Originally published in April 2021
I know what you’re thinking. I know you spotted me, a human woman who is single, better still one who writes about being single for other single women, and you thought to yourself…here’s a ripe one. She’s single! She’s a woman! That can only mean one thing: She loves vibrators. She must love talking about vibrators! Publicly! Single women love three things: cats, wine, and vibrators, let’s get her! Listen to me, you arcane toymongers. We have a bad habit in our society of associating single women with lack. Aw, sad single girl, nobody’s around to give her an orgasm! Let’s help her out with one thing and one thing only, a small and rapidly oscillating machine. Please consider the following a rejection of your copy and paste email inviting me to partner with your vibrator brand for what I’m certain would have been an unsatisfying revenue percentage.
You aren’t curing anything. Let’s start there. Single women are not broken or lacking, and certainly not in ways your dick-shaped product can offer assistance. Vibrator brands, each time they reach out to me to partner, appear to be operating under the assumption that single women are an easy yes. Well of course single women want and need vibrators, that’s their whole thing! Oh, isn’t it just? The constant pursuit of someone other than ourselves, and until we locate this person, in tap dances a brand void of creativity but with plenty of silicone available in the supply chain. When vibrator brands reach out to me, because they saw the phrase “single women” in my work, it is abundantly clear to me that they’re approaching us as if we’re wrong, lacking, and absolutely clamoring for sex toys. It’s also pretty clear they didn’t actually read any of my work, hence this roast. TL;DR, you picked the wrong bitch.
It’s all just so one-note. I’ve been writing and advocating for single women since 2018 and the only brands who have ever reached out to partner with me are vibrator brands. What this tells me is that brands that want to create and market products for single women are lacking both imagination and a good kick in the teeth. I don’t write about sex, sexual wellness, sexual health, sexual empowerment, or any of the other terms used in PR emails to lubricate the fact that what they want me to do is write about vibrators. This isn’t my area, singlehood is. But brands see the two topics as the very same thing.
We…we do care about other things too, you realize this, don’t you? Honestly the narrowness with which brands think about single women makes me laugh so hard I cum.
Women’s sexual pleasure and health isn’t something we need to be enlightened of, awoken to, or made to believe is “okay.” We fucking know our sexual desires and pleasure are 100% perfect and please trust that we are well aware of how to address those things without the help of a brand that just discovered affiliate links. The ever-presence of vibrator brands in my inbox and DMs tells me that the world really doesn’t understand much about single women at all. The automatic association of single women with a need for vibrators and only vibrators is positively archaic. Also, when we buy them, and we do, your assistance is not required. All the information I need to know about sex toys I got through word of vagina, from women I trust, not creepy brand emails I don’t.
Wouldn’t it be amazing, I mean really just the tits, if brands other than vibrator brands could see a single woman creating helpful content for single women and want to partner with her on something other than a vibrator?
You know who I want to partner with? Travel brands, especially those who have taken the time to consider solo travelers. Restaurants that welcome solo diners. Self defense brands because this is the world we live in. Any form of cooking-for-one establishment, or just cooking and baking brands in general because guess what: any recipe is for one if you own a freezer or can do fractions. Home decor brands that recognize we don’t all have families or double-income budgets. Pet brands that are practical, not operating under the assumption that we’re covered in couch fur at all times and “it’s not drinking alone if the cat is home.” Cunts.
I’d like more brands to consider that single women exist, and that we give a shit about a lot more than the stereotypical items assigned to us. Have you noticed that all of those items have to do with what we lack, rather than what we celebrate? Cats because we have nothing to cuddle, wine to drown our sorrows, vibrators to replace a partner. Hows about you market frames for our doctoral degrees or real estate agencies that help solo-purchasers buy their own homes? In between all those solo-orgasms we do actually get up to other activities, too.
The world is still looking at single women one way, and I get proof of that every time a brand reaches out to me because they want to get in front of my audience of single women. The products they’re selling tell me a lot about how they see us, and what they think we care about. When it’s only ever one thing, that tells me the world has yet to even contemplate what life as a single woman actually entails. It also tells me that they don’t care enough to try even a little.
So no, I don’t want to partner with your vibrator brand, not now, not ever. Not because single women don’t use vibrators, but because I don’t want to associate my brand with perpetuating stereotypes about what kind of products are supposed to matter to single women. There are an infinite number of things that matter to single women, and an infinite number of things we enjoy. If only you could just stop masturbating into your ancient viewpoints long enough to find that out.
UPDATE: This is an email I received two days after I published this essay.
Hey Shani,
I hope you are having a lovely day today!
My name is XXX from XXX, a forward-thinking self love and wellness company. XXX’s mission is to empower people across the world to embrace self love and increase their self confidence!
We’re on the hunt for empowered individuals to work with us on an exciting campaign, and our outreach program has identified that our brands may align. I would love to chat further with you about this opportunity and to receive your standard rates.
If you want to discuss further, please reply to my email with your standard rate for:
Instagram:
1 x feed post
3 x 15-second video stories (45 seconds)
1 x Reel
Once we receive your response, we can assess if we’re a perfect match for this campaign. We cannot wait to hear from you! Please let me know if you have any questions.
Kind regards,
XXX
Check out our movement on Instagram!
And if you’re thinking, hey Shani, they don’t mention vibrators in this email. I did check out their Instagram. Their vibrator Instagram. xo
UPDATE #2: Nine days after publishing this post, I got another one, from a different brand. They got in touch because they liked my content on Medium.