Sex Sells: 40 Years of Forbidden Fruit
Terri Lynn Raridon gives Austin over to absolute pleasure
By Wayne Alan Brenner, Fri., Nov. 5, 2021
That woman holding the vibrator is Terri Lynn Raridon. She's a local business owner, a community champion, a wife and a mother and a relentless philanthropist. She's also a survivor of the Dildo Wars.
"I was out in California, touring one of the largest adult product manufacturers in the nation at that time," she tells us. "I was out there, at the Doc Johnson factory, when Forbidden Fruit got raided and busted in the summer of 1989."
We'll get back to those Dildo Wars a bit later in this article, but first let's note: Raridon has owned Forbidden Fruit since 1983. And that store, nestled in a funky little strip mall on North Loop since 2011, is –
"We're small, we're locally owned, we're women-owned, and we're incredibly knowledgeable," says Raridon. "You come in, we're gonna give you a plethora of information to help you make the right decision on whether a product is right for you, and you're actually gonna be able to pick that product up and check it out. The texture, the consistency. The thwack factor, if it's a paddle. You know what I mean? We're the place where you can find all the things that go buzz, bump, and thwack in the night."
A History of Sex
So, sex toys. Formerly, marital aids. Even more repressedly, back in the day, educational models.
There didn't used to be a place like Forbidden Fruit in Austin, 40 years ago. As Raridon points out, there was hardly a place like that anywhere in the country. But then came a fellow named Mark Garfinkel, UT student and local punk rocker – he played saxophone with Sharon Tate's Baby, tore up stages with Aces 88 – who decided, OK, what this town needs is a decent sex shop.
"Mark was really a forward-thinking person," says Raridon. "He opened the store in 1981 – the original site was Downtown at 512 Neches, just off the corner of Sixth Street – and it was maybe the second or third store of its kind in the nation. Up until that point, all you had were porn palaces, right? Places where men would go to see, you know, dirty movies or peepshows or whatever. But Forbidden Fruit was where people of any gender, any sexual orientation – and where it didn't matter about your age, your color, your socioeconomic status – everybody was welcome there. And there were no movies, no magazines, we're talking just strictly products. Intimacy-enhancing products, as we like to refer to them."
And how did Raridon, a young woman pursuing a BFA in dance at the University of Texas, happen to get involved with such a place?
"I was working at the Varsity Theatre on the Drag," she tells us. "And Steve Wilson at the Varsity knew that I knew Mark, and he said, 'Hey, Lynn, we're gonna be showing this film called The Fruits of Passion, it's like the sequel to The Story of O. Will you go and talk to your buddy who runs Forbidden Fruit and see if he'll do a cross-promotion?' So I went down and talked to Mark and did my little spiel. And Mark was like, 'Maaaan, that was a good job of pitching! I wish I had a place for you to come and work for me.' And I was like, 'Yeah, this place is pretty cool, I'd love to work for you.' And he said, 'Well, I don't have a spot in the store, but I'm starting this new concept ...'"
That new concept was home party sales. Yes – like Tupperware parties, but for sex toys.
"We called 'em fuckerware parties," says Raridon, laughing. "And by now you've seen a million of these events – Pure Romance, and the others – there are so many of them out there. But Mark pioneered that concept in Texas in 1982. It was called Girls' Night In, and I was the first rep. They were for women only, at the start, but eventually we branched out and did them for couples. So I did that, and did so well that, as soon as I graduated from UT in '83, there was a spot open at Forbidden Fruit and I started working the counter."
But Raridon wasn't selling dildos, of course. Because no one in Texas was selling dildos.
Veterans of the Dildo Wars
"We had to skirt the law for many, many years," she says. "We didn't sell 'dildos,' we sold 'educational models.' We didn't sell 'vibrators,' we sold 'personal massagers.' The stuff was for, you know, 'topical spot massage.' Or, if you wanted a more penetrating massage, we had other products we could show you. And if you bought an educational model from us, you had to sign a release form stating that you were buying it for artistic, educational, or scientific purposes – and that's how it was promoted and sold to you. Because that was one of the caveats in the law: It was obscene if it was 'devoid of artistic, educational, or scientific merit.'
"And we sold dildos to the state of Texas," she continues. "We sold them to the University of Texas and to colleges around the country that had programs where they were trying to teach people how to correctly put on a condom. They were Condom Demonstration Models."
Caught in a Vice
Crazy, right? Maybe downright stupid, if you think about it? Welcome to America and, especially, Texas. Where the prohibitions against such pleasure-enhancing apparatus were funny AF but, legally, no laughing matter. Not if you were on the receiving end of a police bust.
"We can joke about it now," says Raridon. "We had an employee at that time, her name was Deanne Vise – Dee Vise. So Dee Vise was busted by de vice for selling obscene devices!"
She laughs again, a delightful sound. "But I had to go in front of the Texas grand jury, which was an eye-opening experience. People don't realize this, but when you go before a grand jury, your attorney doesn't go with you. It's you, the jury, your accusers, and the district attorney. But we got no-billed, which means that they didn't want to take it to court. And the guy who busted us? That was a guy named Byron 'Bubba' Cates, who'd been working for the vice squad – this was back when cities still had those. He'd been working for vice down in San Antonio and was apparently a pretty dirty cop and got booted out of there, but Austin seemed to have no problem bringing him in and letting him head up vice in this city. And a year and a day to the day he busted Forbidden Fruit? He went up on federal racketeering charges. So there is, you know, some justice in the world."
A Titillating Tourist Destination
Note: The Texas Obscenity Statute prohibiting the sale of sex toys, introduced in 1973, was last updated in 2003; the law was never formally repealed, but a U.S. district judge declared it to be "facially unconstitutional and unenforceable" in 2008. And, anyway, what's vice got to do with it?
"40 years ago," says Raridon, "being on Sixth Street made it OK for people to come down there at night, because we were like a tourist attraction. But the serious shoppers came during the day, and we'd see them – we had a little window, and I would literally see them standing there, waiting to make sure nobody saw them come in. That doesn't happen quite as much today. In fact, we've had families come in and shop with us – mothers, daughters, sons, fathers. Like, maybe it's mothers getting masturbation sleeves for their sons, so they don't contract STDs. Or families coming in to help their daughter buy their first vibrator. I've had vicars, I've had clergy shop at the store – and they've recommended us as a safe, sex-positive place for their parishioners to come in and find stuff to keep their relationships spiced up and happy. I've had people from 19 to 90 come in, because they know that we're a safe, shame-free space. Things have changed an awful lot."
So, if it's all right to sell sex toys as sex toys now, the next obvious question is: Which sex toys? What are the classics, for instance? What's the, um, cuddling-edge technology?
Raridon smiles. "There are products that we've been selling since the store opened," she says, "but the evolution of these products has been mind-boggling. One of my favorite things to do is go to our annual trade show. And we've gone from static things, to battery-operated, to rechargeables, to Bluetooth-controlled – where you could be in another country and you and your partner could utilize the toy together. Those might require people who are a bit more tech-savvy, but that's been one of the biggest innovations that's come along. Also, changing the actual vibration mechanisms, from ones that are down at the base to ones that are at the tip of the vibrator – a change that women were responsible for. And there are tiny devices that attach to your finger, which are a spinoff from one from back in the day, where it'd attach to your hand and make your hand a massager."
Raridon shakes her hand, demonstrating.
"We actually have a little vibrator museum at the shop," she continues. "And now there are ones that have blowing and sucking mechanisms on them. So I don't know that there's any one item in particular that stands out, there's just so many good choices out there right now. But there is one company whose products we've been carrying since 1983, and they're wonderful, they're called Vibratex. They're the ones who brought the Rabbit into public consciousness – I think the first version of that product was 1985 – and they're also the sole importers of the Hitachi Magic Wand into the States. You can't get that online: If you see one advertised there, it's not a Hitachi – it's a knockoff. You can only get the real one from a licensed dealer."
From Brown Paper Bag to the Mainstream
Of course Forbidden Fruit is a licensed dealer of those Magic Wands – and much more. But that's not all the shop's been responsible for.
"We were pioneers of so many things that went on to become mainstream in society," says Raridon. "Those Girls' Night In home parties, to start with. And we brought body piercing to Austin. We did piercing clinics, and the first one we did was in a condo, where we brought in Karen Hurt, who was a big-name piercer from the West Coast. There were three other times we rented spaces and brought in these well-known piercers, and we booked those things up, and we realized, 'We need to keep this going.' So we started regular body piercing out of our little satellite location, out of a clothing store called XO on the Drag. That was in '90, when we brought in Bear Belmares. In '95, we started doing adult continuing education workshops, sex-positive workshops. And we were right there at the front, helping to promote the burlesque revival in Austin, too. A troupe called Kitty Kitty Bang Bang came to the store, saying, 'We do these big productions and shows, and would y'all want to sponsor us?' and I ended up being a consulting artistic director and guest choreographer for Kitty Kitty Bang Bang for seven years. And we helped popularize pole dancing – Brass Ovaries' pole dancing studio started inside Forbidden Fruit. Miss Natasha would come in and teach pole dancing classes, until she found her own space."
This, we're thinking, is some important cultural history.
"We also brought the first fetish balls to Austin," says Raridon, "back in 2003. People weren't doing kinky fetish balls, and we brought the Extravagasm Fantasy Ball. And he may hate me for telling you this, but one of the first people that I worked with on doing that? Hugh Forrest. There were three of us: Me, and a guy named John Dial – DJ Fluffertrax, who played porn-movie music – and Hugh Forrest." (Note: These days, Forrest is chief programming officer at SXSW.)
So, after four storied decades in business, Austin's Forbidden Fruit isn't about "educational models," it's about sex toys. But, ultimately, the welcoming little store on North Loop isn't really about toys, is it?
"If there's anything that's positive, that's promoting sexuality, we want to be a part of that," says Raridon. "We've tried really hard to position ourselves as a community resource, and we want to be a place where people can come to get information – it's not about just putting the most expensive device in your hand."
Forbidden Fruit, 108 North Loop, Mon.-Sat. noon-7pm, Sun. noon-6pm. forbiddenfruit.com.
Forbidden Fruit's Chronicle Ads Throughout the Years
