Saturday, Oct. 22, 2005 | 10:15 a.m.
Michelle Swafford
In a Southern Highlands home on a recent Friday night five women gathered to mingle and talk about sex.
They were not doctors, nurses, or therapists. They work in jobs such as public relations and telecommunications.
The get-together was a Passion Parties event, an after-dinner gathering and sales pitch for sensual toys and edible and scented lotions and oils.
Passion Parties, which recently moved its headquarters to Las Vegas from the San Francisco area, is one of several companies that sell adult items through in-home parties. During the parties guests can see demonstrations, try products and ask questions before making purchases.
Passion Parties is the second adult in-home party company to open headquarters in Las Vegas. Competitor Party Gals is based in North Las Vegas.
The parties are a sexy cousin to kitchenware, jewelry and make-up parties that have been popular in America for a half-century. Tupperware is believed to have held the first in-home demonstration party in 1948.
The Friday night party hosted by Melissa Jones began with wine, appetizers and small talk about jobs, home decor and life in Las Vegas.
"It's a fun way to get the girls together and learn things," Jones said, adding that this is the second Passion Parties evening she has hosted. "I'm more open about things now."
Jones' party was the first in-home sensual party for most of her guests.
Curiosity. That's what brought the women together in the cozy living room.
"You hear about stigmatized sex toys and when you're more modest you tend to be more inhibited to go into the (adult) store," Regina Bacolas said. "This feels like a safe environment to learn what everyone wants to know. It makes you feel like you're on the same page with other females."
She said she thinks the party will help her to be more open and passionate in future relationships.
Jessica Roth came to see what Passion Parties was about and how it might enhance her marriage.
"I was here to see what was out there," she said. "I have never been to an adult store, but want to see what's there. I've been married 10 years and it never hurts to see what's new."
After attending the party, Roth described some of the products as being as revolutionary as: "NASA and landing on the moon."
Brooke Johnston, one of the two sales representatives (the company calls them "consultants") at Jones' party, said guests like the parties because their orders are confidential and they can open packages and see what the products are like, which they cannot do in a store.
Liz Douglass and Johnston, who split the expenses and profits of the parties they co-consult, assembled Jones' guests around a small table lined with a satin purple tablecloth and more than a dozen lotions, oils, body sprays and vibrating body sponges. Tucked under the table was a closed round box that contained an assortment of battery-operated toys.
"Less than 20 percent of sales are toys," Douglass said, adding that most parties generate at least $500 in retail sales. "Most are lotions and potions."
The first series of items applied to each guests' arm included a floral-scented body lotion containing pheromones -- hormones that are made naturally by the body to increase desire and attraction -- and was stimulated with a soft jelly-textured bath mitten with bristles that vibrated.
"Good thing I have a date later," one guest said of the pheromones.
Other items included cotton candy and white chocolate-flavored body powders; heated lubricants, a cream that tightens women's sexual muscles for 12 hours, a mint-flavored cream that can be used to calm the gag reflex and enhance sensations, and a unisex gel that increases blood flow and sexual desire.
"It works," another guest said of the unisex gel that is one of Passion Parties' top sellers.
Items range in price from $4.50 for a lubricant to about $39.50 for enhancement gels.
Novelty items such as couples' coupon books, scratch-off cards with steamy suggestions for him and her and a set of dice that contain action verbs and body parts are available to spice up a night at home.
Some of the Passion Parties' items also can be used for nonsexual purposes.
For example, the raspberry and strawberry-flavored nipple stimulating cream can also be used to ease pain for teething babies, as a lip balm or to heal nursing mothers' cracked nipples, Douglass said.
After a brief game and break, the party transitioned into sex toys -- from the basic silver mini bullet that vibrates at one speed for $7 to a pink vibrator called the Escalating Elephant that has 21 ways to create pleasure for $153.
"These toys aren't meant to replace your partner," Douglass said. "They're meant to enhance your relationship."
While the sex toys were being passed around the room, the women discussed which ones might work better for themselves and their partners.
While much of the discussion was lighthearted and full of laughter, Johnston broke in at one point to talk about where various pleasure points are and how to find them.
It may seem like these in-home parties are the logical offshoots of the Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives craze, but Passion Parties and Party Gals were started in 1994 after the founders left a failed adult toy company that was based in Las Vegas.
Brenda Eberhart, co-founder of Passion Parties and a sales representative in Springfield, Ohio, said the parties have evolved and expanded over time, but the basic premise remains the same: To enhance women's confidence and their relationships.
"The reason I got into this business was because I wanted to go to an adult bookstore and I could never even approach my husband about it," she said, adding that being a salesperson has made a big difference in her 28-year marriage.
"It opened up communication so much more than we had ever had before," she said.
Eberhart expects to generate about $3 million in sales this year and used her Passion Parties' income over the years to put her daughter through college. Each company representative is encouraged to recruit additional sales people and they receive bonus checks for their recruits' sales, which is typical of direct sales company.
Passion Parties has about 10,000 sales representatives in the United States and Canada who sell the items. Of those, 35 have generated $1 million or more in sales this year, company president Pat Davis said. Three of them generated $5 million, she said.
In-home adult parties didn't use to attract professional women such as nurses, teachers, doctors and lawyers, Eberhart said.
"I think they thought they would get a bad reputation if they went to this party," she said. "They had no idea what they were like. For years people just looked at sex as you don't talk about it, it's just pornography."
Johnston said she became a part-time consultant for multiple reasons.
"There's so much to learn and teach women; it's fun," she said, adding that she has watched some of her friends become more confident after attending parties.
Douglass, who is a stay-at-home mom, said she became a sales representative because she could make money and work around her son's schedule.
"I'm at home with my son all day so it's nice to have adult interaction," she added.
Michelle Swafford can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or at (702) 259-2326.
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