Sex Toys 02
SEX Toys
The volume of demand for such garments was not high enough to interest any large-scale manufacturers, so inevitably small tailors and dressmakers began to cater for it. Such things as underpants and trousers were ordered, WITH THE RUBBER COATING ON THE INSIDE. Bed sheets were in demand, and night-shirts, also coated inside. The ordinary, double-breasted and belted Macintoshes of the day were ordered, with the rubber-coated cloth doubled so that it appeared on the outside normally, and also on the inside. Such Macintoshes were quite impractical, simply because the wearer would have sweated so much that in heavy rain he would be wetter on the inside than on the outside. Yet I have a small collection of broadsheets and brochures, brown now and brittle with age, in which such items were listed and illustrated as long ago as 1880. Even then there was enough demand to merit printing such small catalogues. The prices, by today's standards are absurdly low, but by comparison with prices then current in the mail order catalogues of firms that sold ordinary merchandise, it is obvious that customers were willing to pay heavily "over the odds" for "unusual" rubber clothing. For instance, in 1882 one could buy a black rubber-cloth macintosh of high quality for sixteen shillings- about $1.00 at today's rate of exchange, and about a week's wages for a day laborer in England in 1882. A similar macintosh, lined with rubber, offered in a small brochure would cost four pounds, or the equivalent of $6, a week's wage for a middle-management executive of the day. A pair of underpants in rubber-cloth, with the rubber inside, cost almost ten times as much as an ordinary pair in fine wool.
Of course, it must be admitted that these eccentric rubber-cloth garments were sold "For the cure of asthma, bronchitis and rheumatic fever", as well as even more unusual diseases (rationalization at work again!) but even this makes it difficult to understand the very high prices. Unless, as I am quite sure, it was considered that there was something "shameful" about them, and that they were, in consequence, on a kind of Black Market.
By "shameful" I mean "sexual", the two words being synonymous from about 1830 until 1930,both in Europe and America. The aura of shame still lingers! With the usual interval for war, 1914 to 1918 (sado-masochists do not require any extra stimulation - when there's a war on. They get all the fear, anxiety, discomfort, pain and cruelty they want, and more, legally and honorably in war!), the demand for rubber clothes developed through the between-wars period. New materials were introduced, including rubber-covered satin, a most impractical cloth because it tears at a glance and is almost impossible to keep free from unsightly creases. But it was not until about 1950 that this market, too, took off like a jet-plane. It was the introduction of latex sheeting that sparked off this resurgence in the rubber-clothing industry. Latex, as its name implies, is made from the rubber "milk" or latex, which is kept fresh and brought from the tropics at low temperature, and is then processed. Prior to this, most rubber had been smoked and put up in slabs, which on arrival were ground to powder and mixed with a volatile solvent. The sheet was made, the solvent evaporated, and a film of rubber was left. It stretched; it would be colored quite well; it had a strong odor of sulphur and petroleum, and it tore at a touch!
By contrast, latex sheeting does not contain sulphur or solvent; it has little odor, and what it has is pleasant. It stretches up to four or five times its length without breaking and, except in special circumstances, does not tear. It is, in fact, almost ideal for making what the latex sheet manufacturers call "fun clothes", except for one very great drawback. Latex sheeting cannot be welded or sewn. The only way to make up clothing from it is to cut each piece out by hand, with sharp scissors, and to glue the parts together laboriously by hand. Even ten years ago this was not excessively limiting, but today in Europe and America, labor costs are so high, that the cost of such clothing is becoming prohibitive.
Still the demand continues, and therefore two developments may be expected. First, someone will take his know-how and a supply of latex sheeting to some country where labor costs are still low, such as Spain, South Korea or Taiwan and set up a production unit there, But it will not be long, with world-wide escalation of costs before this, too becomes prohibitive. Then, inevitably, there will be a change of material from natural rubber to some kind of plastic film, which can be machine-welded. There is, after all, nothing sacrosanct about rubber sheeting as material for adult sex-toys. It has been available only a century. While existing rubber-customers will be annoyed and upset at the loss of the material they have grown to like and become accustomed to, there are always new customers pushing into the market, and they will not care what film is used so long as it gives the effect they require. The one quality that is lacking at present, but I`m sure that within reasonable time some industrial chemist will find a way of linking the molecules of a synthetic material so that it will have all the stretch and recovery qualities of natural rubber. With that achieved, the main objection to plastic will disappear, and with low assembly costs due to the use of high-frequency welding instead of laborious hand-gluing, garments of synthetic rubber will take the place at present occupied by those of the natural material. If you are not alive to the very powerful fascination that rubber clothing exerts over very many people, you may find it difficult to understand why I should describe such things as "adult sex- toys". Certainly they are well covered by our definition, "Thing meant for amusement, rather than for serious use." The rubber clothes that are sold in considerable volume throughout Europe and North America today HAVE no serious use-from one point of view at any rate. They do not keep the wearer warm or cool according to the weather; being so thin, they do nothing to protect the skin from abrasion; they do not, directly at least, boost his ego as other clothes can do, because they are rarely if ever worn in public. (At any rate, they are rarely SHOWN in public, although they are often worn concealed under ordinary clothing in public.) Bluntly, the "serious use" of rubber clothing is to provide sexual stimulation, and of course this is serious business indeed. The difficulty arises entirely from the fact that while all mankind-and much of womankind-constantly seek sexual stimulation, the seeking of it and indeed the finding, except under certain very limited conditions, is still usually considered reprehensible! The use of "soft lights and sweet music", accompanied by food and drink and, to some extent, soft fabrics is considered generally legitimate, probably because, with the possible exception of liquor (which stimulates desire while at the same time diminishing accomplishment), none of these factors is exceptionally potent as an aphrodisiac. We may therefore conclude that, socially, a MILD aphrodisiac of the kind I have mentioned is acceptable, while a POWERFUL aphrodisiac, which is what sex-toys are, is not acceptable.
Therefore, this whole business, including the making, sale and purchase of rubber clothing is still conducted sub rosa. However, social attitudes are changing rapidly-not always for the better, but sometimes with improvement-and it will probably not be long before synthetic rubber clothing is openly and publicly offered for sale.
Inevitably, it will first be offered, not as an aphrodisiac, but as a prophylactic, and indeed this has been taking place on a small scale in the UK, USA and elsewhere for over ten years. There is some not inconsiderable sales promotion of plastic film "slimming garments", even though it has been conclusively proved, time and again that there is not a shred of truth in the claims made for them. In fact, plastic "slimming garments" are bought and worn by people, mostly women, who unconsciously are seeking a sex stimulant. If such clothing was openly offered as an aphrodisiac, they would not buy it.
It would be "disgraceful". So they buy them ostensibly for slimming, do not lose weight, but accept as a pleasant substitute the sexual stimulation they discover in themselves and their men when they wear such things.
Since it is still generally impossible for people in our kind of civilization to accept that sexual stimulation, outside the procreation of children is proper", it cannot be considered as "serious Therefore, rubber garments can only fall into the category of "for amusement", which makes them toys! Where the possession of such things as whips and canes may be easily rationalized, even today, it is much more difficult to rationalize the possession of rubber clothing of no apparent practical use. However, as we have seen, this can be done by making the false claim that the inevitable sweating that accompanies the wearing of impermeable clothes, is in fact slimming. Very tight rubber briefs for men can be rationalized as "supporting". I have even seen close-fitting hood-masks in rubber rationalized as "good for the complexion"!
But we shall now turn, finally, to a group of products which cannot be rationalized. They have to be accepted as aphrodisiac, as sex-stimulants, and consequently as adult toys. I refer to the wide group of products which are often generically described as "restraints".
They include all kinds of bonds, from simple handcuffs to devices of leather and other materials which can be used to make a person absolutely helpless. The range includes items that cause anything from mild discomfort to quite severe pain, among them many that fall into the category of "genital punishment". Used by folk who are not concerned with the sado-masochistic syndrome such things would be quite meaningless. To those who are, they are directly aphrodisiac.
In the same way, to many people an even mild whipping would be a punishment, an unpleasant experience to be avoided almost at all costs. To a masochist it can be very stimulating sexually; it is an aphrodisiac.
"Restraints", within the limited definition I am using, have absolutely no serious use. (If you accept my suggestion that, in our society sex-stimulation may not be considered "serious"). No matter what the approach road may be, the ultimate goal of whips and canes, rubber clothes and "restraints", is sex-stimulation-not for the "legitimate" purpose of procreation, but for what we might define as "fun".
A leading British manufacturer of latex sheeting, which has a number of important industrial uses, states in his literature that his product is also suitable "for the making of fun and leisure wear". Even ten years ago, another manufacturing firm from whom my company was buying upwards of 1000 yards a month of latex sheeting entirely for making "fun and leisure wear flatly refused to accept any suggestion that the latex was being used for such a purpose! I had to order it "for industrial use"!) Now, while most of us like "fun" of one kind or another-and mostly of one kind-you must agree that in our society fun is still not quite acceptable or respectable. Sex-fun is considered reprehensible by a large part of the populace, even though most of them seek it-which probably accounts for the fact that Europe and America are largely populated by crazy mixed-up kids of all ages from 14 to 85 years old! While one may stretch a point in considering whips and canes, and agree that they may possibly be owned against the day you emulate the Marshall from Texas in riding a horse down Fifth Avenue; and while one may settle for the illusion that hundreds of thousands of women and some men still are foolish enough to believe that plastic garments can be slimming, there is no possibility of ducking around the facts about restraints. Apart from sex-stimulation, they have no "serious use", and if we may not accept sex-stimulation as "serious", then they are solely for "amusement" and therefore can only be classified as "toys"!
Now, again if you are not personally involved, you may be inclined to look down your nose and consider all this to be very unpleasant. What's more, you may feel it to be needlessly complicated, and in a way it is. To arrive at orgasm via being strapped into a leather restraint while wearing rubber clothing and then to be whipped, is an extremely complicated way of getting there. However, you must not overlook the fact that there are plenty of folk in the world who, able to travel by jet-plane, still seem to get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from rowing across the Atlantic, swimming the English Channel, or passing from the USA to Canada via a tight rope stretched across Niagara Falls! There are others who prefer to raise an appetite for dinner by taking a couple of glasses of chilled dry sherry rather than sinking that hooker of frozen gin which has been passed close to a bottle of dry vermouth and is known as a Dry Martini-probably the finest invention of American civilization!
The French say, "It is better to travel than to arrive", and this may be applied to sex as much as to any other activity. After all, when one arrives one is at one's destination and there's nowhere else to go, at least for some time!
And, on a more serious note, you must appreciate that there are many folk who are unable to find complete sexual pleasure outside sado-masochism. The proportion is very high indeed, and before you get too high and mighty about it, you might well consider whether, in fact, you yourself do not fall into that category! Obviously there is an element of humiliation for a man in allowing a woman to tie him up and beat him, and in that context the humiliation itself, as a psychic pain, may be what the masochist seeks. Yet we all know how sweet a reconciliation can be after a domestic row, and since inevitably reconciliation depends upon one partner submitting to the other, the submission itself can be a masochistic pleasure which will sweeten an eventual sexual conjugation. At the same time, the other partner who does not submit, may well get sexual stimulation from the sadistic attitude. If, in marriage or otherwise, you are prone to rows, the chances are, not that your marriage is worse than any other- and at best it can only be a compromise between irreconcilables !-but that you, or your partner, or both are deliberately seeking the aphrodisiac effect of eventual submission or domination!
It is certainly very complicated to have oneself tied up and beaten in order to be able to enjoy orgasm. It is no less complicated to reach the same result by deliberately picking a quarrel, indulging in it and finding eventual reconciliation. But millions of couples do this habitually!
So, should you be sitting on the sidelines while you read this, hugging smugly to yourself the comforting thought that you are not as other men-or women-may I suggest that you pay just a little attention to the beam of wood in your own eye before getting steamed up about the grain of sand in your neighbor's? It's not new advice, but it's still valid.
As for me, I neither praise nor blame. My attitude is clear-cut. If any man wishes to abstain from alcohol, good. More power to his elbow. If another enjoys a social drink, good. He is entitled to. If a third becomes an alcoholic, a pity. But if he finds heaven in the bottom of a bottle, who am I to insist he should find hell elsewhere? I try to accept people as they are, in the hope they will accept me as I am. It doesn't always work, because the "missionary spirit" is so strong and so many people have an urge to try to shape their neighbors in their own image and likeness!
To come back to our toy-box. As I have told you, among my many preoccupations, I have for many years been a designer, maker and exporter of sex toys for adults. Therefore I am able to speak with some authority on the subject. I am satisfied that the things I design and make are sex-toys, having no practical use, except to lead the user and/or his partner to orgasm. They are, to my understanding, simply for "amusement" and nothing more. Therefore, like all toys they have to be ingenious, simple to use, strong enough not to break when they are first used, original, safe above all, and a suitable recipient for the fantasies the owner of the toy will want to project into them. At the same time, it is my conviction that they should not be too expensive, but rather of the order of "cheap and cheerful", because I also know that, like children's toys, most of them soon lose their novelty.
It is "fun" to order a new toy, to wait for it to be delivered, to unpack and inspect it, to anticipate the wonderful things one can do with it, to plan the opportunity, and at last to use it. But after that, it soon loses its attraction and it is not long before the owner is searching for something new that will once more stimulate his fantasies.
I agree that this attitude could be considered cynical if it were not quite sincere. We live in an age of planned obsolescence. The car you buy today, tomorrow is "that old junk". To a conservationist, that is offensive, but until we devise a better economic system it would be disastrous to abandon the one we have! What is more, the "old junk" attitude has its tremendous appeal because it is so close to human nature. We all seek what we don't have. If we have it, why seek it? If we stop seeking, shall we not also stop living? It is possible for a man to live as an ascetic, with no wants; but he could not be an active member of our 20th century society. He would be compelled to live in a monastery or a jail! Or he could go to the orient and spend his days sitting under a peepul tree contemplating his navel! But he would not be "one of us". Maybe he would be better for that. I don't know. I only concern myself with what IS, leaving what "might be" to the young, the ardent and, I am afraid, the inexperienced!
When it comes to the designing of a novelty in the field of "restraints", I first get an image in mind. I have strong visual imagination, and it is not long before I can "see" the finished article in my "mind's eye". Next, I make a few sketches, chiefly so that I do not forget the salient points of the design. Then I take suitable materials and make a prototype. Usually I get the whole thing right first time, but occasionally I have to remake one part or another anything up to six or more times. But not often. When I am satisfied with the prototype, I write out a detailed description, make a list of parts, cost them, assess the labor-costs and freight and a selling price based on a certain minimum batch quantity. Then I send the prototype to my American distributor, and in due course he sends me an order. It is as simple as that. The quality of the prototype is unimportant, because my distributor knows that the finished article will be to a high standard of excellence, commensurate with the price. We never have any disagreements, and over a long period of years I have only had one sample rejected, because it arrived too late to be included in a new catalog. I do not believe many manufacturers could claim such unbroken success.
So I am a millionaire? Well, no; not exactly. Not, in fact by an extremely wide margin; because while the market is healthy and growing all the time, demand is still not sufficient to warrant any kind of tooling up. Consequently everything has to be hand-made, which keeps unit costs high. I am sure there will come a day when such items can be at least to some extent mass-produced, but by that time I shall probably have retired!
The way in which a new design is developed in one's mind is simple. Taking the human body as a whole, one works one's way down from the head to the toes. Everything in between can have some suitable kind of restraint! For the head and neck there are hoods and masks, gags and collars. In my notebook I have ideas noted down for over fifty variants in this area alone, many of which will never be sold simply because they are so complex that they would be priced out of the market. At present four hoods, six gags, three masks and four collars meet the needs. In addition to straight variations in design, each model lends itself to minor but interesting modifications. A hood, for instance can be made with no eye-holes or with eye- holes, with or without a blindfold to strap over them. It can have a mouth-slit, or a zipper fitted, with a small lock, or a built-in gag or with nothing but a breathing-tube protruding. Obviously it could also, for instance, have a miniature earphone fitted, so that, with an earplug in the other ear, the wearer would be totally deaf except when his partner decided to instruct him. This is one good idea which is impracticable on account of cost. There are many others. None of these variations is included in the fifty-odd product ideas I have in store, so you may see that with all possible variations, there is a potential of maybe several hundred products.
One would certainly sell a few of every one, but the complexity and cost of the operation would be prohibitive. It used to be possible to custom-make for a very selective, specialized clientele, but with inflation gone mad, this is now almost impossible. My American distributor can offer you for $20, something that, made to special order would cost you $100. We come ever closer to the production-line, where you can have "any color you like so long as it's black!"
As a matter of fact, practically everything IS black, because this is the preferred color. Often I wish it were not, because in color some of the items would look even more sensational, but I am not in business to educate a market but to cater for it as it exists.
Sex Toys Go back to Part 1 of this article
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