The Rubber Vagina Club
by Kevin Burke

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The doorway to Le Sex Discount Shoppe on the corner of Hollywood and Western did not look inviting in spite of the crudely hand-painted sign above the entrance that featured a comforting circus clown and the silhouette of a naked female torso.

The crumbling exterior door had been retrofitted with intimidating iron reinforcements that prevented casual access. Old Korean men stood outside of Yoe Roe Run Karaoke Bar #1 next door and smoked cigarettes and watched me as I pressed the Sex Shoppe doorbell. Through the open metal slats of the armored security gate, I could see what had brought me here, drunk at 2:37 a.m. The door buzzed and I pushed it open. I had it in mind to buy a rubber vagina.

Earlier, I had been on a tortuous date with an aspiring actress whose tanned thighs alone put her far out of my reach. She had poked at a plate of green corn tamales like they were made of human flesh as I talked my game and engaged her with witty made-up phrases and absurd non-sequitors. I spoke earnestly of my father's recent death. I asked her about her childhood, and her acting of course. I listened with careful attention, making sure to appear I was consumed by her countless auditions and her recent performance in a one-act play at the Tamarind Theater. I said everything required to create the illusion that I was a desirable human being, with feelings and ambitions and ideas about the world.

But it was no good. Maybe she sensed that I thought children were intolerable-or that I had been thinking about growing a handlebar moustache-while she prattled away about her career and the art of acting. Outside her apartment building in West Hollywood, we grappled in a brief goodnight embrace like crabs fighting with red, lumbering claws. We exchanged polite words heavy with bad subtext. I watched her ass wiggle as she walked away. I wanted her anyway.

I drove home drunk and hungry. The Pontiac knew where I was going before I did and steered me into a parking lot around the corner from my apartment on Garfield.

I had coveted pornography at a very early age. The adult section of the video store called to me with a siren's song of nude bodies. Thighs, breasts, asses and whole carpets of pubic hair awaited the boy brave enough to enter the damning gates of pussy heaven. Even at an inexperienced 11 years, the shameful titillation of that nudie Shangri-la was instinctual. The hot eyes of the female clerk, or a mother looking through the new releases, were on those lurking men in the adult section. They were stares of pure loathing.

Le Sex Discount Shoppe knew nothing of hateful eyes. Patrons made their sad, furtive rounds through the aisles of instant gratification free of judgment, save their own ignominy. I cruised the aisles pretending to look at the rows of pornographic movies. Edward Penishands was on display. The cover was well worn from years of being pawed. A faded starburst sticker said: "Own the Classic!"

And underneath Edward Penishands was the shelf entirely devoted to synthetic vaginas.

This was a brave new world. The days of the plastic blow-up doll with the eternal open mouth and cartoon make-up were gone. Modern technology trumped those primitive devices with creations of soft, flesh-like latex made from molds from real genitalia: the labia, the clitoris and the rosy interior all lovingly realized in thick, skin-like rubber. Porn stars had their anatomies re-created for their most devoted fans and sold in boxes decorated with their pictures. "Watch me then Fuck me!" "My Hot Pussy is Wet For You!"

The variations seemed infinite: Black ones, white ones, Asian ones, Latina ones. Vaginas, assholes, vagina-and-asshole combinations, vibrating models, vaginas with pubic hair and ones that were completely shaved. Fat girls, skinny girls, young girls, old ladies, pregnant women, doggy style, missionary position, even a realistic looking mouth complete with gleaming white choppers set underneath a pair of bee-stung lips.

I was shocked to see they were expensive, until I remembered that the sex trade has men over a barrel. Vibrators and dildos were cheap by comparison. The average price for a rubber vagina was $99. Some were as high as $200, a few were as low as $39.

Women have it easy and less humiliating in the sex-toy department. Owning a vibrator is, for a woman, a declaration of sexual independence. A symbol of individual power and self-reliance. A man with a rubber vagina, by contrast, is not really even a man. He might as well strap the rubber vagina over his real genitals, buy a cheap vibrator and fuck himself. At least then he'd have his independence.

Buying a rubber vagina is a struggle between analysis and speed. Everyone in a sex shop automatically enters into a social contract not to acknowledge the mutual goal of whacking off. But even the sexually depraved have a class system. A videotape or magazine is acceptable old-timey masturbation-the kind of thing that grandpa used to do. But even in this taboo-free zone, the rubber vagina shelf is strictly for those who have lost the will to live. I scanned the parade of faux genitals in front of me; $99 was too expensive, but a $39 vagina simply couldn't be a quality product; it would probably chafe, or worse yet, carry some kind of latex-borne disease.

My bourgeois roots showed through as I eyed a $69.00 vagina named after porn star Christy Canyon. Christy had a used look about her-her eyes hardened from the knowledge that thousands of men took her rubber vagina to bed with them every night.

I made up my mind to buy Christy Canyon's vagina. It was washable and not too pricey. It had no pubic hair on it. (The ones that did looked like they had been through chemotherapy treatments.) I waited until Le Sex Discount Shoppe was temporarily clear of other patrons to take my intended purchase from the shelf. A window of opportunity opened when the only other customer took some tokens into the peep show booth hallway.

"Part of my training as a writer..." I told the clerk at Le Sex Discount Shoppe as I handed him Christy Canyon's vagina, "is experience." He put my product and receipt in a large paper bag, carefully stapled it shut and handed it to me without a hint of ceremony. He went back to reading a copy of Vogue.