Tired of her job marketing video games to hormone-fueled teenage boys, Sadie Allison decided to start her own business, based on something she was passionate about – educating people about sex and masturbation.
A San Francisco native who grew up in the seventies, raised by parents who were hippies, Allison grew up with exposure to the sex-positive movement, and took it to heart.
“I was the uninhibited girl that didn’t have a problem with talking about sex out loud,” Allison said. “ I used to spark up conversations with my friends inquiring about their sex lives and found out that many women didn’t know how to masturbate.”
So Allison became a Johnny Appleseed of sorts, passing out tips and techniques on masturbation to her friends, a habit that started in high school became a lifelong mission.
While working at Sega in their marketing division, she decided to write a pamphlet, a guide to masturbation. After three years of research, she had more than a pamphlet, she had a 96-page book titled Tickle Your Fancy: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Self-Pleasure, aimed for women just beginning to masturbate.
“I’m the girl next door who’s been there done that, and is still doing it, and I have a lot of information to share,” Sadie Allison told AVN.com.
While women have come a long way from 1968, when the Kinsey Institute reported that only 60 percent of women had ever masturbated, there is still a significant portion of the population that doesn’t – and many more who haven’t used a dildo. Current research suggests that 70 percent of women have tried using toys, while only 35 percent of women do so on a regular basis.
“Through my life experience and extensive research I learned first hand and much to my surprise that a majority of women know very little about their own sexuality and anatomy,” Allison said. “That’s not to say that women aren’t having sex and enjoying it, but there’s a reason why so many women fake orgasm. Women often don’t know the first thing about orgasms. It makes sense because it’s not taught in school.
“Growing up we’re taught about how STDs spread, we learn about birth control - but nothing about orgasms or sharing sexual pleasure with a partner.”
Allison decided to self-publish, and ran off an initial run of 2,000 books. With a background in sales and marketing, and now with a product of her own to apply that knowledge to, Allison hit every trade show she could. She worked the talk show angle, tailoring her pitch to each stations demographics.
Three months later she quit her job, to dedicate herself to Tickle Kitty, Inc. the company she formed around her books.
Within a year and a half she had sold over 60,000 copies of her book and was working with 30 distributors in North America -not bad considering the average book sells only 4,000 copies in its lifespan.
She also launched a Website, and started selling the toys she talked about. Initially her Website only offered ten items, that Allison purchased as they were ordered. She sells items that she recommends in her books, such as the Rabbit Pearl by Vibratex (“The original Rabbit Pearl,” she says) and the Pocket Rocket by Doc Johnson.
“I’d run down to my local distributor, buy what I needed, come back home and ship them from my living room,” Allison said. “Now I have almost two hundred items in my store, I have a full warehouse where I stock all the items and I move a lot of product.”
She also wrote a second book, Toygasms!-The Insider’s Guide To Sex Toys and Techniques.And yes, she researched it thoroughly.
“My normal routine is to wake up in bed, stretch and masturbate. Then I take a shower and go to work. It’s the same routine every one has, but I throw an orgasm in there,” Allison told AVN.com
And she reverses the process at night, ending each evening trying out another toy.
Once again, she wrote it for beginners.
“I wrote it for women who are curious about exploring their sexuality, but don’t know where to start or who to talk to,” Allison said. “They want to try a toy, but they don’t know what to get or how to use it. Toys are so intricate nowadays they aren’t as intuitive as one would think.”
And some distributors and home party companies, attracted to the book’s “101” approach to novelties, now make it required reading for their new employees.
“The girls love her book and it teaches them how to really know themselves a little bit better, so it’s a really good tool for the women to learn how to sell bedroom accessories as well as novelties,” said Chris Cicchimelli, vice president of Pure Romance, a home party business that requires new distributors to read Toygasms!
Yet books and a Website were just the beginning. Allison has recently launched Tickle Kitty Apparel and an obvious choice – Tickle Kitty lubricants called “Slippery Kitty”.
Slippery Kitty lubricants are water-based and come in two flavors: plain (Au Naturel) and strawberry (Strawberry Lust). Au Naturel is FDA approved for internal use– something that can’t be said of 90 percent of the lubes on the market. But what Allison likes most about Slippery Kitty is that they have newbie friendly packaging.
“The packaging is fun, inviting, sexy and sassy!” Allison said.
“I guess you could say that’s the approach for everything Tickle Kitty does – fun, inviting, sexy and sassy!” Allison added.
Sadie Allison will be interviewed on Howard Stern on December 2 at 7:00a.m..
Tickle Kitty, Inc. is located at 3701 Sacramento St. #107 in San Francisco, CA 94118. For distributor or wholesale inquiries, contact Sadie Allison at [email protected] or 1-(415) 276-1724.
