Vibrators make stimulating gains

Toothpaste? Check. Tampons? Check. Vibrator? Check!

For years, vibrators were bought quietly in sex shops, and later online, arriving in discreet unmarked packages. They were rarely discussed, other than perhaps during a late-night girl-talk session fueled by many glasses of pinot grigio. But now you can find them advertised on MTV and boldly displayed at Walgreens and other mainstream drugstores, mere steps from the Bengay and Dr. Scholl's.

The newest model on the shelves is the Tri-Phoria ($40), created by the condom company Trojan after a 2008 study (conducted by Trojan in partnership with the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University) revealed that more than half of U.S. women had used vibrators. Of that group, nearly 80 percent had shared them with their partners, the study found.

"The idea really came from consumers," said James Daniels, vice president for marketing at Trojan. "They kept telling us vibrators, vibrators. And we just laughed. And then we realized they were serious."

The Tri-Phoria joins the A:Muse Personal Pleasure Massager by LifeStyles, which arrived in stores in January, and the Allure, by Durex, which made its over-the-counter debut in 2008; both sell for $20 each. Alan Cheung, senior brand manager for Durex, said sales of the company's vibrating products are up 60 percent over the past six months, compared with the same period last year.

"Vibrators have been shown to enhance sexual pleasure for over 100 years now," said Liz Canner, who directed the 2009 documentary "Orgasm Inc." "Why not partake?"

Vibrators made occasional cultural cameos in the 1990s, with scenes in films such as "She's the One" and "Slums of Beverly Hills." But it wasn't until an episode of HBO's "Sex and the City" -- called "The Turtle and the Hare," featuring a device called the Rabbit Pearl -- that the vibrator truly emerged from the nightstand drawer.

Berman, a prominent sex and relationship expert, also has a line of sex toys, which she said grossed $5 million in 2010, up from $100,000 in 2005. After one appearance on "Oprah" that focused on adult women who had problems climaxing, one of her top-selling products, the Aphrodite, "was back-ordered forever," she said. And in 2006 she sparked a national debate when she encouraged mothers to buy vibrators for their teenage daughters.

"If she gets hot and bothered on a date," Berman said about the daughter, "she can go home and self-stimulate, instead of getting pregnant."

And now, thanks to Suki Dunham, 43, vibrators also have an iPhone app.

Dunham, a former business manager for Apple, was a stay-at-home mother for four years before founding OhMiBod, a line of vibrators that synchronize rhythmically with iPods, iPads, iPhones and other smartphones.

The ability to shop online has surely helped the rising popularity of vibrators. At Good Vibrations, a sex-toy retailer since 1977, business has grown by 60 percent since the '90s.

But the creep factor has also decreased significantly since vibrators began to be portrayed in popular culture. Berman's vibrating panties appeared in the 2009 movie "The Ugly Truth," starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. "That scene would not have been in a major Hollywood movie 10 years ago," Berman said. Her products were also in a recent episode of "Private Practice" on ABC, although they remained in the boxes.

And Kandi Burruss, a singer-songwriter and one of Bravo's "Real Housewives of Atlanta," has decided to create a line of vibrators with Dunham's help.

The history of the device is an ongoing source of fascination. In a poke at early 1960s prudishness, an episode in the first season of "Mad Men" featured a wired girdle called the Electrosizer. Sarah Ruhl's critically acclaimed 2009 Broadway play, "In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)," explored the socio-cultural reasons behind the invention of the vibrator, which was to treat "hysterical" women medically, in the 1880s.

In fact, "Hysteria," a romantic comedy in post-production that will star Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy, will recount the same point in Victorian history. The plot revolves around Dancy's character, an earnest young doctor who takes a job massaging women's pelvises into "paroxysms." But when the doctor develops carpal tunnel syndrome, his best friend (Rupert Everett), who is obsessed with electricity, invents a device that has impressively efficient curative powers.

"Americans are ready to laugh at the vibrator as a medical device," said Tanya Wexler, the director of "Hysteria," whose movie takes a winking look at what Canner alludes to in her documentary: the medical treatment of women who aren't perfectly orgasmic -- about which Wexler feels similarly perplexed.