As an employee at Babeland, I know that we do everything we can to make people’s shopping experiences as empowering and educational as possible. But, you can’t help but wonder sometimes if all of our hard work is getting through to people. Turns out, it is! I absolutely loved this post from The Frisky as one of their writers walks us through her first time buying a vibrator, and buying it at Babeland.

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People are always looking for a way to spice up their love life and what better way do so by adding some foods with aphrodisiac qualities to your diet. We’re sure you might have heard of oysters and chocolate as being popular aphrodisiacs and you can get the full low-down in the book Intercourses. But for now here’s a list of  five aphrodisiac foods you probably didn’t know have steamy effects on the body as well:

5. Almonds

Almonds are a great source of vitamin E and their aroma is said to arouse the senses.

4. Avocados

The Aztecs called the avocado ahuacuatl, or “testicle tree” and you can see why this fruit is often associated with sex. The fruit hangs in pairs resembling the testicles.

3. Basil

The benefits of basil extend beyond the bedroom and are said to improve body and mind as a whole.

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You may be asking yourself “genital diversity? what is that?”. I wondered too, when I first heard the term. Supporting genital diversity simply means believing that genitals are supposed to look different and that difference is what makes us wonderful. We don’t all need to have the exact same sizes of labia majora or minora – our vulvas don’t all have to look exactly like the ones in Playboy to be considered beautiful and sexy.

This may seem like a no brainer but there’s actually a whole field of cosmetic surgery devoted to altering womens’ vulvas in order to make them look “normal”. This can involve cutting the inner labia to make them smaller or injecting fat into the outer labia to make them bigger, or both. Those who do these surgeries would tell you that they’re helping women feel better about their bodies and technically, that is true. However, the larger question about why these women were unhappy with the way their genitalia looked never gets addressed.

A group of these genital cosmetic surgeons will meet at the end of September in Las Vegas to discuss the latest technology and to pat themselves on the back for “helping women”. They probably won’t spend a lot of time reflecting on why it is that women with wonderful, beautiful vulvas feel the need to have them surgically altered. However, if they stick around after the conference for one more day, they could start to examine those questions.

A group called New View which does activism around this very issue is holding a counter conference on Sunday, September 26th at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It’s called Framing the Vulva: Genital Cosmetic Surgery and Genital Diversity and it promises to be a great day and will include a talk on the history of these types of alterations as well as an inside look at what happened at the conference from one of the presenters. There will be great genital art and an evening event at the Las Vegas erotic museum.

If you’re in the Las Vegas area, you should go! It’s inexpensive and I guarantee you will learn a lot and come away feeling empowered and loving your vulva. Click here for more information on the counter conference.