Minori Kitahara is a writer/artists and feminist entrepreneur who founded the sex shop for women Love Piece Club. Libidot had a very imspired meetwng with Kitahara in Tokyo in June 2001 and then one year later, they met in Boston, when Kitahara participated in a soiree mixte at the Oni gallery.

QUESTION: What about the vibrator that you designed yourself, named ‘Swan’? This vibrator does not really fit into the vagina, does it?

ANSWER: It is designed for sex partners to stimulate each other’s erotic feelings. It looks more like an animal-like object with small fingers rather than a penis. There is a funny story behind that vibrator, because when I brought the design to the manufacturer, I wanted to make it look like a crab. The manufacturer, however, decided to use a Japanese ‘animal face’ on the claws of the crab to circumvent obscenity laws, which is a common practice in Japan. My design had no animal face. Mostly sex toys cannot suggest the shape of the penis and that is why manufacturers work with animal faces, just in case the police might turn up in the shop. In that case, the shop owner can say "Look this is not a penis, this is more like a doll."

QUESTION: There is of course a big difference between a penis and a vibrator. I keep wondering why we still need to rely on the shape of the penis in vibrators? Do women want to feel something as close as possible to the penis? Vibrators have been changing a lot, like the soft silicone vibrators that are used now instead of the ones made of hard, plastic materials. Are these softer silicone toys used to simulate the ‘skin’ sensation of the penis ?

ANSWER: For some women it might be like that but for me the quality of vibration is more important than the actual materials of the vibrators. A lot of the materials used in vibrators can be bad for the body, including the ones made of silicon materials. A lot of these materials are actually banned as children’s toys because they are bad for the ecology and bad for the human body. I think that this is a controversial issue the same way silicon breast implants have been so controversial. It is not so important to my own masturbation practices as I use a condom on my Japanese vibrators. I have to care about materials for the customers, otherwise I will get a bad reputation with my customers.

QUESTION: Do you have a group of women test out the vibrators?

ANSWER: I just try them out myself.

QUESTION: What are some of your favorite vibrators?

ANSWER: I have not found the perfect one yet. A lot of vibrators make too much noise, so that I cannot concentrate. Some of them lose their batteries too easily when you use them.


Cartoon from Vibe Girls Magazine, Minori Kitahara

QUESTION: Are you interested in exploring female ejaculation by touching the G-spot?

ANSWER: That is not so important to me, as the G-spot makes a lot of women feel nervous, so they come to me and say: "I cannot find the G-spot. I cannot find the G-spot!" In pornography, there is a popular image of a man inserting a finger into the woman’s vagina and finding the G-spot. But that is just a mythic image. There was an important feminist argument in the 70s about the importance of the
G-spot versus the clitoris.

QUESTION: There also has been new information coming out about the size of the clitoris. The inside organ of the clitoris is supposed to be the size of an egg and is covered with ‘erectile’ tissue which means that women may experience something like skin erections with the clitoris is stimulated.

ANSWER: Yes I am very interested in the clitoris as some women don’t have much feeling in the clitoris. This is all amazingly unexplored information, and that is why I make and sell vibrators.