In Italy, There Are Vibrators in Vending Machines
Mamma's gonna get her freak on
For a (somewhat) Catholic country, Italy is surprisingly progressive when it comes to women’s sexuality. As an American—and a Texan, no less, where the law prohibiting sex toys has never been formally repealed because, you know, Texas—the first time I saw a vending machine with M&Ms, chips, gum, and oh, look, A SEVENTY EURO VIBRATOR, my eyes popped out of my head.
John and I had gone to the beach. John is white in shade “Casper.” I’m only a few clicks north of that. After only an hour, with sunscreen, mind you, he was brutally lobstered, and we drove around looking for lotion, aloe, something, anything, to ease the sting of his sunburn. That was when we found the vending machine with the candy and the sex toys in it.
It remains one of the most memorable moments of my seven years in Italy. For starters, if you even mention the word vibrator to most American men, they get very huffy. It betrays a woeful ignorance of how a woman’s clitoris works and where it’s positioned relative to the vagina. Being more receptive to battery-operated assists opens up a veritable cornucopia of possibilities for any couple. It’s also a time-saving device, one that gets a woman from Point A to Point O a whole lot faster, no faking, no awkward “Was that good for you?” because guess what, you can’t tell whether a woman has had an orgasm or not, I don’t care who you are.
If more American men would get over themselves and embrace sex toys, there’d be happier couples, happier marriages, happier children, happier childhoods. And no, I’m not joking. Sex is the glue that binds a relationship. Yes, there are other glues, too. And yes, there are sexless relationships that do just fine. But taken on the aggregate, it’s all that lovely “cuddle hormone” we release in our brains post-coitally that keeps a relationship humming along.
And it gets even better.
A few years ago, John (who is a jazz drummer) had a gig in Citta di Castello, a biggish sort of town in Umbria well worth going to if you find yourself in that neck of the woods. It was the hottest summer in recent memory. Even at night, we were breathless from the heat, and stuck in the non-air-conditioned hotel. There was an actual wasps’ nest in the highest part of the ceiling. We don’t own a television, so whenever we find ourselves around one, we greedily rip through the channels, eager to see what we’re missing. You can imagine the look on my face when I stumbled across a primetime infomercial for—you guessed it—vibrators.
It was EPIC to behold. I forgot all about the heat, eager to record as much of the infomercial as I could on my phone. America was founded by thieves, prostitutes, and religious fanatics. We are still, to some degree, a nation of thieves, prostitutes, and religious fanatics. We don’t have informercials like this. I had never seen anything so funny, touching, humbling, and glorious as this ad, complete with demonstrations on how to use said device.
Yes, we were giggling like twelve year olds.
Like any other country, Italy has miles to go before it achieves gender parity, but to my very American way of thinking, this is a big step in the right direction.
So, what do you say, Texas? Ready to shed some of that ridiculous machismo and admit it doesn’t matter how Mamma gets her O on so long as she gets there?
What female sex-positive programming would you like to see on television? Comment below.
If Mama ain’t happy....