. She also
reported that her pain had gone away. ‘‘What a relief. I was afraid I was going to be
punished for my pleasure by my IUD and for the rest of my life.’’ For women like
Emily, a second opinion from a trusted source was exactly what they needed to
overcome their guilt over vibrator-assisted masturbation.28
Relationships: Questioning Marriage and Gender
Since Emily had already been sexually comfortable enough to masturbate,

Williams’ overriding of her doctor’s advice didn’t cause her to immediately
transform her worldview. But for women who had never masturbated before,
Williams’ promotion of masturbation and sex toys had an impact that reverberated
far beyond the bedroom. Women who were having the first orgasms of their lives
began to question why, after decades in a relationship, they had never felt sexual
satisfaction until they masturbated. And they began to wonder what else their lives
had been lacking, a line of thought that led them to question the gender roles that
had defined their lives, the social and sexual expectations that they had been living
with. As one customer wrote, ‘‘P.S. My lover is afraid a vibrator will replace him–he
may be right!’’29
Other customers didn’t just question their relationships, they actually changed
them. For example, a Texas woman who wrote Williams in 1976, proudly declared:
‘‘I am 40 and left my husband of 20 years recently. I might add, I left him after
masturbating to orgasm for the first time in my life.’’ The reason she had stayed
sexually unsatisfied for 20 years, she said, was that she was waiting for her husband
to ‘‘turn a magic key and all my sexuality would be reborn, my family would not
condemn it, neither would the church, nor society. It would be ACCEPTABLE!’’
When that magic key never appeared, her sexual frustration mounted, and it led her
to become ‘‘bitter about him, my role in marriage, and the whole world in general.’’
Yet she continued in her marriage, even as she realized that ‘‘keeping a spotless
house and doing all the expected and ‘proper’ things simply didn’t cut it—
something was ghastly, horribly wrong.’’ Sylvia’s revelation had echoes of Betty
Friedan’s ‘‘problem that has no name,’’ the dissatisfaction of being a housewife, and
27
Williams to Customer, August 1976. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 3.
28
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 1 Aug 1976. Williams papers. Box 5, Folder 3.
29
123
112 H. Lieberman
women’s frustration with always defining themselves as somebody’s mother or

wife. But Sylvia’s revelation that she would no longer settle for these stultifying
gender roles came not from a political awakening, but from an orgasmic one. It was
only when Sylvia ‘‘started masturbating to orgasm’’ that her ‘‘new life began.’’ Not
only did she leave her husband, but she was in no rush to get a new one. ‘‘I have had
a lot of overtures from men,’’ she wrote, ‘‘but I’m determined that I will never have
another man if he doesn’t love and desire sex like I do.’’30
Similarly, in 1982, a woman named Catherine wrote to Williams about her
unsatisfying long-term relationship. She had been orgasm-less throughout her
11-year relationship, so she sought sexual satisfaction with another partner, with no
success. ‘‘How can I be so sexually charged and still be non-orgasmic?’’ she asked
Williams. Instead of embarking onto a third relationship she had decided on another
course of action. ‘‘I’ve never considered buying a vibrator before but now seems to
be the right time! How to choose the right one? I don’t know.’’ Along with a
vibrator, Catherine ordered Dodson’s Liberating Masturbation and two other
books.31
Eve’s Garden’s catalogs encouraged customers to purchase Liberating Mastur-
bation alongside their sex toys because Williams viewed masturbation as intimately
tied in with women’s liberation, and Dodson’s book provided the theoretical
backbone. Liberating Masturbation providing the philosophical justification for a
sexual act that had been roundly believed to be an indulgent distraction from ‘‘real
sex,’’ (heterosexual intercourse), and its supposed vaginal orgasms. Williams’
personal letters to her customers, and the books she sold, were an attempt at
reframing masturbation as a spiritual, transformative experience. Catherine, it
seems, had already internalized one of Dodson’s and Williams’ most important
messages. ‘‘I feel that I have to find my sexual independence so I can truly be
loving,’’ she told Williams. ‘‘Thank you for being there.’’32
Williams wrote back, reassuring Catherine that her inability to orgasm was
normal, and she pinned the blame for her anorgasmia not on Catherine or on her
partners, but on a larger target. ‘‘Centuries of sexual oppression has left its imprint
and the path to sexual enlightenment and selfhood for women is something we do
have [to] work on,’’ Williams said, framing Catherine’s anorgasmia as a systemic,
not an individual problem. By framing Catherine’s sexual dysfunction this way, she
aimed to free Catherine from the burden of assuming that she alone was at fault.
However, Williams did instruct Catherine that she was responsible for her orgasms.
‘‘My suggestion would be to take charge of your own body at this point. Put all
lovers ‘on hold’ and explore, and celebrate, your own sexuality,’’ Williams wrote.
‘‘When we know how to please ourselves, we can then relate to others from a
position of power and equality.’’33
Although most women wrote to Williams to tell her tales of their emancipation
from years of desultory marriage, some wrote for advice on how to salvage their
30
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 1976. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 4.
31
32
33
William to Customer, 18 Feb 1982. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
123
crumbling relationships. One such woman, Barbara, sent a letter to Williams,

explaining that her hysterectomy had left her with a ‘‘sexual problem.’’ Barbara had
been taking hormones to ‘‘stimulate orgasm,’’ with no success. Since the remedy the
doctor had suggested didn’t work, she turned to Eve’s Garden. ‘‘I have been
searching for a shop I could purchase a vibrator with a kit,’’ she wrote. ‘‘I have a
husban [sic] that don’t want to be marry [sic] to me anymore because of my
condition…I still love him but can’t please him, please send me your catalog or
some advice.’’34
Even though Barbara was writing to Williams for advice on how to fix her
marriage, Williams suggested that Barbara purchase books on masturbation,
including Dodson’s Self-Love, and a vibrator. Williams chose to not address
Barbara’s plea for advice on how to ‘‘please’’ her husband, and instead implied that
Barbara should become orgasmic for her own sake, instead of her husband’s.35
Some women’s letters reveal that sex toys did improve their relationships. A
woman told Williams that using a vibrator during intercourse with her boyfriend
was great for their relationship, ‘‘as my excitement turns him on. How wonderful it
was for both of us sharing that closeness in a closer way.’’36 Some women even
claimed that sex toys had saved their relationships. ‘‘Thank’s [sic] to you my
marriage is back together. I love you all so much,’’ a woman wrote to Eve’s
Garden.37
Eve’s Garden didn’t just cause women to reevaluate their relationships. The store
and its non-judgmental pro-sex message also inspired women to explore their sexual
orientation. Eve’s Garden didn’t explicitly put forth a pro-lesbian message, but
Williams made sure that lesbians knew they were welcome by advertising in lesbian
magazines like Off Our Backs.38 Thanks to Williams’ advertising, as well as her
inclusive sexual philosophy, lesbians made up about half of Eve’s Garden’s
customers, Williams recalled.39 Williams herself was bisexual, a fact which may
have influenced her to be so welcoming to the lesbian community.
‘‘I still remember, (when I was first coming out of the closet) out of curiosity
ringing the bell to the first Eve’s Garden,’’ wrote KC, a New York City-based
woman in 1977. As the store moved locations around New York City, KC came to
visit, becoming progressively comfortable with sex toys and her sexuality. ‘‘You
have helped me realize coming out everywhere,’’ she wrote, adding that she could
now purchase a ‘‘Magic Wand without any embarrassment.’’ For KC, masturbation,
sex toys, and sexual identity were intimately intertwined. Because Eve’s Garden
helped her to shed the shame surrounding sex toys and masturbation, she was also
able to come to terms with her lesbianism. ‘‘You helped me hang up the
heterosexual rules and made my life the happiest it’s ever been,’’ she said.40
34
Customer to Eve’s Garden, circa 14 Mar 1983. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
35
Williams to Customer, circa 14 Mar 1983. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
36
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 9 Aug 1979. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 1.
37
38
For example, see Off Our Backs (1977, 23).
39
Phone Interview with Dell Williams, 22 Nov 2013.
40
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 12 Dec 1977. Williams papers. Box 5, Folder 1.
123
114 H. Lieberman
Other newly-out lesbians who were struggling with feelings of isolation saw
Eve’s Garden as a beacon that gave them a sense of community and acceptance that
they were unable to find elsewhere. Debby wrote to Eve’s Garden to share how sex
toys had helped her overcome multiple impediments to orgasm. She explained that
she was an ‘‘incest victim’’ with multiple sclerosis, and she ‘‘had no [sexual] feeling
for close to 3 years.’’ She was also struggling with her new-found openness about
her sexual identity. ‘‘I’ve just come out 2 years ago and am proud to say so,’’ she
said. However, in spite of her openness about her sexuality (or because of it) she
was ‘‘very lonesome.’’ The Eager Beaver vibrator she bought from Eve’s Garden
did not alleviate her loneliness, but it did bring her sexual pleasure, which was
revelatory. ‘‘I had the most beautiful flow of feeling and warmth I never thought
possible [sic] my love goes out to you all.’’ What was important to her wasn’t just
the sexual pleasure though, it was knowing that she was connected to a group of
people who were accepting of her desires.41
Struggling with Dildos: One Woman’s Story (Janet)
Even though sex toys helped a number of women come to terms with their sexuality
and leave unhappy marriages, they were not without controversy in the feminist
movement. One sex toy in particular caused the most dissension: the dildo. The
debate related to whether a feminist could use a dildo with a clear conscience. The
sticking point was whether a dildo was representational. For those who believed that
a dildo was a penis representation, using one was unacceptable because it was
capitulation to the patriarchy. Women who used dildos were castigated for seeking
‘‘phallic pleasure.’’ However, women who saw dildos as non-representational
believed that masturbating with one could be a feminist act because a dildo was
simply a neutral tool (Katz 1970, p. 5).42 The dildo debate was also connected to the
debate over vaginal orgasms that was occurring within the feminist movement
during the 1970s and 1980s. Many feminists were influenced by Koedt’s (1973)
argument that the vaginal orgasm was a myth perpetuated by Freud.
One letter to Williams written in 1987 reveals a women grappling with how to
reconcile her desire for a dildo with the politics surrounding them. Along with her
Eve’s Garden order, Janet included a 3-page letter to ‘‘Eve,’’ whom she believed
was the proprietor of Eve’s Garden, that was filled with trepidation, as if she had to
justify her desire for a dildo to the woman she was purchasing it from. ‘‘After much
consideration, hesitation, and frustration, I’ve decided to order something from your
garden,’’ she begins. ‘‘I’m a lesbian, a virgin (I’m 29 in a few days), and with a non-
functioning (if existent) clitoris,’’ she says.43 It is here that she first emphasizes that
her anatomy is flawed, a point she reiterates several times throughout the letter as a
justification for seeking out a dildo. Janet describes sex with her partner as
41
Customer to Eve’s Garden, undated. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 15.
42
See also Starrett (1974), p. 15; Fullerton (1972), p. 5.
43
What she means by ‘‘virgin’’ is unclear, although from her letter she seems to defines virginity as
penetrative vaginal sex. Customer to Eve’s Garden, 19 Oct 1987, 1. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
123
‘‘unfulfilling, unsatisfying, in-complete.’’ Her partner is ‘‘fully and easily orgas-

mic,’’ she says, which makes her ‘‘sick, angry, and full of rage.’’44
Only after she has described both her malfunctioning clitoris and her relationship
problems in detail does she expresses her desire for a ‘‘dildo,’’ but still she places it
in the negative terms of her partner: ‘‘I feel like I want something huge packed up
me…even if she thinks if you want a dildo you might as well be heterosexual.’’
Janet seems to have been a political lesbian, a lesbian who chose to be in
relationships with women not out of sexual desire but for political reasons (Echols
1989 p. 216, 239), as she explains later in the letter: ‘‘I feel a greater desire for
penetration than anything else anyway. But I refuse to let a male have the
satisfaction of satisfying me. The politics of it just TEARS ME APART, enrages
me, and I won’t permit it for myself.’’45
Janet was struggling between two different versions of bedroom politics
occurring within the feminist movement: the belief that all consensual sexual
activity was feminist and the belief that so-called masculine identified forms of
sexual activity were demeaning and had to be abandoned. Janet ended up blaming
her desire for dildos on the mismatch between her sexual identity and her sexual
needs: ‘‘I can’t help it—I have that urge for a huge stuffing up me, but WITHOUT a
male partner.’’46 Only after a page of apology did she finally clearly state her desire
for a dildo, albeit apologetically: ‘‘So as a measure of desperation and a measure of
hopefulness (being at the end of my rope regarding trying to feel anything sexual), I
want to try a dildo.’’47
After blaming her desire for a dildo on her malfunctioning genitals, Janet then
justified why she was purchasing a dildo instead of a more ‘‘feminist’’ sex toy. ‘‘I
think even a vibrator would be a fruitless, futile… attempt at trying to get my
stubborn genitals to orgasm—they make me so mad.’’ The final sentence of her
letter shows that Janet’s conflicted attitude towards dildos was not just informed by
her partner, but it was also influenced by feminist sex literature. ‘‘I found Lonnie
Barbach’s For Yourself a joke for myself (‘clitoral stimulation’). So I’ll try vaginal.
I’m at a loss for a ‘clitoris.’ Perhaps will read Millet’s Sexual Politics after I finish
the Hite Report.’’
In a well-meaning attempt to shift the emphasis in American sexual advice
literature from vaginal to clitoral orgasms, Hite, Barbach, and others ended up
leaving women like Janet feeling as if their desires were ‘‘abnormal’’ and not in sync
with feminist politics. Janet, and others like her, were struggling to find a place for
their sexual desires within a feminist movement, where a bulk of the members were
condemning penetrative sex. Eve’s Garden provided a space for women to gain
acceptance for sexual desires outside of the feminist norm.
In her response to Janet, Williams reassured Janet that she was normal. ‘‘One
does not have to be heterosexual to enjoy a dildo,’’ Williams said. ‘‘Most of the
dildos we sell are to lesbians.’’ After reassuring Janet of the normalcy of her desires,
44
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 19 Oct 1987, 1. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
45
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 19 Oct 1987, 3. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
46
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 19 Oct 1987, 1.
47
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 19 Oct 1987, 2.
123
116 H. Lieberman
Williams explained the biological reason why Janet wanted internal stimulation:
‘‘The fact is that during sexual excitement the upper third of the vagina swells and
you want to have something inside.’’ Yet even as she reassured Janet in her desire
for penetration, Williams still encouraged her to explore clitoral stimulation. Even
though Janet had bemoaned her ‘‘non-functioning’’ clitoris, Williams accompanied
Janet’s order of the Venus Rising dildo, with a free vibrator for Janet to ‘‘try on the
clitoris together with the dildo.’’48
Janet and Williams continued to correspond for about a year after Williams sent
her the free vibrator, in letters that show Janet’s shifting views on vibrators, dildos,
and her clitoris. In a May 1988 letter, Janet no longer thought that vibrators are
‘‘futile’’ and her view of her clitoris changed. ‘‘I didn’t think a vibrator would do me
any good, but you knew the dildo alone that I ordered wasn’t going to resolve my
sexual frustration. I’m glad you knew that and sent me an example of a vibrator to
show me that they did work, even on stubborn, ‘non existent,’ ‘hidden’ clitorises,
like mine’’49 In fact, Janet told Williams that she wanted to upgrade to a plug-in
vibrator, the Hitachi Magic Wand, because she was now having multiple orgasms
with the dildo and vibrator combination.
Janet’s attitude towards dildos had shifted the most radically, however. She went
from being conflicted in her desire for a dildo to being an unabashed champion of
them. ‘‘I have thought of so many advantages of a dildo over than a man,’’ she
wrote, listing eight advantages, including that using a dildo was ‘‘not sinful…I can
get my sexual releases while still being ‘celibate’ by using these devices, still be
moral in the sight of the God of Christianity…After all, the Bible never talks about
masturbation from getting orgasms from using devices.’’50
Two months later, Janet reported that she loved her Hitachi Magic Wand, while
admitting that she remained ‘‘embarrassed about the whole idea [of using sex
toys].’’ She no longer disparaged her clitoris, and she said, ‘‘I am just now getting to
the point where I want to bring out my ‘toys’ when my partner is with me, and share
the experience with her.’’ But she still felt reservations with her partner. ‘‘If I can
overcome that hideous, mortifying, freezing up…embarrassment then I want her
there participating with me.’’51
Conclusion
Customer correspondence to Eve’s Garden demonstrates that sex toys, and the
feminist philosophies associated with them, had a profound influence on some
women’s lives during the 1970s and 1980s. Because female sexuality was so
politically fraught, Williams’ destigmatization of masturbation and sex toys not
only brought women more orgasms, but also served as a catalyst for some women to
48
Williams to Customer, 30 Oct 1987. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 2.
49
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 15 May 1988, 1. Williams Papers,. Box 5, Folder 13.
50
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 15 May 1988, p. 1–2.
51
Customer to Eve’s Garden, 23 July 1988, 1. Williams Papers. Box 5, Folder 6.
123
transform their lives in extreme ways, from leaving their spouses to coming out as
lesbians.
These impassioned letters were highly personal, revealing intimate details of
sexual desires and longings that many women kept hidden even from their sexual
partners and therapists. Therefore, they reveal a perspective on the women’s
movement that has rarely been documented, showing that women struggled to
reconcile their sexual desires with the tenets of second-wave feminism. They give
voice to a group of women whose voices have mostly been erased from the
historical record: ordinary women whose struggles with sex and sexuality were
occurring behind closed doors, nearly invisible on the frontlines of feminism.
To be sure, sex toys did not by themselves transform gender relations.52 The
1970s and 1980s were an era of tremendous social change for women, an era that
saw the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the legalization of birth control, and
the decriminalization of abortion in 1973. During this time second-wave feminist
theory was spreading through the country via such popular media, such as classic
books like The Feminine Mystique and The Female Eunuch. But feminist
commercial spaces too played an integral part in the spread of second-wave
feminist consciousness, and they have been largely forgotten. Eve’s Garden’s mail-
order business helped spread radical feminist masturbation theory throughout the
country.
But the letters don’t just shape our view of how feminist masturbation theories
spread, they also reframe our idea of when debates between pro-sex and anti-porn
feminists began occurring. Although some scholars have noted that ‘‘sex-positive
feminism was part and parcel of the second-wave’’ (Siegel 2007, p. 17), many
scholars trace the beginning of the sex wars between pro-sex and anti-pornography
feminism to the Barnard Conference on Sexuality in 1982 (Bronstein 2011,
pp. 297–307; Gerhard 2001, pp. 187–195). However, letters to Eve’s Garden show
that debates about what sexual behaviors were feminist were going on much earlier
among women across the country and that women’s sex-toy shops played a key role
in these debates.
Correspondence also shifts our idea of when ordinary women began openly
discussing sex toys and masturbation, which has previously been thought to be a
recent phenomena, dated to the late 1990s with the rise of Sex and the City and the
popularity of Tupperware-style sex-toy in-home parties (Isaacson 2012; Sharon
2012; Ferla 2004).53 But letters to Eve’s Garden demonstrate that women were
sharing knowledge about sex toys and masturbation with each other much earlier.
The letters also provide information about sex-toy use, which is not a well-
documented practice. And, they reframe our idea of the type of sex toys that were
being used in the 1970s. In Shere Hite’s survey of 1844 women, only three claimed
to use dildos during masturbation, and six used vibrators internally, but these letters
show that this practice was probably more common (Hite reprint 2004, p. 100).
52
As David Edgerton argues, ‘‘Technology has not generally been a revolutionary force’’ (Edgerton
2011, p. 212).
53
Sex and the City (Season 1, Episode 8, ‘‘The Turtle and the Hare,’’ 1998).
123
118 H. Lieberman
Consumers’ perspectives on second-wave feminism have rarely been docu-

mented, probably because few documents of feminist consumer behavior have been
archived. Hopefully this study will lead more scholars to investigate the experiences
of feminist consumers. Scholars can now utilize the large body of consumer reviews
of sexual products available through Amazon and other sites that sell sex toys,
including Good Vibrations.
Funding This study was funded by Cornell University’s Human Sexuality Collection Research Support
Grant.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest Author Hallie Lieberman declares that he/she has no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance
with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964
Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Sexuality & Culture (2017) 21:96–120

Intimate Transactions: Sex Toys and the Sexual

Published online: 9 September 2016

Abstract This article examines customer correspondence to Eve’s Garden from

Keywords Sex toys History of sexuality Second-wave feminism Dildos

& Hallie Lieberman

Many ordered it surreptitiously through a mail-order store in New York City

The Absence of Sex-Toys in the Historiography of Second-Wave

be used to transform traditional marriage. As Shulamaith Firestone said, ‘‘a

Dodson’s impact on second-wave feminism been fully addressed. One exceptions is

Masturbation, Women’s Empowerment, and the Founding of Eve’s

of nude women holding apples or sketches of female goddesses with flowers

Ambivalence Towards Machines

Williams reassured Emily by undermining the authority of Emily’s gynecologist.

Relationships: Questioning Marriage and Gender

Since Emily had already been sexually comfortable enough to masturbate,

women’s frustration with always defining themselves as somebody’s mother or

crumbling relationships. One such woman, Barbara, sent a letter to Williams,

Struggling with Dildos: One Woman’s Story (Janet)

‘‘unfulfilling, unsatisfying, in-complete.’’ Her partner is ‘‘fully and easily orgas-

Consumers’ perspectives on second-wave feminism have rarely been docu-

Compliance with Ethical Standards

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