Photo taken from Passion Party’s official blog
Call it the reclamation of our sexuality. This new column pulls pages from our previous Business of X-Rated series and switches the focus to sex and sexuality from a female perspective. Call it a counteractive stance against rape culture. Sexuality is something positive and it’s ours to embrace. Each week we’ll explore a unique side of sexuality from an empowering business standpoint starting with in-home sex toy parties.
Lesley Metcalfe spills a bag of lube and vibrators on the floor and tells me they’re from a party she threw two weekends ago. “They just came in. It’s about $1,000 worth,” she says. Metcalfe has been working as a Passion Parties consultant for two years on top of a corporate day job at Canada’s largest book retailer. A few times a month she throws Passion Parties at host’s homes. Think girls’ nights out and bachelorette parties. During the parties, Metcalfe leads a presentation then consults with each woman confidentially in another room to place (or not place) orders.
Passion Parties are just one piece of the puzzle in which women are beginning to reclaim their sexuality. When you look at everything that’s happened with the SlutWalk, Daniel Tosh’s rape jokes and even the abusive game made against Anita Sarkeesian, women have been made to feel inferior simply because we are women. But women around the world are speaking out against this in large scales, instead choosing to own their sexuality.
“Men have been in power and women have been suppressed and we were not allowed to explore our sexuality because it made us whores,” Metcalfe says. “If we try to empower ourselves and be sexual beings we look like even more of a whore. But, in some cases, we look like we know what we’re talking about. We’re on the cusp right now. This is the tipping point of female sexuality.”
When I arrive at her home office, Metcalfe’s packaging up purchases in preparation for a delivery back to the party host. She places 50 Shades of Grey inspired faux leather wrist and ankle bondage gear in one bag, a vibrator called the Jack Rabbit in another, and lotions and massage oils in another. She writes the girls’ names on the bags, which are the same opaqueness and impossible to see inside.
“There are a lot of people who need this side of them to be drawn out. It was surprising, but it’s also given me another facet of this business that I love. Now I get to be the person that brings them out of their shell. I become a therapist to these people,” Metcalfe says. “I spend so much time in the room with those girls they open up to me about their sex lives. They tell me what they like, what they don’t like, why they’re frustrated with their partner and I try to talk them through it.”
That’s the whole point of Passion Parties — to show women how liberating and comfortable talking about sex and buying sex toys can be. They’re designed to encourage women to explore their sexuality and enhance the relationships and intimacy they have with their partners and themselves.
But it’s also about empowering the consultant who runs her Passion Party business independently. Metcalfe’s is called Passion By Lesley. She has six-month sales quota she needs to meet and incentives if she exceeds them. A tiered marketing company, Passion Party consultants can have other consultants beneath them and gain additional revenue. This extra income comes from Passion Parties not from the other consultants. Some of her fellow consultants make six figures annually. Metcalfe has a couple consultants she supports, but she focuses more on the education side and applying skills she’s gained as a consultant to her every day life and career.
“Ever since I started doing Passion Parties, the confidence I’ve gained in those presentations has actually given me more confidence at the office,” Metcalfe says. “When I’m running my own business I’m doing everything. I’m doing the marketing and the advertising. I’m placing the orders myself. I’m doing the shipping and the distribution, of course the presentation and the client acquisition. I see every aspect of running a business and that also helps me at the office.”
The Lelo Soraya is one of the brand name toys Passion Parties carry in addition to the company’s own line of product.I was working at a restaurant when I first encountered Passion Parties. A lively group of women were in town for a company-wide conference and they left me samples of lubricants, nipple nibblers and suggestive card game pieces as part of my tip. Shortly after, a friend invited me to a Passion Party and soon after that, I hosted one of my own. They can be fun and silly due to the nature of the party (nothing says blushing cheeks like passing a wiggly vibrator to your sister), but ultimately they have a way of making you feel confident and sexy — and that’s a powerful thing.
“There is a way you can use your sexuality to put confidence in yourself,” Metcalfe says. “If you take that a step beyond, once you get to know your own body and you get to know yourself, you portray that. Sensuality and sexuality leads to confidence. When people see that I’m confident in my own skin that comes across as my sensuality and sexuality. People are attracted to that.”
The majority of the product line is for heterosexual couples, but Passion Parties has started introducing more gay and lesbian friendly toys including vibrators that don’t look like penises (see above). An American company from the South, they don’t hide the fact that they’re mostly straight but the new products show a shift in sexuality from a North American perspective. The extensive line of straight couples-friendly products does not detract from the plethora of products meant for self-satisfaction or same sex romping. Strap-ons and double-ended dildos oblige.
The one thing Metcalfe makes clear throughout our interview is how important she feels her work is — and how important Passion Parties views selling sex toys in a comfortable way. “They have a very vocal stance on this being an accepted thing to do. Be proud of your business. Be confident. Talk about it all the time and don’t shy away from it. Passion consultants are doing a service. We’re trying to empower women,” she says.
At the end of the day, Passion Parties bring us back to our primal roots and animal instincts, but strong consultants show us how to take that comfort and confidence outside the bedroom. It’s just like Audrey Hepburn said, “There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don’t need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.”
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Sheena Lyonnais is Toronto Standard’s Tech and Business Editor. You can follow her on Twitter at @SheenaLyonnais.
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