Fun & Famous

THE VIBRATOR FILES

if someone suddenly finds your sex toy

I once gave an interview to the Volkskrant where the unusual headline ‘Every emancipated woman has the right to a vibrator’ was placed above it. This remark was quite taken out of context, making it seem as if I was the president of the vibrator association. In reality, I had spoken about a report in Marie Claire that was received with much praise by the Paris headquarters, and I jokingly said that every independent woman deserves a vibrator.

And I stand completely behind that. As long as most men think that the clitoris is a stain that needs to be scrubbed out of the carpet, a small sex toy can provide tremendous relief. I had a colleague who was so happy with her Tarzan that she shared that loudly and clearly with the entire editorial team. “It's just that he doesn't take out the trash, but otherwise I really wouldn't need a man anymore.” Then she looked at me and asked if I might want to borrow it for a night.

I declined because aside from hygiene, it remains a slightly uncomfortable topic. Especially if someone accidentally finds it. Enter: the vibrator files.

Colleague M worked at Viva and of course received a Tarzan (for years the gift for subscribers) for her birthday. It was lying somewhere in a closet in her bedroom under the dust, but when she was moving, ‘that thing’ had to come along too. In a moving box it was awkward, because it could easily be unpacked by her Christian mother-in-law. She decided to roll it in her duvet and put that in a box. In her new house, she heard loud laughter coming from her bedroom. Her boyfriend's brothers thought they were doing a good deed by putting the duvet on the bed...

Friend O had stocked up on a few vibrators with her boyfriend. Just doing a small comparative study in bed. Why she still doesn't know, but when they went for a weekend to her mother-in-law, they took the whole oeuvre along for fun. And my friend is not necessarily super tidy, which is also important to know. During lunch, my friend suddenly became extremely ill. Vomiting, fainting; everything that comes with it. Immediately, the inner nurse woke up in her mother-in-law, so she lifted her in a professional grip, hup, into the guest bed. Indeed, where two small vibrators were waiting for her. “That's a flashlight...,” my friend managed to squeeze out. No matter how sick she was, this misunderstanding had to be corrected.

And then another awkward situation from my own box. My beloved and I once came up with a format about bed & breakfasts in France. Because we are quite good at combining the useful with the pleasant, we went bed and breakfast hopping in France for a month. In a kiosk, we saw a magazine with the catchy headline: ‘Sex chambre d’hôtes’. We found it hilarious and good for research, because that would make for fun television. When I paid for the magazine, the shopkeeper turned red in the face, and it was then that I noticed that the magazine was wrapped in foil and that there were bars over the heads. This terribly dirty magazine became the running gag of our vacation. When I was in the bath and asked my beloved for something to read, he came up with this magazine.

Our last bed & breakfast was a very special one. We slept in the castle that once belonged to Alain Prost. Now, two older people lived there with their slender racing dogs. The master of the house composed music to the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke. Something my beloved and he could talk about for hours, because Rilke, yes, he was a master. My beloved had even been to his grave once. The master of the house thought that was wonderful.

On the morning of departure, my beloved spent some time in the bathroom. The question was whether I could bring something to read. So off I went again with our filthy magazine. Laughing, joking, roaring. You know me.

Until we crossed the Dutch border and I felt the temperature of my heart drop to -10 and my throat was being squeezed shut by seven hands. “Darling... that magazine... You did tidy it up, right?” He thought I did, I thought he did. Turning back was not an option, because the diligent hostess had certainly been in our room long ago. So we could do nothing but be ashamed, laugh nervously, be ashamed, and laugh even more.

Madam from the castle of Alain Prost, should you read this. We are really quite decent people. It was for fun. And for research.

Amen.