Fifty Shades of Trojans

Church & Dwight apparently owes some thanks to the “Fifty Shades” series of erotic novels. On second-quarter earnings call, CEO Jim Craigie says he’s pleased with distribution and sales of the Trojan brand’s Vibrations line of sexual devices, “which we believe has been aided by the popularity of the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ novel.”

Church & Dwight estimates that the devices are a $300 million category, and with no major branded player, hopes to capture a pretty big share of that.

The conference call only made one Fifty Shades reference, but it did confirm that TROJAN would be expanding (heh) into the vibrator market, and made a direct reference to the erotic book:

We are also pursuing two of our high margin white space categories to help drive the company's future growth. First is the vibrator category which is over $300 million in size with no major branded players. We first entered this category in 2005 with our iconic TROJAN brand. And this year, we are launching full-sized vibrators in the new channel. We are very pleased with the distribution and sales gains at our entire vibrations line, which we believe has been aided by the popularity of the Fifty Shades of Grey Novel.

We're not sure how big a role condoms play in Fifty Shades of Grey...at this point, it just seems like the entire sex industry wants to pin its success on E.L. James. Does she get a royalty check every time someone over 40 has sex now?

This sounds painful...but maybe that's the point (TMZ.com)

"Fifty Shades of Grey Linked to Vagina Ball Explosion" read the headline of a TMZ article today that wasn't about a gala held for older women's lady parts. (That would be a Vagina gala.)

After our eyes finished bleeding, we managed to get to the actual subject matter: sex toys like Ben Wah balls have been on the rise since E.L. James' Twilight erotic fan fiction-cum-bestseller featured them in her story of Christian Grey and his light bondage sex slave, Anastasia Steele. But can we chalk up the rise of sex toys to just 50 Shades?

The popular sexy book is more of a symptom of a larger trend in women cumming out of the closet (so to speak). Or at least taking their vibrators out of the bureau, where they were hidden under old underwear. Over the past two years, there's been a surge on sex toys, turning a once fringe commodity into a $15 billion industry, with a 30% growth rate worldwide. And this is during a recession, no less!

This sounds painful...but maybe that's the point (TMZ.com)

Chalk it up to the ability to order your JimmyJane or Hitachi over the Internet instead of driving out of your suburbs in search of a plaything. As a recent press release by The Adult Novelty Groupnoted in a recent article about the subject:

This makes awkward conversations with clerks a thing of the past, which is a huge relief to female consumers. At sites such as www.mypleasure.com the device is described in a thorough and helpful manner, which makes the purchasing decisions much simpler than in a brick and mortar store.

But let's not underplay the part of pop culture: from the recent Hysteria--with Hugh Dancy as the handsome creator of the vibrator (to paraphrase Girls: 'He is a sex tool') -- to plugs in shows like Real Housewives, and celebrity promotions, 50 Shades of Grey is only the latest example of the de-stigmatizing of your battery-operated best friend.

So how's business going now that the store's been open a couple months?

"We're doubling our sales projections," says Claire Cavanah, one of Babeland's owners. "We were conservative about how the sales volume would be, but it's almost been effortless."

Cavanah says the chainlet's "meat-and-potato" items like the Magic Wand and Rabbit vibrators are top sellers in the Slope, and the store has surprised her by selling a lot of luxury toys priced at more than $100 and "designed for a lifestyle crowd."

Despite the negative reaction about the changing table from Focus on the Family-types, Cavanah says people are bringing infants into the store, and their "Sexy Mama" workshop series has been well received.

"People are so hysterical about kids and sex, and some articles made it seem like we were opening a kid-friendly sex shop," she says. "One person came in with a 7-year-old girl, and my staff was like, 'You know what kind of store this is, right?' It's a parenting issue, though, and we turn away minors who come in without their parents."

One of the things that's pleased Cavanah most about the store is that it's drawing customers from all over Brooklyn.

"We've gotten people from Coney Island, crowds of women from Bushwick and other places deep in the borough," she says. "The Park Slope people would have found their way to our Manhattan stores anyway. It belongs to the borough."