Vibrators: A pop-culture history of this buzzed-about device

By Josiah M. Hesse Thu., May 24 2012 at 10:56 AM

Categories: Beauty, Debates and Discussions, Lists, Popular Culture, Sex

Continued from page 3

Sex and the City endorses the Rabbit

When the typically prudish Charlotte becomes so obsessed with her Vibratex Rabbit Pearl vibrator that she begins canceling plans to stay home for some "me time," her glamourpuss gal pals stage a predictably quirky dildo intervention. When the episode aired in 1998, it raised the eyebrows of conservatives almost as much as it did the sales of the Rabbit Pearl vibrator; the "Rabbit and the Hare" episode is now considered a milestone in discussing female sex toys on television (even if it was on HBO).

This week, though, on Dan Savage's Savage Love podcast, sex-positive entrepreneur/Smitten Kitten founder Jennifer Pritchett directly attacked the Rabbit Pearl for containing dangerous levels of the toxin dioxyl-phthalate. "The levels of phthalates in children's toys that people start to worry about is one-tenth of one percent," she said. "We sent [the Rabbit Pearl] to a lab in California, they deformulated them and we found that the [vibrators] were 60 percent dioxyl-phthalate."

In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play opens Friday, May 25 at the Bug. Tickets are $15; click here for more information. And read Juliet Wittman's interview with director Deb Flomberg here.

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