After Dale Williams was humiliated by a department in 1974
When she tried to buy a vibrator, the shop assistant was transferred to Eve's Garden, a New York boutique widely described as the country's first sex store dedicated to women, who died Wednesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 92.
Her friend Mary Elizabeth Green confirmed her death. Cohen.
Former actress, advertising director and Army Wac
Williams has been a well-known national advocate for women's liberation, sexual and sexual health for 40 years.
As she often says, this position is based on the premise that "women have sexual rights to express.
"The news media often consult her on topics such as Valentine's Day (
"It's fun to use sex toys, it's sexy and can bring a couple closer "); vibrators (
"Even if it collects dust in your drawer, I will say catch it ");
Britney Spears's 2003 song, touch my hand, caused a sensation, celebrating female masturbation.
"In the last 50 years or so, although the medical and moral fears of masturbation have subsided, shame still exists --
This is shameful, "Ms.
Williams said at the time.
"Hopefully Britney's honesty and her songs can help women overcome the feeling of embarrassment, but embrace something so natural. ”When Ms.
Williams set up Eve's Garden at her table, and discussions about female sex, especially female orgasm, have been taboo.
What sex stores are there
Mainly red. light-
Regional affairs-
Owned and catered to by men.
Today, thank you to a certain extent.
Williams's work "the sex of women"
Millions of products
National attention to the dollar. Start with mail
Eve's Garden has been running a discreet brick factory for decades --and-
Mortar shop on the upper floor of Manhattan office building, 119 West 57 Street, between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue.
For timid people or those who go outof-
Town, the store is still sold through mail order and has been sold through the website evesgarden in recent years. com.
Its products include: countless vibrators, including rabbits, a model that Charlotte, played by Kristen Davis, is famous in the TV series "Sex and the City", from one to the next; mint-, cola-and banana-
Seasoned condoms;
A pile of "Fifty degrees of ash"
Licensed products, including the beginner bundle submitted to me, were priced down from $70 to $60.
The store also sells books, including Ms.
Williams memoir "revolution in the Garden"2005)
Written with Lynn Vanucci.
The book records her drama training with Method actor Paul Mann, her life in the Communist Party and the feminist movement, her career in the military, in her words, "a Jewish girl from the Bronx eventually owns a sex toy shop.
Isaac Zelin and former Sarah Brownstein's daughter, Dale Zelin, were born in Manhattan in August.
1922 M. grew up in Bronx.
According to family legend, her name is in honor of socialist journalist Floyd Dale, a staunch supporter of birth --
Margaret Sanger, control advocate
Williams, the last name she adopted as an adult, seems to be a variant of the man's last name for her brief marriage.
When she was a teenager
Williams's memoir tells the story of her being raped by a date.
Later, after a short wartime relationship, she became pregnant and experienced a painful and terrible illegal abortion. In 1945, Ms.
Williams joined the Women's Corps.
An entertainment specialist at an army hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
She produced and performed on the daily broadcast to the patient, and later visited the military base in the WAC musical.
After serving, she worked at the theater in Los Angeles before returning to New York, where she worked in advertising.
Eve's Garden was born with an epiphany on 34 th Street, if not a miracle.
In their early 70 s
Williams attended a seminar from female masturbation advocate Betty Dodson.
So women can experiment in private.
Dodson recommended the Hitachi wand, a cylindrical vibrator that is nominally sold to sore muscles. Off Ms.
Williams went to Macy's to buy a magic wand.
She later wrote that there she found herself with "p imply 20-
Male salesman.
"What do you want it?
"He asked with a voice.
"I left Macy's that day," she wrote, "with my precious anonymous brown shopping bag, thinking: Someone should really open a shop, A woman can buy something like this there without a child asking what she is going to do with it. ”Ms.
Williams's marriage to Ted Wilms was declared invalid.
No immediate family survived.
Her other work included helping to organize a 1973 meeting in New York on women's sexuality, attracting thousands of women and nearly 100 men, and attracting news media coverage.
She has a prominent position in a recent documentary about the history of vibrators, passion and power: the technology of the climax.
Other products in Eve garden include personal lubricants, teaching DVDs for $79.
95, the current incarnation of Hitachi Magic Wand.