30 Years Reigning Queen! šŸ‘‘

By: Good Vibrations

Celebrating 30 years of Dr. Carol Queen at Good Vibrations

By Educator Andy

 

Educator Andy: Carol Iā€™m so honored to do this interview, both as your Education Department colleague and as your friend.

Carol Queen: Awww, thanks, A!

Carol Queen & Educator Andy

Carol makes a grilled ā€œcheeseā€ sandwich and talks to her cat while conducting the interview.

EA: Carol, I just realized that youā€™ve been at Good Vibrations twice as long as me! You 30 years, and myself 15!

CQ: This just proves that time flies when youā€™re having fun, huh? And when youā€™re doing something meaningful with your life!

EA: Ok ok, letā€™s start with the interview questions. So Carolā€¦what are some of your most memorable moments working at Good Vibrations?

CQ: So many! 30 years is a long time so I have to break it down over stages of my employment.

Carol Queen at Good Vibes in the 90's

As a SESA (1990-1998):

šŸ¤” Meeting Joani Blank, founder of Good Vibrations at a Betty Dodson masturbation workshop!

šŸ¤” Transforming Good Vibes into a co-op and becoming an owner.

šŸ¤” The day I helped an older woman (75-80 y.o. range) buy her first vibratorā€“she said, ā€œI decided I didnā€™t want to die without having an orgasm.ā€ šŸ˜æ

šŸ¤” And the time I had to explain to some anti-porn feminists who were angry about Olivia de Berardinis pin-up cards that these images were drawn by a woman. <gasp!>

šŸ¤” And the time I had to stop this couple who were basically doing an SM scene in the store (she was the top) and honestly being quite boundary-free! Yikes!

 Carol with Antique Vibrators- by Phyllis Christopher

As spokesperson and content-developer for the company:

šŸ¤” Curating video clip shows in the 90s that we used for guerilla marketingā€“getting attention via events and such. I loved working with Sarah Kennedy to edit the clips, and it was so cool to show them (at the Castro Theatre in SF or The Parkway in Oakland) and fill the theatres with people who had never watched porn in public before! My favorite one was ā€œCelebrating the Golden Age of the Blue Movie,ā€ with a panel of porn stars from the 1970s.

šŸ¤” On a VERY early-morning drivetime radio call on behalf of National Masturbation Month, having to hang up on shock jock Mancow (then in Chicago) when he got just too rude (I can handle a lot of rude, but at a certain point staying on the phone is bad for our brand).

šŸ¤” On the set with the crew, shooting movies Iā€™d scripted (itā€™s really a challenge when you make a movie about ā€œfemaleā€ ejaculation and the ejaculator is too camera-shy to ejaculateā€¦! Or TBH maybe she hadnā€™t been drinking enough water).

 Carol with Joani Blank

As a co-op member/co-owner of GV:

šŸ¤” Long, intense co-op meetings! Including:

šŸ¤” That time we decided ā€œstore clerksā€ was an insufficient title for what we did, and came up with SESA: sex educator/sales associate.

šŸ¤” That time we had to decide whether to let Fatale Video shoot a lesbian porno in the store after hours.

šŸ¤” Being part of the team that began interviewing men to work at the company.

 

EA: Oh man, those co-op meetings! How could I forget?!

CQ: Yeah, you were there for some of those long ones for sure! I wonder how many hours of our lives were spent in those meetings!

EA: If you could go back and tell your ā€˜SESA selfā€™ something 30 years ago, what would it be?

CQ: ā€œThis job is a keeper!ā€ LOL. But really, thinking ā€œAfter a while youā€™ll be here longer than anyone ever hasā€ seemed impossible back then.

Carol in Drag in the 90's

Carol started at Good Vibrations working just one shift a week. ā€œWe were just one location at the time so I didnā€™t know what roles were left for me to fill.ā€ Carol describes working next to some of the early sex education greats, and how sheā€™d eventually grow into her own Queendom.

CQ: Also, ā€œYou WILL eventually get your doctorate in sexology.ā€ I kept dropping out because I ran out of tuition money and/or got distractedā€“for a while I really wasnā€™t sure I would ever finish.

EA: Man, thatā€™s something I can relate to as I often wonder if I want to go back to school. Iā€™m sure itā€™s something a lot of our SESAs wonder too, so hearing this is validating.

EA: How are things different from the beginning of your time at GV?

CQ: I loved helping out with the art shows (I was in charge of them for a few years), and really liked it when we used what wall space we could as gallery space. (Iā€™m not sure I miss climbing a ladder and hanging stuff high above the shelvesā€¦)

Itā€™s pretty hard to remember this because we have so many ā€œsibling storesā€ and friendly competitors now, but there was a pretty long stretch (over 15 years) when we were one of the only two women-owned and -focused sex shops in the US. Now there are a number of stores, and online sites, that do their own spin on this idea (or the 21st century version that is super-gender-inclusiveā€“and of course we have moved in that direction too!). But except for Eveā€™s Garden in NYC, we were it for quite some time!

Our stores are so beautiful now, shout-out to Sharon Lee (chandeliers! Damn!)ā€“but when I got to Good Vibesā€™ ONE store (then on 23rd and Valencia, five years before the East Bay store opened in Berkeley), it looked more like a homey feminist living room. We had a big massager lounge chair that people would come chill out in, and the lubes and massage oils were on the mantel of a faux fireplace.  

Store

EA: The Berkeley store was where I got my start and I remember some of those same furnishings and feel too lol.

EA: Thereā€™s been a lot of growth in the company since thenā€“was that something you all hoped for?

CQ: We always wanted to grow the brand. There was a day-long meeting one time when we researched and discussed franchising! We each knew the power of walking into a Good Vibrations store and the way it impacted each customer. But it wasnā€™t until meeting Joel that I fully learned just what Good Vibrations meant to the whole adult industry.

Carolā€™s referring to Joel Kaminsky, who stepped in as company owner in 2007, and has helped the company and employees to grow to newer heights.

EA: Even during my time in the co-op in the early 2000ā€™s, I can remember us wanting to expand! Like, ā€œhow can we get this information and sex positivity in every town?ā€ As sex educators we wanted to spread the word, and we knew that also meant sharing the experience of being in such a sex positive space.

Pride Staff

EA: How are things the same?

CQ: The mission! Quality products, good sex information, and SESAs trained to speak to just about anyone about just about anything.

And while itā€™s a completely new generation of people who apply for jobs at the company now, itā€™s still people who believe GV plays an important role in helping people, and in making more space for sexuality, relationship configuration, and gender issues. Itā€™s honestly amazing that waves of us have been drawn to this place for over 43 years! 

One of the most extraordinary things about being at GV for 30 years is that Iā€™ve truly watched the sex-positive community emerge around us. Good Vibrations is such an important institution in that regard, and itā€™s so important that we were created in 70s San Franciscoā€“those roots have affected our mission and way of understanding sexual diversity so much, even if trying to embrace it all was not really Joaniā€™s core task when she formed GV. Even though we were started in a context that really emphasized a particular kind of gendered culture (ā€œby and for womenā€ā€“which morphed to ā€œespecially but not exclusively for womenā€), we and our customer base lived in a place with an out-in-the-open sexual diversity that was baked in to SF in the 1970s. And it, as well as the emerging sex-positive feminist movement in the 1980s, really set the stage for us to be part of the way sex-positivity would develop and be understood.

The other thing that I am SOOO grateful for is the way Good Vibrations, from the get-go, made space for me to also do things that were not strictly on behalf of GV, but hopefully always on a supportive parallel trackā€“writing, speaking, teaching gigs, the Center for Sex & Culture. In my mind the two tracks have always been related, part of my work in the world. I remember a conversation in about 1991 with Cathy Winks , who was then the store manager and to some extent Joaniā€™s right-hand woman, about how I could balance all that and have it be both/and. 

My best idea that never happened: A conversation between Susie Bright and Jo Bob Briggs, with film clips chosen by them. That would have been a show for the ages!

book

EA: C-Dawg, did you know youā€™ve been published in over 100 books?

CQ: WHAT no! I think I stopped counting! And I honestly donā€™t even know if my website is up to date. Most of my newer book appearances, unlike the anthologies I used to contribute to, are actually forewords or intros to other peopleā€™s books. And I love this pivot in many ways, because it feels like I can help make a bridge between the days when I was discovering how important sex-positive culture was to me, and those (mostly) younger writers who are making their contributions now. There are definitely differences between the times, but I feel that I can bring some context and history thatā€™s useful and I value being able to do that.

Carol & Kitty

EA: How has COVID/shelter in place changed your work?

CQ: The biggest change, honestly, is the way it shut down travelā€“I had to miss planned-for events in Boston and Miami this spring, and of course any other possibilities dried up with the pandemicā€™s effects. And on top of that, the way itā€™s dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st century to learn Zoom and pivoting to online teaching and performing. Some of these attempts have been more successful than othersā€“I was Zoom-bombed while having a super-important conversation about sex and depression with JoEllen Notte!ā€“but I am just so thankful that these platforms are there to pivot to. I also thought at the beginning of the shutdown that Iā€™d be able to finally get going on my memoir, but that hasnā€™t happenedā€“at least not yet.

Carol talks

EA: Last questionā€“and I know you get it a lotā€“but if you could tell folks one thing about sex positivity, or sex education, what would it be?

CQ: ONLY one thing? Thatā€™s tough, there are so many things to say about these topics. I think Iā€™d pick this: Iā€™d want to remind people that almost no one got truly good and useful sex education, and that that limitation can affect us throughout our lives, if we donā€™t take steps to get the information we need. It does so in two ways (at least)ā€¦ It leaves big gaps in the information we have that ought to help us make sense of what we want and how to communicate about it. And it means that those gaps will be filled with pop-culture ā€œinformation,ā€ from porn to rom-coms, that influence our ideas about sex, whatā€™s ā€œnormal,ā€ and on and on. It hurts our ability to understand and accept people who are different from us, but it even helps prevent us from truly learning about ourselves. So everyone really needs to embrace information from good sourcesā€”throughout their lives! And thatā€™s one place that Good Vibrations plays a roleā€”and that you and I do, Andy, because the heart of both our jobs is getting the info out there. Itā€™s so great to be able to work with you!

Thanks Carol, and Happy 30th Anniversary! 

 

Carol Bio:

Thirty years after walking through the doors at Good Vibrations, Dr. Carol Queen continues to innovate and enlighten. She is a writer and cultural sexologist with a Bachelorā€™s in sociology and a Ph.D. in human sexuality. She is staff sexologist at Good Vibrations, the woman-founded sex shop, and also the curator of its Antique Vibrator Museum. In 2000 she co-founded (with Dr. Robert Morgan Lawrence) the Center for Sex & Culture nonprofit [sexandculture.org].

Carol is a noted essayist whose work has appeared everywhere. Sheā€™s written four books: the essay collection Real Live Nude GirlThe Leather Daddy and the FemmeExhibitionism for the Shy, and The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone. A prolific writer and contributor, her contributions can be found in several volumes of Best American Erotica as well as in many books sheā€™s edited or co-edited: Best Bisexual EroticaSex Spoken HereSwitch HittersPoMoSexuals, and more.

Beyond the written word, Carol has addressed numerous scholarly and professional conferences, from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, to the Oxford Union at Oxford University, England. Dr. Queen continues to be one of the most interviewed sex educators and appears frequently on television programs.

Carol Queen is active on behalf of progressive sex education and sexual diversity issues. Outside of her role at Good Vibrations she is perhaps most closely affiliated with the bisexual and sex work communities, but she has been speaking publicly about non-mainstream sexualities, from lesbian to leather, for over 45 years. Her perspective in addressing sexual diversity incorporates personal experience, accurate sex information, and informed cultural commentary. For more information (including CV and bibliography) see her website: carolqueen.com