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There's a rising star in Bay Area business, headquartered in the anonymous warehouses near San Francisco International Airport. It's a private company for which few people would have predicted great things when it began a decade ago. From barely $5 million in revenue in 2000, the firm expects to top $45 million in sales this year. Owned by a respected San Francisco attorney and an investor who is a retired CPA, the company is poised to rack up 50 percent sales growth for the third straight year.
The firm isn't just successful; it's become a part of American popular culture, with a top product heralded on a hit cable TV show. And, as anyone who recalls a particularly well-known episode of Sex and the City knows, the Rabbit Pearl is neither a rabbit nor a pearl. Rather, it's an anatomically gifted, soft-jelly vinyl version of the penis.
If rave reviews by satisfied female customers are any indication, the $140 Rabbit Pearl -- equipped to run on three C batteries (not included) -- can apparently keep going longer and do more tricks than a porn stud on steroids, which is great news for Passion Parties Inc., the Brisbane-based sex toy company.
Passion Parties is trying to do for dildos and penile vibrators what Tupperware did for plastic tumblers and Jel-Ring molds. If its sex toys -- which also include the Thumb Pleaser, the Chocolate Thriller, and the Honey Dipper -- seem like standard sex shop fare, that's because they are. What makes the enterprise, tucked in a nondescript office park next to San Bruno Mountain, unusual is the old-style formula with which it markets its products: the in-home party.
http://sfweekly.com/issues/2004-09-15/feature.html