Story Jessa Moon

Photos Rebecca Ames

Video Good Vibrations

“Put on your big-girl panties and go!” Patty Marmann says when she’s having a slow month as a Pure Romance consultant. But the phrase hasn’t passed her lips in quite some time. Business is buzzing for the more than thirty thousand Pure Romance consultants. Even in the midst of an otherwise listless economy, sex products continue to sell big.

Pure Romance brings its products into living rooms of women around the world. It’s living rooms like this one in Northeast Portland where Marmann enthusiastically describes Lickity Stiff, Nympho Niagra, and X-Scream, the company’s strongest arousal cream. Pure Romance sends its consultants, such as Marmann, to in-home sex toy parties where they present heighteners, lubricants, and bedroom accessory products to all-women audiences. 

At a party in Southeast Portland, women sing “I Will Survive” with sex-toy-skewed lyrics: “Now it took all my self-control not to laugh out loud, when I saw that little wiener standing tall and proud,” belts Jennifer Anderson, another Pure Romance consultant. “But to hell with his ego and to hell with all his need, cause I'm saving all my lovin’ for a cordless multispeed!”

Three years ago, Anderson’s financial situation looked grim. As an eighth grade teacher and single mother of five with meager monthly child support checks, she needed extra income. To turn her situation around she delved into sex toy party consulting.

Most Pure Romance consultants take home 35 to 45 percent of total retail sales at any given party. After attending a party and hosting one of her own, Marmann did the math. She first hosted a party that generated $1,400 in sales, bringing in big bucks for the presenting consultant. As Marmann watched the Pure Romance representative walk out the door with almost $500 in her pocket, she saw serious earning potential. So she put on her big-girl panties and got going.

Marmann’s stint with Pure Romance isn’t a bra-burning impulse. It’s not a statement on femininity. She’s past the gender issues; her motivations are primarily economic. In 2006, Marmann worked twelve-hour shifts at Legacy Emanuel Hospital and Health Center as a charge nurse in a trauma and neurosurgical intensive care unit. Feeling over-worked and under-appreciated contributed to her decision to become a Pure Romance consultant. In her first year, Marmann earned close to $20,000 on top of her nursing income. At a particularly successful party, sales reached $1,700 and Marmann left with nearly $600 in personal profit. So she left her nearly twenty-year career as a trauma nurse in October 2008 to start on a new path as an intimacy expert.

“I left my J-O-B for my passion,” Marmann says. As the Dow plummets, Marmann is enjoying her most successful year as a consultant. As of April 2009, Marmann sold $25,000 in retail — a large increase over her corresponding 2008 sales. Her parties have doubled in number, forcing her to share business with other consultants. Marmann’s success isn’t uncommon. On average, Pure Romance consultants make between $25,000 and $30,000 per year. The company’s top seller earns a yearly income of $300,000.

Sex toys are big business and Marmann and Anderson are cashing in. A 2006 survey by Elle and MSNBC found that of their nearly eighty thousand female and male respondents, 40 percent had used a vibrator in the last year. Seamy sex superstores are no longer the optimal places of purchase. Classy sex toy shops that charge hundreds for artsy designs have found a consumer base all over the country. Oh Baby, a high-end lingerie shop in Portland, Oregon, sells Jimmyjanes’ “Little Something” vibrators for $395 each. This upscale personal pleaser is also available in platinum, gold, steel, and aluminum editions. Even the condom brands Durex and Trojan have launched sexual product lines, indicative of the growing trend.

“People want things that make them feel better,” Marmann says. “They want to be entertained at home because they don’t have the money to go out and spend.” She says the parties are about more than enhancing and improving intimate relationships — they also provide a venue for women to laugh and bond. As Marmann puts it, she’s “getting paid to party” and make a difference in women’s lives.

In a way, Pure Romance’s distant relatives Mary Kay, Tupperware, and The Pampered Chef foreshadowed the in-home selling of products such as the Petal Pleaser, a blooming pink vibrator. Rather than wearing a crisp white apron, she sports a leather tool belt as she leads the women through the next section of the demonstration. Vibrating pink, blue, and red dildos harmonize in a pulsing buzz emanating from the tool belt as she demonstrates the rotating and thrusting features of T.O.M. (Triple Orgasm Machine), Pure Romance's newest dual-action vibrator. Women spend $149 for the pink dildo that, according to the Pure Romance catalogue, has a “multi-functional rotating and thrusting shaft [that] will have all the women asking for seconds, or even thirds!” But according to Marmann, smaller vibrators such as the clitoral stimulating “bullets” are the most popular toys for first-time purchasers.

Oh Baby is experiencing a similar boom. A display of boudoir accessories dominates the front counter complete with vibrators, plugs, and a gold vibrating duck. Sex toy sales have already increased 2 percent in 2009.

“That might seem like only a small increase, but that’s a jump for us considering that toys aren’t our business — they’re just an addition,” says Laura Fitzpatrick, owner of Oh Baby. Fitzpatrick plans to expand her sex toy line to reflect her projection that sex toys will account for 15 percent of total sales by the end of the year. Pure Romance reports similar gains. Somehow, the sex toy industry remains robust and is even growing despite the unstable economy.

“I think people are spending more time nesting and coming back to what’s real and what’s good in their lives,” Fitzpatrick says. “People may not have any money, portfolios are worth nothing, but there’s a wonderful relief in sex, and I think that people know that and need it. Especially now.”

Back in the Southeast Portland living room, Anderson smears “lick-its,” including a chocolate-raspberry flavored lubricant, on the women’s left arms, and each licks her dollop to try its flavor.  She dusts “sniff-its,” such as a fragrant body shimmer, on their right arms, which the women raise to their noses. Anderson stands confidently at the front of the room. When the women talk too long, she raps her pink polka-dotted acrylic nails on the next product she will show them.

She encourages them to try everything. Put that dollop of Sensations lubricant on your tongue. Experiment with different speeds and functions on the vibrators. Don’t be embarrassed! Anderson certainly isn’t: Pure Romance pays the bills.

Marmann and Anderson are walking, talking, sex toy-selling proof of the cliché “sex sells.” Anderson says, “I think it’s healthy for relationships. If you're in a long-term relationship or marriage and your sex life is good, that adds to the intimacy. A lot of relationships fall apart because the sex part falls apart, and you don't feel as close to that person.”

Pure Romance President Chris Cicchinelli says, “Our sales model gives [consultants] the opportunity to control their income and there isn’t that fear of being laid off or being dependent on corporate America.” Marmann loves what she does — educating women, improving relationships, and “making a difference.” Earning her income from a seemingly recession-proof industry doesn’t hurt either. Anderson agrees.

In a separate room toward the back of the house in Southeast Portland, she meets with each woman privately, taking orders and doling out the goods. She paperclips yellow receipts and punches numbers into a gray calculator, computing her bounty as the women file out with theirs. The women clutch black Pure Romance bags, some oddly bulging or softly vibrating.

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