A Box Of Delights

A Box Of Delights #1

Nowadays, of course, you can barely move for sex toy reviews. I wouldn't even dare to try and count the number of blogs and sites run by people happy to spend vast amounts of time trying out new dildos, vibrators, lubes, buttplugs and nipple clamps.
Things were a bit different back at the end of the 90s. For one thing, what you could get by way of sex toys was still relatively limited. Rabbit vibes might or might not have been in existence by then, but they weren't all that widely known if there were such things. As I recall, the UK was just starting to get the kind of toys that came in different colours and different materials and could almost pass for modern art, though the US was some way ahead in that department.
I was editing the single women's title the company now published, and mentioned to the editor-in-chief that I was thinking of doing a sex-toy-review article: he agreed it was a good idea because the mag hadn't done one of those for a few years. My motivations were less than pure - I had been reading elsewhere about the launch of the Eroscillator, backed by then-famous sex therapist Dr Ruth, and I wanted one of those, but wasn't willing to pay the £70 or so they cost (for context, you could pick up a basic Non-Doctor for about three quid). The mail-order sex toy company we were accustomed to dealing with had an advert for this exciting new gadget running in our other titles, so I got the relevant info from the ad department, and picked up the phone.
Yes, they would send me a mixed box of stuff to play with, yes, all right, they would include an Eroscillator and no, they didn't want the toys back once I'd had a play with them...
I can't remember how many days it took for my surprise package to show up, but I do recall trotting out of the office with it tucked under my arm, announcing to all and sundry that I was Not To Be Disturbed that weekend...