Recently, actress Gwyneth Paltrow has started selling vibrators as part of her range of wellness products, Goop Wellness. The gadget, which looks like a pastel ice cream cone, delighted fans, and stocks have now sold out. However, the news caused a stir among sex bloggers.
Sex toys and celebrities: from provocation to making a statement
A few years ago, for a non-porn celebrity to offer a sex toy as part of their merchandise was an act of provocation. Rammstein released a collector’s box set of dildos made of jelly, modelled on the band members’ penises; Gorillaz released a range of mini vibrators; and Mylène Farmer put a vibrator in a coffin-shaped music box. Motörhead got in on the act a little later too, with the Orgasmatron among other things, a badass wand featuring the War Pig.
But these days, there’s nothing particularly provocative about it. Singer Lilly Allen recently put her name to a special edition of the Womanizer Liberty, for example, and actress and model Cara Delevingne has become a co-owner of the innovative sex toy brand Lora DiCarlo. These days, for a celebrity, selling sex toys is simply a way of showing they’re open-minded. In short, hardly enough to shock anyone, except the ultra-puritans.
However, so far, only female celebrities with a mainstream image have dared to proclaim their love of sex toys. As for the men, they’re still very quiet about it, with mainstream male stars preferring to leave Rocco Siffredi to sing the praises of the Satisfyer Men Vibrations.
Gwyneth Paltrow sells vibrators, but won’t own up to it
If many people are perplexed by the Goop vibrator, it’s not out of puritanism, quite the opposite. Gwyneth Paltrow may sell vibrators, but she won’t own up to using them or buying them, and seems to have a completely skewed view of the sex toy industry.
In an interview with the New York Times, when asked about the design of her vibrator, the actress from Seven and Iron Man said: “A lot of vibrators have a hypersexualised look. They’re either very phallic or look like something you’d buy in a sex shop.”
And when asked whether she’d tried the vibrator: “No one’s ever asked me that. I think you’ve made me blush. I’ll refrain from commenting.”
Sex blogger Sarah Brynn Holliday (Formidable Femme) takes issue on Twitter, then publishes a response:
“I really can’t get over this. Fuck, where am I supposed to buy my vibrators? Starbucks? Panera (Editor’s note: an American bakery chain)? Barnes & Noble (Editor’s note: a bookshop chain)?
Sex toy reviewer Lilly Delvaux (Dangerous Lilly) is outraged:
“It hadn’t occurred to me that a vibrator could/should look ‘more intellectual’. How does this not look like ‘something you buy in a sex shop’? How is it better than the Je Joue Mimi, the Crave Vesper, or Tenga Iroha sex toys, to name just a few? Stop denigrating the sex toy industry just to promote your crap. And also, she talks about dispelling shame, then refuses to admit it.”
Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop’s many controversies
This isn’t the actress’s first controversy involving terrible sex advice and misleading advertising.
Among other things, Gwyneth Paltrow has long sung the praises of vaginal steaming, a practice that can cause serious burns. She was also fined $145,000 for claiming, without a shred of scientific evidence, that the jade Yoni eggs sold on her website (a kind of stone geisha ball) (a porous material that can prove harmful, as bacteria can grow in its pores) were capable of “increasing muscle tone, hormonal balance and feminine energy in general”.
More recently, she released a “vagina-scented candle” for €68, with notes of bergamot, geranium, cedar and rose (weird vagina). Although the candle was ridiculously expensive and the concept pretty strange, it all seemed fairly harmless. But even that went wrong: one woman claims that the candle in question, which she won in an online quiz, exploded in her living room. Let’s hope the Goop vibrator isn’t as dangerous.
