Ducky Doolittle's lil' documentary on Current.com - WATCH IT!

LOVE HER!! You'll see her at a For Your Pleasure meeting in the video. How lucky are we to have this chick as a resource?!?! She's AWESOME!

NEWS: Sex Toy Industry on the Rise in Russia

Sex Toy Industry on the Rise in Russia

By Miriam Elder

St. Petersberg Times

Staff Writer

MOSCOW — Glistening skyscrapers and fancy office buildings aren’t the only things rising across Moscow these days.

Amid the oil-fueled boom that shows no signs of waning, the splurge in consumer spending has spread beyond iPhones and trips to Paris, to whips and vibrators.

“It was only three or four years ago that people started to use sex toys and speak about sex toys,” said Roman Glukharyov, imports manager for erotica chain Mon Amour.

Surrounded by neon pink dildos, lifelike blow-up dolls, and a massive structure called the “Pleasure Machine,” which looked more like a torture device gone wrong, Glukharyov was one of hundreds of people who this weekend attended Moscow’s main sex-toy fair, “X-Show: An Exhibit for Adults.”

Nestled in the small exhibition hall above the Perekryostok supermarket on Tishinskaya Ploshchad in northern Moscow, the 7th annual X-Show was a far cry from major sex fairs like Berlin’s Venus, which last year notched up nearly 30,000 visitors.

About 200 people bustled around the hall on Friday, the middle day of the three-day fair, hoping to seal distribution deals and sell to random customers as a rising middle class proves many Russians have money to spare — for all sorts of leisure items.

“We bring in around $10,000 to $15,000 a month,” said Nadya Zhdankina, 29, who, along with her boyfriend Andrei Krupenya, 28, runs a sex toy web site called Paradis-Amour.ru.

“Demand is growing, you can tell,” Zhdankina said. “We have a lot of regular clients now.”

“The ones who order the really crazy stuff are the guys in oil cities like Surgut and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk,” she said. “They’ll easily pay 15,000 rubles to 20,000 rubles per order. They have nothing to do out there and plenty of cash.”

Svetlana, 41, sat nearby, anxiously watching a catwalk soon to be filled with leggy female models showing off the latest in white lace G-strings and leather corsets.

She came to the exhibit because she was hoping to open up her own sex shop and wanted to learn the trade. “It’s a normal business just like anything else,” she said.

The S&M toys on display may not have been exactly the kind of small and medium-sized businesses President Dmitry Medvedev had in mind when he said last week that the sector’s share of GDP should grow from 20 percent to at least 50 percent.

Most of the sex toys on exhibit were made in China and distributed by wholesalers based in the United States or Europe. But a purely Russian take on the sex toy also exists.

A firm named Andrei showcased an array of products, including a series of blow-up dolls with names like Nastya, a brunette, Dasha, a redhead and Natasha, a pure blonde.

“It’s my pleasure to make you happy,” read the boxes into which Nastya, Dasha and Natasha were folded. “Two-hole doll,” the boxes proudly proclaimed.

“Today, the erotic trade market in Russia is one of the most dynamically developing ones,” reads a pamphlet distributed by the firm. “First, and most important, this is because our citizens are getting richer.”

The second reason, the pamphlet says, is the end of being raised to believe “that sex is dirty and disgusting, something to be done in total darkness and in the missionary position, only to continue the human race.”

The growth in the sex toy trade in Russia resulted in part from a liberalization of ideas about sex, particularly among women, said Claudine Seroussi, the Europe representative for B Swish, a Los Angeles-based erotica firm.

“There are lots of young Russians who want to emulate the West. They watch shows like Sex and the City,” she said. That show made the Rabbit, a two-pronged dildo, a household word in the United States.

“And now they have more disposable income. It’s a sign of things becoming much more liberal,” Seroussi said.

Indeed, the days when someone could claim “there is no sex in the Soviet Union” are long gone.

Alyona Sinitsina, 28, a professional phone-sex operator sat at her booth with a friend, both wrapped in fishnet stockings and seductively eating ice cream cones.

“One out of every three guys is into phone sex,” Sinitsina said. “Sure, men can watch a video and see a woman with another man, but with us he can imagine himself. We call him by his name.”

Her friend, who declined to be identified, said she thought Russians were above and beyond American women when it came to giving a man pleasure over the telephone.

“In your country, it’s ‘Ugh, ugh, ugh,’ and it’s over. In Russia, we know how to take our time,” she said.

“It’s like therapy,” Sinitsina said. “Maybe he wants to learn how to do something or talk about his family problems.”

Glukharyov, the Mon Amour imports manager, said he too thought Russians had left far behind the days when sex was a private matter not to be brought into the public domain.

Yet one gap in Russians’ sexual education, apparently, still troubled him greatly.

“People in Russia, to tell the truth, can’t feel the difference between water and silicone-based lubes,” he said, staring off into the distance with a sigh.n

Quicken Home & Business 2008

O..M..G.. Quicken Home & Business 2008

It's been a few weeks now and I'm still going nutso. I guess switching banks and operating 2 businesses, as well as personal finance doesn't help! Oh please give me strength and clarity to understand this awesome program! *off to find a dummies book*

NEWS: Sex And The City' gets its own sex toy

Now, 'Sex And The City' gets its own sex toy

London, May 13 : Fans of 'Sex And The City' will be getting an even bigger thrill than the release of its movie - a Vibrator dedicated to the US TV series.

The new adult toy, which costs about 30 pounds, has been named after the show's heart-throb Mr Big, and is being released to celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the Rabbit's appearance in the programme.

The toy is so popular that a website which is confident that the ladies are going to love it, has offered to make it more pleasurable.

Bosses at LoveHoney (UK Site) are offering anyone who sees the film, the chance to buy one for half price.

"Part of the Rabbit's success is due to it being featured in an early episode of the show," The Sun quoted head buyer Bonny Hall, as saying.

"Just as Big is the one for Carrie, we think this Mr Big will soon have its own set of fans too," Hall added.

--- ANI

NEWS: 'Talk Sex' Guru Sue Johanson Retires Sex Toys on Sunday

From GayWired

By Tracy E. Gilchrist | 5/07/2008

After six seasons of late-night sex toy instruction, septuagenarian Talk Sex guru Sue Johanson takes her final bow Sunday with a countdown of the year’s top-10 sex toys.

“I'm going to miss playing with sex toys,” Johanson told The Associated Press about ending her run with Oxygen network’s late-night, call-in talk show.

"I'm going to miss it terribly," said Johanson, a 77-year-old sex educator.

"It's been part of my life and I just love it. I'm going to miss writing scripts. I'm going to miss having to read books.”

Talk Sex derived from a Canadian radio show that began in 1984 and offered practical advice on sex and sexually transmitted diseases.

But the twist with the Toronto-based nurse Johanson offering down and dirty sex advice, had always been her grandmotherly look.

Now in her late seventies, Johanson said she thought it was time to hang up the late-night, on-air sex toys for good, especially since 1 a.m., when the shows ended, was not her finest hour.

"I have been on television for 32 years," she said. "I think it's time. I figured if we haven't got it by now, we're not going to get it. We've got to make room for somebody else."

Oxygen's most-popular late-night show, Talk Sex’s ratings among young viewers broke records this season, the network said.

Oxygen has been good to Johanson, she said, adding that nobody pushed her to leave the show.

Throughout the show’s six seasons the network censored her just once, Johanson said, and that was for using a particular slang for penis.

But Johanson’s not retiring altogether. She’ll continue to give sex-related lectures, she said. "I'm a ham," she said. "I love a large audience."

What an Amazing April for the Pleasure Pros!

So, we had this amazing sign up special in April that allowed people to sign up with no upfront cost for the kit!

43 New Pleasure Pros in April! This is so exciting! :) So for the rest of today, with the exception of fam time between 5-9, I'll be updating the Pleasure Pros Website as much as I can. I've added some shout boxes to a couple pages. Team members can post leads directly on the party leads page. And they can post reviews to the Product Reviews and Info page.

I have a feeling sales for May are going to be spectacular!