interview by Brian Awehali and Lisa Jervis
When Jennifer Pritchett, Jesse Jacobsen, and Jessica Giordani opened up their Minneapolis-based sex toy store, The Smitten Kitten, in August 2003, they wanted to open a fun, sex-positive feminist business while saving fellow Minneapolites the slight inconvenience of having to drive eight and a half hours to Chicago just to buy a leather harness or sparkly purple butt plug. However, their entry into the sex toy business [online at smittenkittenonline .com] quickly brought them face-to-face with some unpleasant health- and ethics-related realities of the industry. Most major sex toy vendors, they discovered, were selling highly toxic products to customers—including porous “jelly” toys, which are susceptible to mildew and mold.
