Bad Vibes at the Trojan Sex Toy Giveaway

On Wednesday, Trojan planned to pass out thousands of vibrators to sexually liberated men and women throughout New York City. Hot dog pushcarts were loaded with Trojan’s Tri-Phoria and Pulse models (a different kind of sausage than usual), to be distributed to passersby until the stock ran out. Handouts were scheduled to begin as early as 11 AM, while the main buzz, so to speak, was to commence at 4 PM.

Initially, the shy side of me blushed at the idea of publicly seeking a bedroom-oriented product, but then my sexually-liberated-woman side said, “Fuck it! If it’s fine for men to masturbate—and casually drop the topic into conversation—why should I be bashful about a FREE product that might be my new favorite toy?!” Apparently thousands of other New York women felt the same way. I rounded up a few fellow sexually-liberated-woman friends of mine, with the plan to meet up at the Russian Vodka Room to load up on courage before going out to find our tickets to pleasuretown.

Three potent martinis later we weaved our way to the East Village, where I was disappointed to see not a million expectant, vibrator-loving faces but just a tiny girl in a purple Trojan polo shirt with a notebook in her hands. “Where’s the goods?” I slurred at her. As the four of us surrounded this poor waif, another Trojan rep, Eric, swooped in to help. With a defeated expression and fake smile, Eric answered some basic questions my friend and I were anxious to know the answers to, namely: Where are all the vibrators?

It turned out City Hall shut down the event down faster than your dad beat up your high-school boyfriend after he busted you two fooling around. The event drew such an unexpectedly high turnout that permits would have been necessary for the mass of people that gathered. How was Trojan supposed to predict the turnout, you ask? Well, they promised to give away 10,000 free sex toys and 10,000 free vibrators = 10,000 people, geniuses!

Eric said the event would be rescheduled the next day and took our email addresses with the promise of free vibrators, but in my head I was already calling bullshit—that was PR damage control if I’ve ever seen it. To add insult to injury, Eric ended the conversation with a sales pitch: “If you really want one of the products, you can find them in the aisles of your local drugstore.”

Confused and unsatisfied, we walk-of-shamed away from the experience. “It’s better to tease than to please,” should be Trojan’s new vibrator ad campaign. While Eric said they planned to pass out product on Thursday, I never received an email or any notification, despite having directly contacted the address on the business card he so eagerly bestowed upon me. Trojan did, in fact, end up passing out sex toys on Thursday, but I wasn’t going to devote any more of my time to not getting off. I’m not desperate, after all. Not that desperate.