Sonia Quintero, a 33-year-old tech company account manager, and her boyfriend, Devin Agnew, a 32-year-old self-employed software designer, couldn't resist a lollipop. It was her idea to attend, Quintero said. "It's our first time here," Agnew added. "It sounded like fun."
No one describes pornography as fun, which is why Roberts and others in the industry don't like to use the word anymore. The preferred term is "adult entertainment." And anyway, it's been years since the X-rated world was a secretive male domain.
Women now have their own sex websites and home parties that feature lingerie, and accessories once coyly referred to as "marital aids" are a growth field.
"If you think about it," said sex expert Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist, "90% of the sex toys manufactured are for women. Once women started to discover vibrators as adjuncts to their marital and single lives, they started having 'Tupperware' parties and making it part consciousness raising, part girls night out ... which defanged it and got it away from the guys-in-trench-coats imagery."
Publishing houses known for their bodice-ripping romances aimed at women are increasingly turning to more graphic erotic tales: Harlequin has launched Spice Books, Kensington Books has Aphrodisia and Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, recently created an erotica line, Avon Red.
Liz Brinkman, the U.S. sales agent for Lelo, a Swedish company that makes palm-sized, kidney-bean-shaped vibrators, said she was struck by the number of couples strolling around the expo.
"Women are getting more comfortable with the idea of using props in the bedroom," she said. And unlike the many booths full of plastic genitalia and other in-your-face products, she added, "What we sell is more high-end and discreet." (Her products range in price from $89 for a silicone vibrator to $1,500 for a 14-karat gold-plated vibrator made of high-grade medical steel.)
Still, a hallmark of a show such as this is the opportunity to mingle and take a picture with porn stars such as the mega-famous Jameson, who has become a crossover star with her bestselling book "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star," and lesser-knowns such as Stormy, Savannah and Nautica, most of whom are frighteningly proportioned and far too perfect looking. These are women with "man magnet" written all over them, but Friday night, nearly as many women as men lined up to get close.
