Just what type of businesses do Vermont women start? Financial consulting, marketing firm, or retail store — perhaps. But there’s also a new business in town: the “Adult Novelties and Romance Enhancers” business, featuring adult home parties.

Yes, even in Vermont. And, according to two women — one who has been in the business for two years, and another who spent one year in the business — it can be a very lucrative enterprise.

Michele Allard is Sales Director at For Your Pleasure, a Concord, NH adult novelties and romance enhancer company. Allard lives in Essex Junction and has been in the business of adult home parties for about two years. “It’s a great business for someone – with a good sense of humor – who wants to make great extra money. There are not many jobs where you can let your hair down.” Allard does four parties a month on average, with sales typically totalling approximately $700 per month.

Start-up and monthly costs can be minimal. For a ‘home show sales consultant’ at For Your Pleasure, start-up costs include a product kit for the show; a one-time application fee of $25; and monthly fees for website and credit card processing. The return on this investment can be quite high. Commissions range from 35 to 60 percent, depending upon how you work your business.

Stacy Sweet of St. Albans spent a year as a hostess for adult home parties. She, also, found the adult home party business lucrative, as well as personally satisfying. “When I went somewhere, everybody was happy,” Stacy laughed. “I sat with women for two hours who just laughed the whole time... and who were much happier, once their stuff arrived! You know, spreading joy!”

Did Sweet have methods for getting people to loosen up before beginning the demonstrations of her product line? “I would suggest to people who do drink that they have a glass or two of wine an hour or so before I get there so they are less inhibited. It was always the ones who I’d look at and think they’d have a harder time — a little uptight — who would really surprise me by the amount they ordered,” says Sweet. In addition, she would propose different types of games to kick off the soiree. Sexual trivia games, for example, through which Sweet says she learned how “little” most people know about basic human anatomy. Or, in a twist on the game that Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn played at the Parisian nightclub in the movie Charade, Sweet calls upon her guests to try passing anatomically-correct merchandise between their legs, no hands allowed. Giggles and guffaws inevitably ensue.

Sweet believes she easily could have earned $50,000 to $60,000 per year if she had put more effort into the business by taking on more parties. But three or four parties on a Saturday, in different areas of northern Vermont, were not possible for one person to handle.

“Unfortunately, adult home parties are a weekend event — that’s why I want a store,” Sweet explains. Her goal is to have an elegant adult store that caters specifically to women, somewhere in the Burlington area. She envisions a boutique with couches, chairs and, of course love seats, in a relaxing atmosphere, with products available – but not “in-your-face” as she puts it. While Vermonters currently have various stores from which to purchase adult products and toys, Sweet believes hers’ would be unique with its spa-like, boutique atmosphere, offering oils, aromatherapy products as well as the adult products.

A New York Times piece, “Triumph of the Bad Girls,” appeared recently in the Sunday Styles section. According to the story, “Women, it seems, have finally upended the double standard that allows scandal-slagged men to re-emerge to a hero’s welcome while the ladies are pushed back down into the muck.” Still, sexual indiscretion, or even innuendo, affects the public lives of women more than it does men. Vanessa Williams and Lisa Bonet’s soft-core nudity scenes almost ended their careers; Janet Jackson also comes to mind — and Anita Hill. Meanwhile, Clarence Thomas, Bill Clinton and a host of sexual adventurers, including R. Kelly and Marv Albert – who was back on the air a year after a girlfriend accused him of biting her and forcing her to perform oral sex – came through scandals in good repair.

Does this sexual double standard affect Allard and Sweet? So far it has not been a problem, they say. They receive calls from people who would like to “host” a party, a la Tupperware – and most of these parties are attended by people like your next door neighbor. Yes. Really. Both Allard and Sweet found that most people attending the parties (both women and men) are either married or in committed relationships. There are also those who like to go it alone, so to speak. In terms of age, Sweet reports that the group who tended to buy the most were women forty and over.

Is the adult home party business good for women? Both Allard and Sweet believe that it is. The hours are flexible. If you have children, as both these women do, you can spend quality time with them during the day, and work your party schedule around your family and personal requirements.

One concern that Sweet admits she had was of safety. Since she was contacted through word-of-mouth, she always brought along a friend with her to the parties she accepted – though she is pleased to report that she never did have a bad experience. Anyone who did try anything might have had a tough time: to be in the business of adult novelties is to get your fair share of weight training. Allard has four large valises full of products that she brings to demonstrate. Sweet estimates that her merchandise weighs thirty-five pounds. She used one big suitcase on wheels for toys, a smaller one for the lotions and potions.

Is it a business for the faint of heart? No, but as Michele Allard and Stacy Sweet have taught us, you need a sense of humor to gently welcome people into the wonderful world of day-glo vibrators and chocolate thongs. Americans still tend to be a rather prudish lot in matters of sex and nudity.... but these party-girls are dedicated to spreading the joy.

Confessions of an Early Evening Sex Toy Party Hostess

For the cause of journalistic integrity, it was important that we investigate the world of adult novelties and romance enhancers for ourselves, so I decided to “host” a party myself. But that meant... inviting people. Thankfully I had this whole research-alibi thing to protect my reputation. After all, I was about to beg friends of twenty years, co-workers – and even new acquaintances I’d met once at the Thrush – to show up, sip a mimosa, and listen politely to our “Avon Lady” while she gave us her schtick.

To sweeten the pot, I decided not to hold the party at my apartment, but instead booked a suite at a local hotel, replete with fireplace and, I told my friends – there’s a pool and jacuzzi you can use before or after the demos! I was so worried that I would build it, but that they wouldn’t come. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun doing it this way, it felt so clandestine and rebellious. Would that fellow Vladimir at the front desk get wise to what I was up to when woman after woman showed up asking for the Novelty and Romance Enhancer Suite?

You won’t have to buy anything, I hastened to say on the invitation. Although, I did ask the pleasure rep, “What if no one buys anything?” She answered confidently, from experience: that never happens. She was right. My favorite memory from the evening was the refrain by the catalog-clutching group, as a particularly crowd-pleasing product was held up for display, “Now what page is that one on?!”

It was all good. I didn’t get kicked out of the hotel from all the giggling and squealing, and my guests went home happy after all. What’s more, a dozen others who couldn’t make it are insistent that I host another one.

A newspaper woman’s work is never done.

Having a Party Because I Can

–––This Ain’t Texas

When Joanne Webb of Burleson, Texas became a consultant in June 2003 for Passion Parties, a San Francisco-based company, she probably didn’t anticipate that she’d end up arrested for it. But that’s just

what happened, by two undercover police officers po sing as a married couple. They asked her about buying certain anatomically-correct toys, and she was “stung” when she described how the devices could be used. Apparently in Texas you aren’t supposed to use a dildo for sexual pleasure –– they are a “novelty item” only. What can you expect? This is the state that brought us the self-proclaimed phone pal of God, and features a so-called “County of Character” represented in the state legislature by individuals who admit to having never read To Kill a Mockingbird themselves but assert that if it has certain naughty words, then it doesn’t belong in Texas schools.

For an excellent article on this entire saga and the chilling implications it has for us all, see “The Passion of Johnson County – Long-legged tales from the County of Character” by P.A. Humphrey, which appeared in the Texas Observer on May 21, 2004: www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1651

Not Your Mother’s Tupperware Party

Confessions of an Early Evening Sex Toy Party Hostess

Having a Party Because I Can

–––This Ain’t Texas