The Garden Keeper
Yesterday I met the founder of Eve’s Garden. That’s the original woman-owned sex store in New York, founded in 1974. The one that started the movement of women focused sex toy stores across the country, where women come for information, ideas, affirmation that sex is actually ok, sex is actually accessible, sex is actually worth learning something about, and there are people who can actually help and teach.
This woman was a pioneer. Still is. She’s 84, and sharp and inspiring to all of us who had the pleasure to meet her. It’s an honor to get to know her. I do, of course, know a little about sex toy stores, having been to a few, but toys are not my focus. (I mostly love hands.)
But I have come to a new appreciation for the role of stores like these for affirming and educating women and men of all persuasions. And I’ve come to appreciate the chutzpah it took for her to start this project way back when it was even more radical than it is now. And she is still at it!
And I absolutely fell in love with her. There are times, you know, when you give an elder some slack for perhaps not being able to keep up with the nuances in the conversation. As if, and this is often the case is questions of sexuality, the concepts that are available to us have not been part of the culture long enough for the elders to have fluency in. Not her! This is a woman who has much to offer all of us.
And her life! You can read it in her autobiography, ‘ Revolution in the Garden; Memoirs of the Gardenkeeper’ by Dell Williams. And you can get that, and many other things, at www.EvesGarden.com.
Dell, I look forward to more of you!