Toy stories: The role of vibrators in domestic intimacies

Abstract

This article draws on the findings of qualitative research on the ways in which the domestication of sexual objects, such as vibrators, is central to relationships amongst (non)household members and social interaction within the home. Interviews with a purposive sample of 32 female participants were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. In analyzing experiences and complex senses of belonging, the paper identified different circumstances and issues of public presentation and private realization that lie behind the meaning and use of vibrators. I suggest that objects, such as vibrators, come to be experienced as offering emotional, spatial, relational, and moral structures of both social integration and social distancing. All objects, even sex toys, contain culture, and by examining the domestication of such objects we can enrich knowledge of the affordances that constitute the materiality of sex.