We also had a color system to help people announce their intentions even more clearly. Wearing a red shirt or boa (provided for free) meant that you were taken, and just at the party to, well, party. Yellow meant your eye might be caught by someone special and green meant go, go, go!

We hope you all had a lovely pride and we’ll see you next year!

The Kinky Crafting event went really well! I had a great time working with the participants crafting some amazing toys. The Brooklyn store was the perfect place to hold the workshop/filming and the store looked great. It was cool to hear what everyone’s crafting experience was going in to the workshop – some people were really into crafting while others could barely get the hang of the needle and thread. We had projects for all experience levels so everyone was able to make something they felt really good about.

We have worked with HBO Real Sex on two other events – an oral sex workshop filmed in Seattle and the masturbate-a-thon filmed at our Mercer Street location. They offer really interesting programming on topics that other shows won’t touch and they are such a fun group of people to work with.

We decided on a Kinky Crafting workshop because people are looking for fun alternatives to expensive dates – they still want connection and excitement but might be on a budget. With this workshop we can provide all those things – Babeland workshops are reasonably priced and we host lots of free in-store events. Learning to make sex toys with household items is affordable and a great way to figure out if you like a certain type of product before you come into the store or shop on-line.  It’s also a lot of fun!

HBO made a huge crafting table for the middle of the Brooklyn store. We gathered all our crafting supplies and went through each craft one at a time. The participants brought some of their own supplies and ideas to try out too. We had a small section of the store set up to create a more private lounge area for some of our more kinky crafters – a few products got put to the test but I’m not saying any more.  Everyone will just have to wait until the segment airs.

The workshop covered 10 or 11 different crafts – we didn’t get to make all of them during the taping but with the help of a few Babeland folks I actually got to make one of everything the day before. We made:

masturbation toys for cocks out of bubble wrap, melons, and bars of soap
cock rings out of denim, leather, and gummy bears
dildos out of vegetables
vibrating dildos out of veggies and silver bullets
pasties out of buckram (used in hat making) and sequins
restraints out of denim and leather
floggers out of dowels and bike inner tubes
panty pouches for vibrators and condoms out of fabric
soft packs out of condoms and hair gel
homemade harnesses with tight boy briefs

The participants really loved making the crafts and brought their own spin on what we had planned. One woman brought in gummy bears and adorned the RingO with dangling gummies. Someone else brought a spatula and taped on the cut up bike inner tube and made a combo slapper and flogger. It was great working with them and hearing what they thought would make for an excellent toy.

I hope that the Real Sex segment airs soon but I don’t have a firm date yet. I’m going to plan a viewing party with all my friends and co-workers in Seattle and hope to bring the Kinky Crafting workshop to the store schedule in the fall.

Rabbit-Style

From our co-founder, Claire:

Babeland had the pleasure of working with HBO’s Real Sex this week. It’s Babeland’s third time doing a star turn on Real Sex, and it keeps getting better. This time the topic is Recession Sex, and the producers came to film a Kinky Crafts workshop at our cozy and community-oriented store in the great borough of Brooklyn. With the nation’s economy on shaky ground, people are more often using their ingenuity and common household items to get off, and Babeland is there to help. The workshop participants fashioned floggers out of bike tires and dowels, created masturbation sleeves from bubble wrap and towels, and from honeydew melons. They made flashy pasties, denim cockrings and restraints and sewed pockets onto their panties to hold their vibrating cell phones.

Jen May, longtime Babelander and sex toy aficionado, lead the workshop and had this to say about the experience, “At first I was terrified to be in front of the camera, but it quickly became really fun! It was like craft time in kindergarten or at summer camp, but for adults who like sex toys. I think the viewers of that segment on Real Sex will see how much Babeland really cares about their pleasure, through thick and thin.”

Check Babeland.com for information about kinky crafting events coming in the fall, and for information about Real Sex viewing parties!

Masturbation Sleeve

A list of the crafts

The crafts

Being gender non-conforming (as I am) has it’s rewards, but public recognition has never been one of them.

It was a slight disappointment to see that I share the honor with Claire. Claire doesn’t i.d. as butch, so it didn’t seem quite right, and more than that since it’s about being hot, I’d kinda like to stand on my own two feet here. But you know what? I’m over 40 and if I can make any 100 hottest list, I’m grateful.

Seeing the pictures on the list made me feel good- that’s a lot of reflection and positivity. Not all identify as butch, but all look amazing and do interesting, powerful things in the world, so I’m glad the list is out there as a reflection and inspiration. There’s been a lot of good discussion about the list too, and some controversy.

I think I(we) made the list because we sling all these dildos. Strap-ons can be extremely butch. They don’t have to be, depending on whose wearing them, but for me it’s staking a masculine claim to feel that dick as my own. With that in mind, some of the butchest things I’ve done are helping other queers strap it on and feel good about it, teaching classes on cunnilingus, and advising people on how to fuck a woman with their hands.

That is chivalry beyond opening doors.

I’m also a pretty good on the chest press, and I take the garbage out, so I have those qualifications as well.

Nerve’s Caitlin Macrae conducted an experiment with the new Club Vibrator and she wrote it up, lab report style, complete with photos:

Methods: Describe, step by step, what you did in your experiment.

After picking up my remote-controlled vibrator from Babeland, I ran (or to be more accurate, “skipped gleefully”) to a nearby cafe to use their bathroom as a makeshift insertion laboratory. A few minutes later, I was strapped into a lacy, black one-size-fits-most thong, with a tiny, pink bullet-vibrator in my vagina, the remote control clipped onto my hip. The Club Vibe offers three settings: ambient, music and manual. In music mode, it connects directly to an iPod or mp3 player. In manual, it promises “seven ass-shaking vibration patterns.” I set the control to “ambient,” where the vibe responds to the tone and intensity of all of the noise surrounding you (the packaging recommends trying out a club setting, so that your nether regions will be “pulsating to the DJ’s jams”). I cranked the controls up to eleven and set out to feel the world.

The second I stepped outside, a huge semi rumbled down the street and I had the distinct feeling that I was being paged — and the call was coming from inside my vagina. A honking horn amped the paging feeling up so much that I was sure some fellow pedestrian would notice and out me. The sensation itself fell somewhere between lounging in a massage chair and standing directly in front of the speakers at a particularly bass-heavy concert, the resonance rattling your sternum. Each of the city’s white noises had its own corresponding buzz — the wind blowing at the right angle caused the vibe to shiver, car doors slamming gave a brief staccato burst. I was able to walk near enough to one loud, inscrutable argument that I felt like a participant, the machine hammering away at my g-spot as though it had an axe to grind. All of these were startling, but ultimately pleasant. Thusly stimulated, I met some friends at a bar for phase two of the experiment.

Don’t you want to find out about phase two? I did. You can read it here.

The best sentence, in my New Yorker’s opinion, was this one:

Conclusion: Summarize your findings.

When I was out on the street picking up sounds from traffic, it felt kind of like the city was fucking me - and for the first time since I moved here, that felt pretty good.

TONIGHT, Thursday June 25th: Queer Eye for the Sex Toy Buy (LES and Seattle), 7:00pm (both locations)

We’re pretty sure that it was queers who invented sex toys—and if we didn’t invent them, at the very least, we perfected their use. And made them safe for the rest of the world. And added the sparkles. After all, we do all the things straight folks do—we just do it with more accessories. So if you consider yourself gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersexed, transgender, queer or questioning and are looking for a new sex toy, some harness and dildo tips, or some affordable safer sex supplies, stop by the store for free mini-workshops and goodies.

New York Workshops: Strap-Ons 101 at 8:00pm and 9:00pm

Seattle: Strap-Ons, Cunnilingus and G-spot between 7:00 and 8:00, Fellatio, prostate play and toys for boys between 8:00 and 9:00pm.

Sunday June 28th, 8:00pm: Pride Flirt Party (Soho)

After the Pride parade, join Babeland and our sexiest customers for a night of color-coded fun and flirting–wear red if you’re taken and are just there to party, yellow if your eye could be caught by someone special, or green if it’s go, go, go! Celebrate Pride with like-minded folks, get your flirt on, and dance your ass off! Complimentary snacks and drinks will be served. This event is always full of cute folks and is the post-pride place to be! Plus, I’ll be there, so why not join us?

The Wall Street Journal has a fantastic article on how young women can develop leadership and management skills. If you have a young woman in your life, this is one to share.

Claire and Rachel make another list! This time they’re #73 on the top 100 Top Hot Butches list. I was drooling over this list anyway (and looking for new ideas for haircuts) when there they were!

Audacia Ray reviews Masters of Sex - the book about some of the very first sex researchers, Masters and Johnson.

Cory Silverberg of About.com has an amazing article in Huffington Post on “where teens are headed” and how best to help them.

XKCD brings the love for vibrators and the Fleshlight in this hilarious comic strip. Maybe we should send him a Fleshlight as a thank you!

xkcd

From Sex on the Side, a new campaign in San Francisco to help encourage gay men to get tested for Syphillis called Healthy Penis.

Playboy (no really! I read the article..) explores the science behind the G-spot and mentions some research I hadn’t known about before. If you’re at all interested in how the G-spot works, this is a great