Good Vibrations: Company sells bedroom aids to enhance women’s intimate experience
The number one complaint women have concerning sex is lack of desire.
And Slumber Parties is here to change that.
Shellece Gunnell, personal consultant for Slumber Parties, said she loves her job because people call her up after a party to tell her why their marriage just got better.
Slumber Parties is an in-home party designed for women, she said, that helps empower and enhance women’s intimate lives and helps put the desire back into women. Each party is hosted by a women who invites her friends to come over for the evening. The women gather in one area while Gunnell presents to them a collection of intimate objects meant to help each woman’s intimate lives. Products sold at the party range from bubble bath, massage oils, lubricants, lingerie and bedroom accessories that can “spice things up,” Gunnell said.
One reason Gunnell said Slumber Parties is successful is because it takes places in the comfort of someone’s home, and usually a friend’s home.
“It’s still uncomfortable for me to walk into novelty stores,” Gunnell said. “First off, sometimes you go in there knowing what you want, but then you’ve got this store full of stuff. And then you have this cashier who you have no idea who they are and you have to ask this really personal question with a whole bunch of people around. I think that’s really awkward.”
At a party, Gunnell said she stands in front of the party-goers and walks them through her products set up on a table behind her. The products on the table are passed around while Gunnell explains the benefits of each one. The women can even test some of the products right there. But that is as far as the participation goes if they want it to; Gunnell said people who go to her parties don’t have to say one word or comment on things if they don’t want to. Instead, they can sit back, relax and listen to what she has to teach them.
“I don’t know how many stores personally escort you through and explain to you what every single thing does.”
Melissa Anderson, senior in exercise science, said she enjoys attending these parties because it is done tastefully, and she also feels liberated as a woman afterward.
“I have never been embarrassed at these parties, whatsoever, before or after (I got) married,” Anderson said.
Jacki Marchant, first-year nursing student at Weber State, said she also thinks the parties are tasteful.
“I don’t think anyone was offended at all,” she said.
As long as open-minded people come to the party realizing it will help their marriage or relationship, then Marchant said it will be successful.
One of Gunnell’s favorite products, she said, is an arousal balm called X-scream.
“This is super, super hot,” she said. “It gets the blood flow going, which helps people be a little more sensitive in that area. So the reason it’s my favorite is because that is one of the biggest issues for women is they have no desire. A lot of them can’t climax, and this helps them climax because it gets the blood going.”
However, pushing products on someone is not what Slumber Parties is about, she said. If a group isn’t into a particular product or doesn’t know what a product does, this atmosphere, at least, allows women to educate themselves about their bodies.
“Nobody is pushing them to buy anything, but what is it going to hurt to learn?” she said.
Gunnell, who has been a consultant for three years, said she is empowering women by educating them. The more a woman knows about her body and about what is out there, she said, the more they can improve or enjoy their intimate lives.
Making the women comfortable, however, is what Gunnell said is important at her parties.
“There is a big misconception about Slumber Parties, that we are in this big group talking about our intimate lives,” she said. “It’s not like that at all. We don’t talk about my personal life at all in the parties, and I don’t expect them to talk about their personal lives.”
Gunnell said women tell her all the time how nervous they were to attend a party but that they came away from the party knowing a lot more about their bodies and what can help.
Most of the time, Gunnell said she gives the answer to a product question before it is even asked. But if there are questions someone is afraid to ask about in the group, that person can ask Gunnell in private in the ordering room. After Gunnell showcases all the products, she leaves the room and sets up an ordering room somewhere else in the house. Women should have privacy, she said, when they order Slumber Parties products.
Men are not allowed at the parties, she said. Not only are the parties supposed to be focused on empowering women, but Gunnell said having a boyfriend or having a husband there can make other people uncomfortable.
“If you think about it, you are comfortable with your spouse sitting there, but are you really comfortable with all your neighbors’ spouses there?” Gunnell said.
It’s a lot different when the woman is coming home with an idea, she said, and it lets the guy be happy and excited that the women is trying to enjoy their intimate life together even more.
When it comes down to it, Gunnell said it really is all about helping the women, since women seem to have more problems when it comes to intimacy. Intimate products are more for people who have been married for awhile, she said, and have gotten into the routine of life too much and forgotten how to nurture their intimate relationship.
“I think talking about it helps give them new ideas, and even if it’s not our products, at least they are excited about it and want to go home and try,” she said. “And I think that it helps women when they are in a group like that to know they aren’t the only one. They’re not alone. Because a lot of people say to me, that’s my problem, too. It helps to know they’re normal.
“What is better than investing in your marriage? That is really what it is.”
-brittny.jo@aggiemail.usu.edu