Yes Vulva Blog readers, Toys in Babeland loves men. We learned long ago that men are just as happy as women are to get accurate sex information and quality toys, and we’ve always been pleased to deliver the goods. So Clit Girl and I made a couple of stops at men’s magazines, the first of which was Maxim. While waiting in the reception area at Maxim (Clit Girl is off in the high security bathroom), I’m surrounded by gigantic blow-ups of former magazine covers featuring scantily clad female celebrities. I fantasize about pushing a magic button that will deflate all of those silicone-enhanced breasts back to their natural size.

In the conference room two editors check out our toys, dismissing most of them, even the infamous male masturbation sleeve, the Fleshlight. I blush when one of them lays it on the line, “Hey, all our readers want to know is where the clit is. They’re just 21-year-old guys who want to know how to get laid.” Of course the irony doesn’t escape me: Maxim succeeds because it indulges men’s fantasies of being bedded by Janet Jackson or Pam Anderson, but should they ever find themselves in bed with one of these hot babes they wouldn’t know how to get her off. I imagine myself, the giant vulva, gracing the cover of the next Maxim, with little “lick me here” thought bubbles all over.

By the way, if you’re a Maxim reader, or you just want to know where the clit is, we can tell you all about it.

Thankfully the mean-spirited FMA—the proposed amendment to the constitution prohibiting gay marriage—was shut down in the Senate today. A lot of the Senators who aren’t open supporters of gay marriage (I’m not sure any are) voted Nay to the proposal. The highest ideals of the United States are based on liberty and self-determination. Of course the U.S. falls short of supporting these ideals much of the time. But to enshrine discrimination into the constitution would have been a step backward in the country’s progress towards greater inclusion of the full diversity of the populace into the mainstream of civic life. As for Kerry and Edwards, who were the only two Senators who didn’t vote, no doubt they were doing what they thought they should to get elected. But it seems chicken. I wish they would have stood up for the gay community. But I’ll vote for them anyway.

This week, faithful Vulva Blog readers, I will give you a short break from my political rants and offer you something of a travelogue instead. After all, a vulva’s got to get out now and then, don’t you think?

And where else would I venture, than my beloved Manhattan? Not only is it home to two gorgeous Toys in Babeland stores, but it’s where some of the biggest media moguls hang their hats for the day. So I’m packing up a bag full of sex toys and taking the Toys in Babeland message to magazine editors at Glamour, Marie Claire, Jane, Bust, Playboy, and Maxim, to name a few. I hope to give you an insider’s view into these places over the next few days (where else can you get the inside scoop from a vulva?) so sit back and join me as I journey across the streets of New York. Let me just say, one can really get a neck ache (or in my case, a clit-ache) from trying to see NY from the back seat of a cab!