'Passion Parties' Expand Female Freedom

Feb. 7 -- In living rooms from coast-to-coast, women are seeing, touching and talking about "sensual products" — powders, potions and gadgets that can't even be shown on network television.

They're participating in a trend called "Passion Parties": trying and buying products to spice up their sex lives.

At one party in California, one party-goer named Becky said, "I'm going to get the hideaway heart pillow … the one that comes with the free vibrator."

Monica is another participant. She's a "Passion Parties" veteran — and she says it's her husband's idea.

"Everything else is, 'What do you spend and how much?' " she said. "But when it comes to this it's a different story, because he knows I'm going to come home with something fun."

The model for these festivities is the icon of suburban America: the Tupperware party.

"We kid a lot that Tupperware has a burp and we have a buzz," said Pat Davis, president of the Passion Parties company.

And through its network of 3,000 all-female sales reps, "Passion Parties" had sales last year in excess of $20 million. The typical customer is in her early 30s.

Female Freedom Grows

Like the girls in Sex and the City, women are discovering they can have a lot of fun talking about this stuff and not be blasé about it. They are part of a groundswell of women trying to take control of their sex lives.

"We now have great careers, we have five pairs of Manolos, we have fantastic apartments. We have money," said E. Jean Carroll, a columnist for Elle magazine. "These parties stand for more than the fabled gizmo. They stand for female freedom in its wildest form."

Davis says it better to have these products shown in the comfort of a customer's home, because "it offers education, it offers comfort, it offers confidentiality and it's a great way for women to get together to have a giggle and have a girl's night out."