This story is mortifying.
It's Christmas break and my friend was at the airport going home. As always, she got pegged for the extra security check and was pulled aside. Amidst the security personnel was one woman while the rest were men. As the woman began scanning my friend, who was spread-eagle with her arms at her side, she noticed a man going through her bag. Not thinking anything of it, she sees him pull out the neck of a shirt. She froze. That is where she had placed her vibrator.
Before he noticed, he whips it out with such force that it goes airborne. Watching it turn in the air, the vibrator lands on the ground on a ramp. As the vibrator rolls down the ramp, the security guard runs after it. When he finally retrieves it he places it back into the bag and hands my friend her belongings. As she turns to walk away the man awkwardly smiles and says, "What's up?" My friend was mortified.
She had taken a leap of faith, questioning the boundaries between personal products and national news, when such a private belonging comes to the public eye because of public safety. Although she was planning on using her vibrator for personal purposes over the vacation, she had never assumed that a vibrator in this day and age could be considered a weapon.
As more and more members of both sexes flock to the stores to buy sex toys, it becomes apparent that sex is ever-increasingly prevalent in the media. Sex is all over - on the news, at the Super Bowl, in our magazines and TV shows. In effect, sex sells. So why are people still ashamed to talk about it?
I was watching a documentary on HBO a couple of nights ago that discussed sex and how the toys, attitudes and acceptance has changed over the years. The host was discussing how vibrators used to be used in doctors' offices to cure hysteria. People believed that the woman's uterus was floating in her stomach and that the only way to cure this was to make a woman orgasm. Imagine going to the doctor's office and getting a "professional" massage. Nowadays, going to the doctor's office means not only meeting with your own doctor, but sitting with another woman to make sure nothing obtrusive occurs. Something must have happened along the way that drove both men and women to be ashamed of pleasing oneself behind closed doors.
It seems to me as though my friend was testing society's limits when she decided to bring her vibrator on the plane with her. To one extent, maybe she was trying to get away with her secret sexuality. Knowing that the vibrator was in her bag was so taboo that just having it in there gave her self-satisfaction of knowing others may find out. It is a way for her to express herself without actually presenting the object in public.
Or maybe she was planning on having a secret thrill in the plane's bathroom. Sex on a plane has always been a contested subject: Becoming a member of the mile-high club is a priority in many people's eyes. During the middle of her flight she could hide in the bathroom and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that she might be caught at anytime.
Yet I don't believe that any of these reasons is the main one. I believe that my friend took her vibrator with her on the plane because she didn't think anything of it. To her, the vibrator is not just a tool, but is a friend: a sense of solace in a world where relationships can often control you. The vibrator represents more. It represents a way for members of both sexes to enjoy themselves in the privacy of their own home.
General society believes that the ownership of such a device construes certain characteristics of a human being. According to them, people who pleasure themselves are dirty; whether it is for religious, moral or cultural reasons. I do not believe this is true. Pleasuring oneself is a private affair, and furthermore, I believe that it offers the individual a valid release of tension. People need ways to express themselves, and pleasuring oneself is a natural form of self-expression.
So if you ever walk in on someone using her vibrator, or just happen to be at an airport when one goes flying through the air, remember that vibrators are not merely plastic. With a vibrator, one can express and relieve themselves in ways others may not be able to help with.
