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Behind the Scenes at Babeland: an Interview with Rebecca, our NYC Workshop Coordinator
That's what I thought. So from now on, once a month, I (Abby, your trusty Web Editor) will be posting an interview here, on the Babeland Blog, with one of the six staff pickers. This month, we've got Rebecca, our NYC Workshop Coordinator. Around here, we've long known how awesome she is. I think you'll agree. Read on!
Abby: Let's start at the very beginning. What first brought you to Babeland?
Rebecca: I became pretty obsessed with Babeland when I was in college. I was a peer sexual health counselor and was in the middle of the long process of analyzing, untangling, and revaluing the contradictory beliefs I held about sex. But I also held a lot of sex-negative beliefs that I hadn't examined. One of those was that I had somehow absorbed the idea that sex toys are fake, false, unnatural and even anti-feminist. But then someone introduced me to Babeland, which was both selling sex toys and clearly framing that work in feminist terms. I had to reassess those beliefs about sex toys, and thank god I did! I’ve been here for four years now, and I’ve been the NYC Workshop Coordinator for a few months.
A: Four years – that’s a chunk of time. A lot of people seem to stay at Babeland for years and years. What keeps you here?
R: Well, I think we're all set up for terrible disappointment with sex. It's this whole confluence of messages that sets up huge expectations and gives us no tools to get there. We're told sex just happens. That it's impossible to describe an orgasm (or being in love) but you'll just know when it happens because everything will change. That there is one kind of sex with one set of bodies that works for everyone. That a good female lover doesn't talk about sex, doesn’t ask for anything, and certainly doesn't need "help" from a toy. Of course, none of this is true. I love that our customers have figured out, in a whole bunch of different ways, that those messages are inadequate. And I love that in the workshops, we get an extended period of time to teach techniques, so that no one has to magically know how to have earth-shattering sex. We do those things outside of workshops too, with individual customers, but I particularly like how a workshop gives us time with our customers to really get to a different level of content.
A: Walk us through a day in the life of the NYC Workshop Coordinator.
R: I coordinate the in-store workshops and train our staff teachers, so a typical day for me involves some time spent writing or editing workshop curricula, running through workshops and giving the teachers feedback, meetings with the marketing team, some time spent analyzing sales numbers, and then a lot of physical work setting up chairs and moving things around to turn the store into a classroom.
A: Do you teach workshops, too?
R: Sometimes. I'm one of the teachers for private workshops and toy parties. Those are very different from the more formal in-store workshops. I go in with a loose plan about what I'm going to cover, but the participants always have so many questions about sex that they've just been dying to ask. I love teaching those because I really feel like I'm helping these groups of friends to have a different kind of supportive way to talk to each other about sex.
A: So you really do a lot at Babeland.
R: I do! Everyone here does. And I also work as a Sex Educator/Sales Associate. I've done that part of my job for almost four years. This involves answering customers' questions about sex, their bodies, and sex toys -- questions they often have never asked anyone before, or they've asked and gotten shaming or incorrect information. I spend a lot of time trying to positively reframe the anxieties and concerns that customers have about sex, and to teach them what they want to know along the way.
A: Do any interactions stand out in particular? What’s your favorite memory of helping a customer?
R: There have been so many that I don't know where to start! Recently, a woman told me sheepishly that she wasn’t having orgasms. Since she had a vibrator already but said it was way too weak, she settled on the Hitachi Magic Wand. We also talked about Babeland Silicone Smartballs to strengthen the PC muscles, and lube to make all kinds of sex feel better. Then she pulled me away from other people and said quietly, "It’s also about my frame of mind. I didn't have sex before marriage, because I’m religious. I've just spent so many years thinking sex is dirty that now I can't get over that!" We had a great conversation, and she gravitated to Moregasm – I hope it’s helped her. I also felt good about being able to address her concerns even though I don’t come from a religious background, and not having sex before marriage was never something I even considered.
A: Speaking of your background, how did your parents react when you told them you work at Babeland?
R: Well, they've gotten more supportive than they were at first. They know I've been in sex ed for a long time, and they respect that to me this is a political act, even if it doesn't exactly make sense to them. Now my father likes shocking his friends by telling them I work in a sex shop and then explaining it isn't anything like the seedy shops they've probably seen. Still, my parents have never been in any of the stores. I want them to see the space and realize how different it really is.
A: My mother sometimes comes to the stores now, which is simultaneously unnerving and really nice. It took me two years of working at Babeland to come out to my parents about it, way longer than coming out to them about being queer. We had never really talked about sex when I was growing up, so it was strange to have that conversation in terms of my work life.
R: My parents didn’t talk about sex much around the kids, but my siblings and I at least knew they thought it was a bad idea to wait until you were married to have sex. My dad decided one day to give my teenage sister advice on where to go for a hypothetical honeymoon: “Don’t go to a deserted island with nothing to do. You’re going to need other interesting things to do together because by your honeymoon you will have had sex with your spouse HUNDREDS of times!”
A: That’s a great lesson, in a way. Tell us something you’ve learned through your work at Babeland.
R: When I started working at Babeland, I thought I was really sex-positive already. But then I started realizing that I had let in more of the larger sex-negative culture than I thought.
A: It’s kind of unavoidable, sadly.
R: Yes. The kind of thing I used to believe, which I’m almost embarrassed to tell you: I somehow still believed around that time that it was a nice side effect of the AIDS crisis that it closed the bathhouses, because I bought into the idea that those had been places of inappropriate out-of-control sexuality that needed to be shut down. I can’t believe I thought there was such a thing as a good side effect of an epidemic, and that I was so invested in policing other people’s sexuality.
A: And policing pleasure. We have so many ingrained ideas about what people should and shouldn’t enjoy, and we freely pathologize the latter.
R: Yes, and I didn’t come to teaching about sex through a belief in pleasure. I had started teaching safer sex workshops in high school because I wanted my peers to have the information they needed to be safe. In one of Patrick Califia’s books, he points out that this difference in stance is important – teaching from pleasure vs. teaching from fear. I hadn't thought of it that way before. In many ways, this changed why I wanted to teach about sex and in turn made me a better sex educator. I still teach people about safer sex, but it isn't to scare them; it's so they have the tools to keep themselves safe while still getting to have amazing sex. It’s a difference in attitude and motivation.
A: Absolutely. Finally, my favorite question: what are your favorite slang terms for genitalia?
R: I really like the words pussy and cunt for two reasons. One, I don't like cutesy words that sound like you're scared to say what you're really talking about. And two, I like reclaimed words that were (and in other contexts still are) insults.
A: Anything else you want to say to our readers?
R: The longer I work here, the more I see that many people haven’t even been taught basic reproduction, and have been taught not to look at their own bodies. The internet gives access to lots of information about sex, but many people don't know where to find reliable info, or don't know that what they've been taught is incorrect, or are too ashamed to learn more about sex at all! I want more people to know there is a lot to learn about sex, and we’re one of the more reliable sources; it's fascinating, it’s changed my life, and it can change yours.shops. I go in with a loose plan about what I'm going to cover, but the participants always have so many questions about sex that they've just been dying to ask. I love teaching those because I really feel like I'm helping these groups of friends to have a different kind of supportive way to talk to each other about sex.
A: So you really do a lot at Babeland.
R: I do! Everyone here does. And I also work as a Sex Educator/Sales Associate. I've done that part of my job for almost four years. This involves answering customers' questions about sex, their bodies, and sex toys -- questions they often have never asked anyone before, or they've asked and gotten shaming or incorrect information. I spend a lot of time trying to positively reframe the anxieties and concerns that customers have about sex, and to teach them what they want to know along the way.
A: Do any interactions stand out in particular? What’s your favorite memory of helping a customer?
R: There have been so many that I don't know where to start! Recently, a woman told me sheepishly that she wasn’t having orgasms. Since she had a vibrator already but said it was way too weak, she settled on the Hitachi Magic Wand. We also talked about Babeland Silicone Smartballs to strengthen the PC muscles, and lube to make all kinds of sex feel better. Then she pulled me away from other people and said quietly, "It’s also about my frame of mind. I didn't have sex before marriage, because I’m religious. I've just spent so many years thinking sex is dirty that now I can't get over that!" We had a great conversation, and she gravitated to Moregasm – I hope it’s helped her. I also felt good about being able to address her concerns even though I don’t come from a religious background, and not having sex before marriage was never something I even considered.
A: Speaking of your background, how did your parents react when you told them you work at Babeland?
R: Well, they've gotten more supportive than they were at first. They know I've been in sex ed for a long time, and they respect that to me this is a political act, even if it doesn't exactly make sense to them. Now my father likes shocking his friends by telling them I work in a sex shop and then explaining it isn't anything like the seedy shops they've probably seen. Still, my parents have never been in any of the stores. I want them to see the space and realize how different it really is.
A: My mother sometimes comes to the stores now, which is simultaneously unnerving and really nice. It took me two years of working at Babeland to come out to my parents about it, way longer than coming out to them about being queer. We had never really talked about sex when I was growing up, so it was strange to have that conversation in terms of my work life.
R: My parents didn’t talk about sex much around the kids, but my siblings and I at least knew they thought it was a bad idea to wait until you were married to have sex. My dad decided one day to give my teenage sister advice on where to go for a hypothetical honeymoon: “Don’t go to a deserted island with nothing to do. You’re going to need other interesting things to do together because by your honeymoon you will have had sex with your spouse HUNDREDS of times!”
A: That’s a great lesson, in a way. Tell us something you’ve learned through your work at Babeland.
R: When I started working at Babeland, I thought I was really sex-positive already. But then I started realizing that I had let in more of the larger sex-negative culture than I thought.
A: It’s kind of unavoidable, sadly.
R: Yes. The kind of thing I used to believe, which I’m almost embarrassed to tell you: I somehow still believed around that time that it was a nice side effect of the AIDS crisis that it closed the bathhouses, because I bought into the idea that those had been places of inappropriate out-of-control sexuality that needed to be shut down. I can’t believe I thought there was such a thing as a good side effect of an epidemic, and that I was so invested in policing other people’s sexuality.
A: And policing pleasure. We have so many ingrained ideas about what people should and shouldn’t enjoy, and we freely pathologize the latter.
R: Yes, and I didn’t come to teaching about sex through a belief in pleasure. I had started teaching safer sex workshops in high school because I wanted my peers to have the information they needed to be safe. In one of Patrick Califia’s books, he points out that this difference in stance is important – teaching from pleasure vs. teaching from fear. I hadn't thought of it that way before. In many ways, this changed why I wanted to teach about sex and in turn made me a better sex educator. I still teach people about safer sex, but it isn't to scare them; it's so they have the tools to keep themselves safe while still getting to have amazing sex. It’s a difference in attitude and motivation.
A: Absolutely. Finally, my favorite question: what are your favorite slang terms for genitalia?
R: I really like the words pussy and cunt for two reasons. One, I don't like cutesy words that sound like you're scared to say what you're really talking about. And two, I like reclaimed words that were (and in other contexts still are) insults.
A: Anything else you want to say to our readers?
R: The longer I work here, the more I see that many people haven’t even been taught basic reproduction, and have been taught not to look at their own bodies. The internet gives access to lots of information about sex, but many people don't know where to find reliable info, or don't know that what they've been taught is incorrect, or are too ashamed to learn more about sex at all! I want more people to know there is a lot to learn about sex, and we’re one of the more reliable sources; it's fascinating, it’s changed my life, and it can change yours.
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