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I don't spend a lot of time reading blogs that are, quote-unquote, family blogs or family publications,

which is how Eugene Volok, sorry if I mispronounce your name there, Gene describes his blog, but he had a post about

vibrators that I found my way to from Andrew Sullivan's, very excellent blog. And he made this

point that I thought was really interesting about sex toys and the assumptions that people make.

Post sex in the city, post vibrators now being for sale at every Walgreens and in every

shopping mall in the country, there's this idea that, you know, sex toys and vibrators now being for sale at every Walgreens and in every shopping mall in the country,

there's this idea that, you know, sex toys and vibrators are this fine and not shameful and actually

liberating thing for women to own, and it actually signals something to you, to everyone,

if a woman owns a vibrator, that she's not afraid of her own vagina, and that she's, you know,

sexually adventurous.

But what about a man who owns a sex toy?

What about a man who owns, say, a pocket pussy?

A man who owns a fleshlight.

What is signaled there?

And he calls it the sex toy double standard.

And I really believe that he's on to something here.

I'm going to read from his blog. If you hear that a woman wants sex but doesn't have a partner, which is why she needs a sex toy at the moment, what do you think? You think she's picky, she's afraid of being emotionally hurt, she's getting over a bad breakup, doesn't have the time for a commitment, worried about pregnancy, doesn't want to be thought of as promiscuous. But if you hear a man wants sex but doesn't have a partner, which is why he's using a sex toy, what do you think? You think he can't get a woman to sleep with him. It's a vast over a generalization. Eugene goes on, but it has some truth to it. Therefore, a male desire to use a vibrator is evidence that he's sexually unsuccessful in a way that doesn't apply the same way to women.

Hence, woman with vibrator equals sexy, man with vibrator equals pathetic.

I think that's true.

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