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While looking online for a replacement for a vibrator that died recently,* I discovered that Good Vibrations is no longer a worker-owned cooperative. I got their catalog in the mail for ages before I finally bought my first sex toy from them about ten years ago. And their coop business model was a fantastic example of feminist anti-capitalism in practice.**
Now their shift to a corporate ownership is being heralded as the failure of cooperatives as a viable business model. It sounds like the shift was ugly and a long time in the making. You hardly have to read between the lines of that corporate cheerleader piece to see it when the article describes how the board was stacked with new members in favor of the corporate model. Maybe 100 people is too large for an effective worker coop. Maybe there were other ways to think about people's skills than to assume that those without MBAs could not expand the business successfully. I'd read blogosphere references by former workers to problems at Good Vibes. It sounds like the decision to go corporate was a bloody one. It would be fascinating to do a little political economic work on the company now. Future research project idea #783.
This bit got me thinking about some of the challenges of the sex-positive business project:
Crowe commissioned a survey that showed - a surprise to the staff - that the customer base was mostly 35- to 45-year-old straight women with $50,000 incomes who were in relationships.
In some ways, that doesn't surprise me at all. The catalog/website (and presumably the store was similar) endlessly emphasized being a "clean well-lighted place" to shop for sex toys. In the process, they came to seem pretty normative. When cultural norms that sex is dirty on the one hand and that good girls don't on the other, creating sex-positive businesses is tricky. I did a bit of research on women-friendly sex toy stores for a paper I wrote during my MA and the history of these shops is mostly that of catering to middle class married suburban women. That Good Vibrations customer base would be similar is not surprising. That might be what happens when a business tries too hard to appeal to good girl sensibilities without also trying to critique them at least a little. Cory Silverberg from Toronto's Come As You Are, which is modeled after Good Vibrations' worked-owned cooperative model, has talked about some of these issues too. Is it possible to create a model of a sex toy store that doesn't reinforce either side of this binary?
I'm sad to see Good Vibrations change to corporate ownership. I don't think the shift spells the demise of anti-capitalist economic practices. I'm going to go read some J.K. Gibson-Graham for a little hope.
*Vibrators seem to die far too soon and far too often by my hands.
**Meika Loe published an article in the late 90s about it that details some of the complexities of balancing profits and politics at a thinly disguised Good Vibrations.
Now their shift to a corporate ownership is being heralded as the failure of cooperatives as a viable business model. It sounds like the shift was ugly and a long time in the making. You hardly have to read between the lines of that corporate cheerleader piece to see it when the article describes how the board was stacked with new members in favor of the corporate model. Maybe 100 people is too large for an effective worker coop. Maybe there were other ways to think about people's skills than to assume that those without MBAs could not expand the business successfully. I'd read blogosphere references by former workers to problems at Good Vibes. It sounds like the decision to go corporate was a bloody one. It would be fascinating to do a little political economic work on the company now. Future research project idea #783.
This bit got me thinking about some of the challenges of the sex-positive business project:
Crowe commissioned a survey that showed - a surprise to the staff - that the customer base was mostly 35- to 45-year-old straight women with $50,000 incomes who were in relationships.
In some ways, that doesn't surprise me at all. The catalog/website (and presumably the store was similar) endlessly emphasized being a "clean well-lighted place" to shop for sex toys. In the process, they came to seem pretty normative. When cultural norms that sex is dirty on the one hand and that good girls don't on the other, creating sex-positive businesses is tricky. I did a bit of research on women-friendly sex toy stores for a paper I wrote during my MA and the history of these shops is mostly that of catering to middle class married suburban women. That Good Vibrations customer base would be similar is not surprising. That might be what happens when a business tries too hard to appeal to good girl sensibilities without also trying to critique them at least a little. Cory Silverberg from Toronto's Come As You Are, which is modeled after Good Vibrations' worked-owned cooperative model, has talked about some of these issues too. Is it possible to create a model of a sex toy store that doesn't reinforce either side of this binary?
I'm sad to see Good Vibrations change to corporate ownership. I don't think the shift spells the demise of anti-capitalist economic practices. I'm going to go read some J.K. Gibson-Graham for a little hope.
*Vibrators seem to die far too soon and far too often by my hands.
**Meika Loe published an article in the late 90s about it that details some of the complexities of balancing profits and politics at a thinly disguised Good Vibrations.