Page 17 - AVN Intimate fall 2016

By Kim Airs
A Friend In Deed
Pleasure product purveyor celebrates the woman who started it all
everyone you know could share the joy in knowing. One
There are not many people you meet in life that you wish
of those people in my life was Joani Blank, the subtle
yet outspoken founder of the revolutionary store Good
Vibrations, who passed away at home on August 6.
Joani was always the outspoken and generous woman who
questioned things and created worlds where none existed before. In
the field of sexuality and sex education, Joani was truly a pioneer. A
native of Belmont, Massachusetts, Joani had a no-nonsense, matter-
of-fact personality, which reflected her upbringing in the Boston
suburb. After attending Oberlin College, majoring in anthropology
and sociology, where she remained a proud alumnus her whole life,
she wound up in the San Francisco area in the 1960s.
Her candidness around sexuality during the ’60s revolution of
free love never seceded from Joani’s life. She never understood why
sexuality and sex was considered taboo and while combining that
outlook with her sociology skills, created a publishing company
called Down There Press, a play on the term which people use
often refer to their genitalia. Down There Press’ first book was The
Playbook for Women About Sex, published in 1975.
And a playbook it was! Featuring simple line drawings with
quizzes and fill-in-the-blanks (no pun intended), the book created
a comfortable atmosphere for women to explore their feelings,
attitudes and bodies when it came to sex. In 1976 the companion
book, The Playbook for Men About Sex, came out, followed by The
Playbook for Kids in 1978.
But something happened in between. Joani realized there was
no “clean, well lighted place” for women to shop for vibrators and
sex toys in San Francisco, so in 1977, she opened the first location of
Good Vibrations in the then-seedy Mission area of the city. History
was made.
The store expanded to a larger storefront on Valencia in the
Mission soon after. Believing that women needed to try out
vibrators in order to be comfortable with them before buying
one, Joani encouraged women to experiment in the bathroom of the
store. With a hand-printed sign on the wall asking women to try the
vibrators over their clothes, the “try out room” remained a staple of
Good Vibrations for many years. For many women, Joani changed
their lives by giving them permission that this was OK to do.
She also changed the world of sex toys. During the early years
of Good Vibrations, the only ones available were hard plastic,
cylindrical vibrators generally created for internal stimulation.
Joani always knew that many women obtained their pleasure from
external, clitoral vibration and while a cylindrical vibe could do
that, something that was created strictly for hands-free clitoral
stimulation did not exist. So Joani came up with the world’s first
hands-free, strapped-on clitoral vibrator, simply called “Joani’s
Butterfly.” Yep. The very first one. And yes, I owned one, and yes, it
rocked my world.
In 1992, I had also believed that Boston needed a change as
there were no other “clean, well lighted” places for women to buy
vibrators in the Boston area and I wanted to change that. The only
way I could learn about these stores was to apprentice in one and
that store was Good Vibrations in San Francisco.
In keeping with Joani’s philosophy of sharing, she had recently
shifted the store from being the sole owner to becoming one of the
first co-operative stores in the Bay Area, making the workers of the
store, owners as well. The staff embraced Joani’s business outlook
Friendly Vibe Longtime colleagues Shar Rednour and Dr. Carol Queen with Joani Blank
and enthusiastically accepted my application to become the second apprentice
at the store. That was in March 1993.
And that’s when Joani and I became friends. She generously shared with
me her deep business acumen, her attitude about creating a store like Good
Vibrations (and subsequently my store, Grand Opening!) and advised me in
so many ways on how to navigate the world of sexuality retail: to be inclusive
and honestly, with clarity and a good dose of humor.
I had originally planned on having the store open to only women, similar to
what my East Coast mentor, Dell Williams of Eve’s Garden (which opened in
1972), had done. Joani questioned doing that, advising me, “You’re creating a
store that sleazy guys won’t want to go to because there’s nothing tantalizing
for them there!” She again was spot-on.
We also shared our passion for Boston and during her many trips back east
to visit her family, Joani would check on my store to see how things were
going. I’d lunch with her sister (also a resident of Brookline, where my store
was located) as well as with her parents. She was the friend of everyone she
met.
After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June and realizing she
did not have long to live, she gave away many of her possessions, and after
making sure her daughter and grandchildren were going to be taken care
of, proudly donated her savings to socially minded organizations in need,
encouraging others to do the same. She wanted to have a gathering of her
friends so she organized her 79th birthday party in July (which I proudly
attended) and held her own Celebration of Life a week before her passing. She
didn’t believe in her own funeral because, during a conversation we had after
her diagnosis, she shared, “What will I care? I’ll be dead!” That’s true Joani if
there ever was!
Summing up Joani’s life cannot be done on mere words on a page. She
touched thousands of people through her philosophy, generosity, honesty,
sincerity, brevity, bluntness, brilliance, fierceness, kindness, spirituality and,
most of all, sexuality.
So the next time you use or sell a hands-free clitoral vibrator, remember
the woman pioneer who started it all, my friend and now yours, Joani Blank.
Godspeed.
FALL 2016 | INTIMATE | 17