Dear readers,

We’re excited to announce that all us GV Bloggers will be moving on in with the magazine — http://magazine.goodvibes.com.

So, mark your bookmarks, go on over to magazine.goodvibes.com and get yourself acquainted — soon this url will be redirecting you to a great land of more content - erotica, photo galleries, sex ed articles, toy reviews, and lots more. If you’re interested in submitting erotica or articles, hop on over there too and find out how to get involved!

See you on the Good Vibrations Magazine,

Kuono

I just found out about TransYouth.com, a new site created by Lydia Sausa. It’s an amazing collection of resources, links, book titles, and information about and for trans youth. Some of the topics covered are:

• dating
• health care
• changing your driver’s licence
• hotlines
• organizations and shelters
• coming out
• conferences

If you’re trans or if you know someone who’d trans or if you work with youth, I highly recommend visiting the site. And even if you’re not in one of those groups, I still highly recommend the site- there’s answers to common questions so you can get the info you need without having to ask your trans co-worker (who’s probably getting tired of educating everyone).

This is such a valuable resource- please pass it along.

Y’know, I’ve been using rollercoasters as an example of one reason that people like the thrill of BDSM for a while. You get that adrenaline rush in a safe, controlled way so it feels scary without actually being dangerous. But I have to admit that this video clip takes that comparison much further than I had and it really makes a lot of sense. Enjoy!

With the presidential election so close and no shortage of controversial topics, opinions, tactics, and hullabaloo making the rounds from Fox News to Satruday Night Live, of course the adult industry is bound to hop on the bandwagon and take advantage of the insane influx of interest in “Sexy Sarah” Palin and Barack “The Dreamboat” Obama by quickly producing sex toys, novelties, and even porn based (at least loosely) on these current political powerhouses.

There’s been a recent rash of press releases and new products hitting the market over the last couple of weeks including a Sarah Palin inspired blow-up doll cleverly titled “This Is Not Sarah Palin”, A Barack Obama Dildo , and of course Hustler Video’s soon to be released Nailin’ Palin, who’s Craigslist shout-out for a Palin lookalike actress has already caused quite a stir around the blogosphere.

With all these politically inspired toys making the rounds it’s become somewhat common for customers to ask us if and when we’ll be carrying these provacative products and the answer is simple, we’re not.

While it’s easy to ride the gimick train and hop on every press-crazed opportunity that arises, and believe me, in the adult industry they are pretty common, Good Vibrations doesn’t believe in carrying products that could so easily offend our customers at the expense of an another person’s dignity just for a few extra bucks.

At GV we’re all about personal expression and in fact there is even an satirical article about Sarah Palin in this week’s edition of The GV Weekly. The power and importance of words, free expression, and being able to openly discuss political ideals when it comes to sexuality issues is something we will always stand behind. There are however lines, good judgement, and basic decency. As Jonathan Plotzker, our Director of Merchandising recently told the San Francisco Chronicle, “[Good Vibrations] received a pitch from a company selling a Sarah Palin blow-up doll. The candidate is “the hottest thing to come out of Alaska in years,” said the vendors, who also cited unprintable reasons to buy this product. No thanks, said Plotzker. GV doesn’t believe in blow-up dolls and “wouldn’t carry something that offends women, or in this case a particular woman.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Blow-up dolls in general have never been something Good Vibrations would sell and despite any personal fears, frustrations, or extreme disapprovals of Sarah Palin’s politics (especially when it comes to Sex Education), we would never condone a toy that so outrightly disrespects her as a woman and as a human being. And while the Obama dildo might seem like a fun novelty or even a way to get a little closer to your idol, the idea of putting the likeness of a person who could potentially be the next president of the United States on a dildo, especially one who is already such an important historical and cultural figure, can easily be perceived as intensely disrespectful in the eyes of our customers and a chance at angering our supporters in a way we would not be willing to risk.

That’s the thing with political sex toys, sometimes it’s a joke, a novelty, a picture on the internet to show your friends, or just a toy to put on your nightstand, but at the end of the day it’s about the fact that these are real people and whether we respect their politics or not, we need to at least respect them as people. People who may or may not be comfortable having their face on a dildo because at the end of the day, they didn’t give their OK to the project, they don’t want to be porn stars, and they have no interest in creating their own line of blow-up dolls. They are politicans, not entertainers (though at times even that is debatable), just people who have for better or worse lent their faces to the horrors of public property in the hope of pushing their agenda and ideals on the rest of the country in the sincere belief they are making America a better place.

When Sarah Palin decides to launch a personal line of anal beads we’ll talk.

Check out this extremely piratey video review of Pirates 2 at Popporn! Sadly, I can’t embed the video, so just go over there (but only if you’re not at work because it’s totally nsfw). I just discovered Popporn and I think they’re my new favorite porn review site. Why? Let me count the ways:

1. host wearing Marvel Secret Wars t-shirt
2. random dissing of Jar Jar Binks
3. Stoya, one of the pretty ladies from the movie helps with the review, which may make it prejudiced
4. making fun of Tommy Gunn’s balls
5. there’s more, but if I told you it would ruin the fun

So this is really more of a review of the review. I confess that I haven’t seen Pirates 2 yet (in fact, I have the original Pirates is sitting at home right now, waiting for me to view it), but this review is making me want to see it. Go watch, want to see it, and then come back to goodvibes.com to get the dvd or blu-ray (which is convenient since all our dvd’s are on sale this month). Or if you’re in the Bay Area or Boston you can go to one of our retail stores and rent it.