Available Toy
A report on a new Internet phenomenon.
The busy executive's cell phone rings in the middle of a meeting. He answers it, a little furtively.
"I've got my nipple rings on and I'm tugging on one of them. I want your cock hard for me. Can you do it now?"
"One minute," he says huskily into his phone, then announces to the room: "Excuse me, I have to take this call. We're done anyway. I'll e-mail you with follow up."
The man takes the phone into a bathroom stall and closes the door.
"Tell me more," he says."I have a few minutes."
"My name's Kim. I'm going to vibe my clit and I'll let you listen. But I want to hear you slapping your hard cock."
This is the first conversation between Kim and Rick. It may or may not be the last. But it sure makes Rick glad he signed up to be an Available Toy.
Kim, who describes herself as a shy college student who's always had imaginative sexual fantasies, is one of the members of the website, whose purpose is described simply as "to combat sexual frustration creatively and safely."
Available Toy's premise is simple enough: Despite society's greater openness to women claiming their own right to full erotic expression, too often pervs of both sexes are too busy, too shy, too constrained, too isolated, or too lazy on a particular day to exert the effort it takes to find a relationship or even a rendezvous.
As the website explains, "On Available Toy, you CAN get what you want, when you want it. And without paying through the nose."
So far, just a few months in, the premise seems to be working fine: women are contacting men for phone or cyber sex encounters, and on occasion conversations even lead to in-person meetings. What the members of the site do is up to them. Some don't even use it for sex per se: some just want to do some verbal cuddling, hear a friendly voice, or say something naughty that they've always wanted to say to a man, and then hang up.
All of that, and anything else, is acceptable to the men (and a few women, too) who sign up to be Available Toys. "There's a little extra excitement in your day when you don't know if, at any time, a woman you've never encountered might call you up and say something like, 'Put that fucking hairbrush handle deeper inside my pussy,'," says Bob, a tech support worker. And the next day you might hear from a woman who just wants to tell you that she's had a dream about Johnny Depp kissing her, and she's aroused. You never know."
And though the women initiate the contacts, it doesn't mean all the women are dominant. Some ask for the responder to be their master for a few minutes or much longer. Once the contact is made, anything is possible, including threesomes and more. It's all up to the imagination of the participants.
The site's founders, a group of women who are mostly Internet models and photographers, aren't out to make money off their idea. "We believe strongly that women who do sex work, including phone sex and camming, should be paid well for their services, and not exploited," says "Mo," one of the anonymous instigators. "At the same time, we believe that money shouldn't be an obstacle to sexual pleasure. We are just trying to democratize the process and facilitate women getting off. And if that means some men get off too, without having to pay through the nose, that's fine too."
Available Toy has a strict age-verification process but guarantees anonymity. Those willing to be the "available" parties, male or female, pay a $30 initiation fee, but nothing else. Women who want to use the service can do so for free, "that evens up the ratio a little," says Mo, "like women paying no cover at a club." The Toys are available for initial email contact, at which point they can give out their IMs and phone numbers to any member who asks. Toys, who sometimes are married or in other relationships, or live with their family or work in places that don't tolerate personal calls, can set their available times as they wish, and can reject calls at any time for any reason. "It's just understood that people have lives, and their lives come first," says Mo. "Our Toys aren't professional or even amateur slaves. A lot of them are very busy people. Everyone's available on an 'if-can' basis." And if a caller, or IM'er, asks for something a Toy is just not into, that's fine. The Toys--and the Seekers, which is what the female initiators are known as - post extensive profiles about likes and dislikes. But AT founders stress this isn't meant to be a dating or hookup site.
"Some members DO get together in person," says Mo. "But that's up to them. The idea is that here's a place where you can get hit-and-run pleasure, if you want. Something quick and dirty--or, if you so desire, something drawn out and involved. And we stress to the men who are Toys that, unless they're requested to make it so, they shouldn't expect their pleasure to be the centerpiece of the interaction. "Most of them are pretty cool guys who respect the power of women," Mo says. "They like to be of service. They love to be teased. They're open and not demanding."
Her sense is that the site is attracting a special sort of group - including a number of gay and bisexual women--that can't be easily pegged or pigeonholed. "It's a bunch of wonderful pervs," she says, "who aren't ashamed of being pervs and are tired of being scammed and manipulated."
And so a harried, married mom may take a few minutes out of her day, while the kids are at school and while waiting for call backs for her freelance consulting business, to dial up a stockbroker or a college teacher or a factory stiff and - instead of being at the mercy of others - exact some demanding tributes. A reserved store clerk or a powerful executive might take a lunch break to talk about her secret latex fetish with an older man on the other side of the country.
"Sometimes you just feel like having a hard cock in your mouth," says Mo. "Or on the other end of a leash. And you don't have the time or the guts to make that happen. Or you want to act out a fantasy your partner won't do. We have the means to make dreams come true, so why should there be so many impediments? This is a logical next step for our culture - to take freedom to the next level."
