SPANK YOU VERY MUCH
Paige Nick meets a woman who’s enabling perfectly normal people to pour a little sauce on
AT 31, Paula Raubenheimer is the owner of a Business Science (Law) degree from UCT, a postgraduate diploma from the Red and Yellow School of Advertising and an online sex-toy shop called Lady Fay’s Boudoir.
Most girls grow up wanting to become princesses, teachers, astronauts or beauty queens. I’m sure very few grow up wanting to run a sex-toy shop. Which is unfortunate, as it turns out it’s a perfectly good career choice.
Just over a year ago, Paula’s beautician told her about an awkward experience she’d had at a local “adults-only” shop while trying to buy something for a DW (dirty weekend) away with her husband. Paula instantly saw a way to use her experience at an online media company for good instead of evil. She would create a safe, inviting space where people wouldn’t feel sleazy or judged just because they wanted to buy a dildo or a pair of crotchless panties. And so Lady Fay’s Boudoir was born.
Paula has learnt a few things since then. She knows, for instance, that the We-vibe 3, a toy for couples, is one of the best-selling sex toys of all time, which pulls the plug on the myth that such toys are for loners, freaks and multiple cat owners.
Although the Boudoir was created for women, Paula has been surprised to discover that more than half her clients are men looking to spice up their relationships.
An 85-year old man recently approached Lady Fay for advice on adding zing to his 50-year marriage. It’s nice to know that there’s no age-restriction on getting saucy.
Some of this new-found enthusiasm for sexual experimentation has to be attributed to author EL James and her Fifty Shades of
Grey, which has dragged sexual accessories out of the dark, seedy masculine underworld and placed them squarely in the public domain. Without her it’s doubtful this would have become such a big topic of conversation among adults at school fêtes, therapy and dinner parties.
But while we’re endlessly thankful, James needs a bit of a spanking too. She admits she’s never tried any of the toys she writes about, and it shows. She’s created some confusion around how a few of the props in her books actually work, landing people around the world in compromising positions. The London and New York City fire brigades call it the Fifty Shades Effect. There’s been a marked increase in sex-accessory-related accidents.
Although they don’t require assistance from emergency services, there have been a few ben-wa incidents too. Ben-wa balls are marble-sized balls you first insert, then clench your muscles to keep them in. Think of it as higher-grade kegels. A set of metal ben-wa balls is the first sex toy Anastasia is introduced to in Fifty Shades of Grey.
Now they’re great if you’ve done this kind of thing before but any sex-toy connoisseur worth their gimp mask knows that people should start with a set of lighter silicone balls and work their way up to the heavy metal, to avoid an awkward situation when they stand up to carve the roast. So, EL, you get an A for creating awareness and demand, but a D for product research.
Besides knowing the ins and outs of benwa balls, Paula wishes every woman knew about the Je Joue Mimi, which looks like a bright pink computer mouse and works well as a back massager too. Women love things that will multi-task.
And she reckons there would be less violence in the world if every man got an Oden Cock Ring this Christmas. It’s a small, expandable silicone ring, which fits neatly in the palm of your hand, slips easily over the penis, and then vibrates on demand, thanks to a wireless remote control. Ladies, this might be the first time your guy won’t mind giving you the remote and you can finally show him how annoying it is when you constantly flip channels.
The sad part is that, even though we’re more curious about “rabbits” and “anal beads” than we’ve ever been, we’re still pretty conservative in South Africa. There’s a mass misperception that anyone (or two) who uses a sex toy is at best desperate, kinky or weird, and at worst a complete sex maniac, and that the people who sell them are by association just one small step away from being a madam at a brothel.
Of course, it’s obvious where that stigma comes from. Some of the toys are extreme, but much like Nando’s, you don’t have to buy the extra-hot peri-peri.
Until we’re comfortable enough as a society to pop into a sex-toy shop in the mall, Lady Fay will live in the anonymous online world. It will even read LFB Trading on your credit-card slip, and not Wild-Sex-Pervert-Purchase, as so many people fear.