Where are they? I ran across a sex shop on line last night and they had hundreds if not thousands of sex toys for adults. I was just wondering today where all these fake peinses and vaginas are made not to mention swings, vibrators, blow up dolls and all that other terrible nasty stuff. I have never toured a factory that made these items but it would have to be interesting don’t you think? Anyone ever been near one of these places that make this stuff? Do you think these items are made somewhere in the black hills of North Dakota under ground and are shipped by the box car load in the dead of night?
Some time back, I saw a TV show (can’t remember the network or any names) about a company that made dildos. They interviewed the “model” who has been reproduced in plastic many, many times. I seem to recall a scene with a bunch of women at a table with little paint brushes adding realism to a pile of plastic penes.
I’m guessing it was an HBO production, but for the life of me, I can’t recall any details. But it was interesting.
Lotta help, huh?
Most of the warehouses - and factories - are located in California, around Los Angeles. If the item is made in the US, that’s most likely where it came from. Lots of items are made in China and Hong Kong and shipped over, though.
(I work for a comapny that owns a bunch of adult stores in the US.)
Adam and Eve, one of the biggest distribtuors, is located in little ol’ Carborro, NC of all places. About as far away from LA as one can get I suspect.
You’d figure everything came from Missouri,The Show Me state.
~grin~
I was thinking about some of the other distributors after I had posted, so I figured I would give a little more information.
The “big three” manufacturers - Doc Johnson, California Exotics, and Topco - are around the Los Angeles area. Doc is located in North Hollywood, Topco in San Fernando, and California Exotics in Chino. Nasswalk - another big toy maker - is located in New York City, but they import most of their items from Hong Kong/China if I remember correctly.
Real Sex.
Not that I watch it or anything, I just turn it on for the music, yeah that’s why, for the music.
“I was wondering about sex toy manufacturers”
And Shirley Ujest was wondering about you in this thread. Come and give us an update!
On topic, though, I know nothing about sex toy manufacturers, so I have nothing of relevance to contribute to this thread. Personally, my favorite sex toy is my incredibly sexy husband – and he’s one in a gazillion, completely unable to be duplicated, let alone mass marketed.
[sub]P.S. Congrats on the good showing your latest album release is having!![/sub]
Shayna I tried getting your email from your profile to thank you for the Congratulations thread but there was none there. I even emailed the webmaster@straighdope.com to get your addy but no luck. So just let me say here THANK YOU! You’re just one of those unreachable babes! Now over to Shirley’s questions.
Where’s the “Ask The…” thread?
How does one get a job in quality control at one of these companies?
A few years back, I worked in the building next door to the Doc Johnson factory. It’s on Vose Street, just east of Laurel Canyon in North Hollywood. Totally non-descript building; no way of knowing what was housed inside if you didn’t already know. The funniest part was, at 5pm, watching the workers, mostly middle-aged to elderly, female, and hispanic, leaving the day’s work, and knowing what they had just spent the day working on.
“Time to make the dildos…”
I’ve always wondered about the people who work in these places. Do they tell their in-laws what they do? Is it something they discuss over Thanksgiving dinner?
Sequential Threads title - I found this thread just below the Ask the person who works in the adult industry thread
Slightly off topic:
Several years ago I worked as the copywriter for a chain of adult stores that was opening an online retail site.
While I liked the 30% discount, the company used 146 different suppliers (just to make it relevant to the OP, most of the items were manufactured in China and Taiwan). As you might guess, there was a great deal of overlap in the products, since there is only so much design variation possible if you want to have a product with market appeal.
It got damn difficult in my job, since a unique catalog entry was required for each product. After you’ve written an engaging description of your 121st six inch, pink, jelly filled, real-feel multi-speed, 2 AA battery powered vibrator with pleasure ridges, or your 106th three inch by 1.25 inch conical buttplug with safety base and finger grooves, you’ve pretty much said everything there is to say.
By the time I left to go do marketing for yet another telephony company, I was reduced to making obscure literary references in one write-up (Jake Barnes’ life would have been a lot easier if this had been around in 1919) and following it with, “You know what it is. I know what it is. Grease it up and go thy way in peace,” in the next.
I dreamed of dancing dildos for months after leaving that gig.
there is a husband-wife team that has a dildo factory in the uk. unbelievably funny to hear a 50 ish couple speaking with british accents about the lovely sex toys they manufacture. they were interviewed in front of the assembly line. toys were “marching” along the belt as they touted the wonders of silicon.
hehe… omg… Well now I gotta clean pepsi off my screen…
China makes an increasing amount of adult products. Seems like there’s a shop on every corner in the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. usually staffed by a 50-ish very matronly shop assistant in a white lab coat.
Canberra, the home of Australia’s Federal Parliament, is also the sex toy capital of Australia. (“Canberra, for politicians and porn!”)
Laws regulating sex toys in the Australian Capital Territory (think District of Columbia) are more permissive than in the states of Australia. As a result, porn stores have boomed in our nation’s capital. Tour operators offer curious punters bus tours of the various porn emporiums, where one may traipse through the ailses of warehouses that are full of sex toys of all description.
(And then the tourists are taken up to Parliament House, to see some human-sized dildos in action. <Boom-tish!>)
ROFLMAO!! That is the best comment about the Australian government I have heard in ages… Thank you, Narrad
I have always thought John Howard looked something like a dildo… he is short and broad with that round bald head …
Every time I go there I want to visit Fyshwick (the suburb with most of the warehouse-style stores) but I am always stymied by my timetable or my lack of funds