The Playbook for Kids about Sex by Joani Blank

In founding Good Vibrations, Blank brought to life an alternative vision of what a vibrator shop could be-wholesome, comfy, and women-friendly, with an emphasis on sexual education. When I asked her for the umpteenth time where the idea to start a vibrator shop for women came from, she said, in a characteristically Joani Blank fashion: “Me being smart.” As we sat on the floor of her bedroom loft, she told me the story of Down There Press, which she founded in 1975, and we flipped through the pages of some of the books she’d written, including The Playbook for Women About Sex, The Playbook for Men About Sex, and A Kid’s First Book About Sex. Surrounded by boxes of memos, news clippings, letters, and ephemera, we talked about her family, her travels, her work with Planned Parenthood, her passion for cohousing, and how she ended up having an FBI file. Last December I spent a week at her home in Oakland, California, helping her organize her papers to donate to Cornell University’s Human Sexuality Collection.

I interviewed her numerous times over the years, getting to know her well in the process. I met Blank more than a decade ago when I was working on my PhD dissertation on the history of feminist sex-toy stores. Good Vibrations founder Joani Blank died at home on August 6 from pancreatic cancer. Just down the street from a women’s cafe and a feminist bookstore that were part of the burgeoning women’s district, the store, at the time, was gaining attention in the local press for its head spinning array of sexual products and the disarmingly charming woman who ran it, sex educator and therapist Joani Blank.ĭespite the store’s humble appearance, Good Vibrations would eventually become a standard bearer in an industry with few standards, a clearinghouse for sexual information in a sexually anemic culture, and an inspiration to feminist and queer-identified entrepreneurs everywhere who wanted to follow in Blank’s sex-positive footsteps.

If you lived in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1977, you might have stumbled upon a tiny shop, about the size of a large parking space, with potted plants, macramé hangings on the walls, and a display case full of antique vibrators.

The Playbook for Kids about Sex by Joani Blank