I Sold Sex Toys to the Preacher’s Wife
Talking about sex in the Buckle of the Bible Belt
I was pretty desperate for a party. As a distributor for an MLM “adult pleasure product” company, I needed the cash to get right side up on the starter kit. It turns out; it is tough to get folks to book fuck-toy parties in Oklahoma.
So when an old friend’s sister was getting married, and they invited me to kick-off their bachelorette weekend, I jumped at it. Kaitlin and I hadn’t spoken in years, and yet I was going to her mother’s house to talk about vibrators and butt plugs.
I did a lot of bachelorette events. The schtick was all the same. Pink and flesh tone would be vomited into the venue. There would be penis-shaped everything: straws, cake, glasses, confetti. It was a lot of ideally-shaped man-junk.
No one ever seemed to notice the irony of coating the room in male sex organs before listening to a lady talk about pleasuring yourself or your partner without relying on a male sex organ or its owner. I digress.
I arrived at Kaitlin’s mother’s house as arranged. Dragging my vibrator-filled tote into the squatty, red-brick ranch house, Kaitlin ushered me to a table draped with a pink table cloth sprinkled with dick confetti.
That was typical. What was less typical was the great wall of Christian crosses behind it. Every size, style, and material imaginable hung from penny nails. My shock must have been apparent.
“Yeah, my mom collects crosses,” Kaitlin offered. “She didn’t really set out to. But when you’re the preacher’s wife, you get a lot of them as gifts.”
“Your dad is a preacher?” I asked incredulously.
“Yep. Since before I was born. We moved around a lot when I was little. Daddy preached at small-town churches all over Oklahoma.”
“He’s retired now,” a new voice added. An aged, silver-haired version of Kaitlin stepped in the room. “I’m Rebekah, Kaitlin’s mom. It’s nice to meet you, darlin’.” I was wrapped up in a hug. The sex toys clattered in their box behind me.
“Lovely to meet you, ma’am.” My natural awkwardness was settling in. “Um, will you be joining us this afternoon?” Moms and daughters attending the same sex toy party was nothing new to me. But I’d never presented dildos to a preacher’s wife and kids. Certainly not in front of their display of holy Roman torture devices.
Rebekah understood the nature of my question.
“Well, sure. Ron and I didn’t have three girls by immaculate conception.” I’m not a natural blusher, nor do I embarrass easily, a helpful trait when you sell sex toys. I blushed anyway.
Once all the guests had arrived, the show was mine. I did my spiel, cracking lewd jokes and waggling eyebrows at double entendre. The table presentation and passing around “The Flipper” (a dolphin-themed beast of a toy with a clit finger and rotating beads in the shaft) was just window dressing. My real job started in the one-on-one consultations.
While the rest of the guests began playing wedding shower games and hacking into the penis cake’s black-sprinkled balls, I took guests back to the spare bedroom. That’s where the good stuff came out.
I’m not a doctor, therapist, or sex professional in any way. I’m just a plain Jane who got herself stuck in an MLM loop involving dildos. The party guests all knew that. I made it clear at the start of the presentation and again at the beginning of the consults.
It didn’t matter. These people were starving to talk about sex. Since I was okay with talking about sex, I became their sounding board. I always opened the consultations with the same vague line.
“So, did you have any questions?”
This was the phrase that launched a thousand erotica prompts. In the year I sold pleasure aids, I heard about strangers’ labias, fetishes, insecurities, and wild fantasies. There were also many, many questions. In the Buckle of the Bible Belt, home of “Abstinence-Only,” lived a concerning number of people bogged down by misconceptions.
I answered as best I could with what knowledge I had, always trying to circle back to the box of sex aids I needed to offload.
“Yes, done safely, anal play is fine. Have you taken a look at our anal toys?”
“No, if you believe you have a yeast infection, you shouldn’t have sex. We have a fantastic anti-microbial toy cleaner!”
“No, peeing after sex won’t wash out all the sperm and prevent pregnancy. This particular lube is spermacidal. You should combine it with other birth control methods if you aren’t looking to get pregnant right now.”
“Yes, that’s actually normal but if you’re concerned you can talk to your doctor. Have you ever used a cock ring before?”
I cycled the bride-to-be and a few of the guests through my sales pitch sex-fessional. Toward the end of the guest list, in came Rebekah. She smiled and sat, hands on her knees, ankles crossed gingerly, the epitome of Southern charm. I reflexively sat up a little straighter.
“So, did you have any questions?” I asked. She didn’t hesitate.
“My husband and I used to have a very active sex life. But he is knocking on the door of seventy and can’t perform the way he used to.” Rebekah spoke confidently. It sounded rehearsed. She’d come prepared. “I’ve tried to get him to talk to Dr. Patterson about a pill or something to help him rise to the occasion, but he’s proud.” Her eyes dropped to her lap, and it was her turn to blush. “I’m looking for something to fill the gap when we just can’t work out the logistics.”
I nearly choked on a stifled giggle at “fill the gap” but recovered. “Well, we have plenty of options, and most aren’t as ridiculous as The Flipper.” I could have shown her the big-brand, high-dollar gadgets. It would have probably increased my sales numbers.
But, ultimately, I was terrible at my job. I cared more for helping humans explore sex than I did for pocketing their cash. Rebekah didn’t need rotating heads and seventeen shaker settings. No one needs those but to each their own.
No, Rebekah needed a reliable workhorse. The first one I showed her was the same model I kept in my bedside table — a simple hardened silicone vibrator with four settings.
“It’s nothing fancy, but it does what it’s supposed to do. The curved handle keeps your wrist from cramping up. It’s also waterproof, so this plus a massaging showerhead, and you’ll get yourself a whopper of an orgasm pretty quick.”
The preacher’s wife’s eyes finally left the tops of her thighs. She reached out and took the toy from me, idly turning it over, turning it on and off. The hesitation was palpable.
“Don’t worry about buying a vibrator. It doesn’t mean your sex life is over. It means you are taking control of it. I can’t say if it will do anything to help your husband without Viagra, but it’ll definitely help you. And the better you feel about your own body, the easier it will be to help your husband feel good about his.”
Rebekah made her selections and gave me another hug. She would go on to buy several other items from me during my stint as a sex toy seller. My offerings must have filled that woman’s fun time drawer. I was pleased when her email arrived asking for a couple’s warming/cooling lube set. I could only assume that meant her husband was back in the game.
I developed lasting relationships with a good number of my clients. I was their sex chat go-to. Without judgment, they could ask what felt like silly questions and get reasonable answers. More than once, all I could offer was, “You should go get that checked out,” or “Just ask him to do that. You aren’t in a porn. You don’t have to be subtle.”
In my experience, the taboo nature of sex, intercourse, love-making, baby-dancing, fucking, whatever you want to call it, lifts at even the slightest provocation. It’s not that people don’t want to talk about it. It’s that they feel they shouldn’t.
I sold sex toys to a preacher’s wife. I talked about sex openly and found that even in the Bible Belt, in front of a wall of Christian crosses, there were plenty of people willing to talk back. We’ll lift the sex-talk-taboo, one conversation at a time.
*Disclaimer: Names and some details have been changed to protect privacy.
Gwenna Laithland is an independent journalist, humorist, and freelance writer in Oklahoma. She writes contemporary sci-fi and is working on her debut novel, Beyond the Sky.
