Hitachi 5-0: Magic Wand Reaches Half-Century Mark

It’s the massager that started it all. It’s been loved by millions of women for decades. It’s been called the “Cadillac of Vibrators” and is undoubtedly the most recognized massagers on the market for the past 50 years. It’s the (Hitachi) Magic Wand. For those of you in the retail or sex education segments of the adult industry, the Magic Wand is the consistent go-to vibrator to recommend for women who want the best buzz for the buck. Its strength, reliability, power and ability to blend in with other common household goods (no need to stash it away in the nightstand) have made the Magic Wand the best-selling vibrator of all time. During its 50 years on the market, the Magic Wand has transcended the history of any other sex toy on the market by single-handedly impacting the sexual satisfaction of countless women and changing the way sex toys have been sold to consumers. The history of the product itself clearly parallels the history of sex toy retailing. Hitachi, the Japan-based multinational manufacturer of hundreds of products ranging from huge construction machines to consumer rice cookers, patented the iconic Hitachi Magic Wand in 1968, an unbelievable 50 years ago. Originally released as a long, ribbed, scepter-shaped appliance with an equally ribbed, firm, soda-can-sized head, the Hitachi, as it was known, provided two speeds of reliable power by plugging it in, similar to the standard Magic Wand that remains today. The main function of the Hitachi was to provide deep massage to muscles after exercise or on shoulders after a tense day. There was no reference to it being a device for sexual satisfaction until many years later. In the early to mid-1970s, shortly after its introduction, the massager went through one of several re-brandings it would experience during its five-decade history. The color was changed to an ever-so-trendy tan, beige and brown color (popular in the ’70s), and the head was reconfigured to more closely resemble a tennis ball, complete with a softer density for more comfortable massaging. Along with that came a new name: The Workout, proudly embellished on the boxes with equally trendy depictions of women sporting running shorts and tank tops. In the mid-’70s, Hitachi changed the packaging again with a photograph of a fully clothed, Farrah Fawcett-like model with a wispy “wings” haircut, gazing at the potential buyer with a serious facial expression. Of course, there was a smaller image of the Magic Wand added to her provocative stare to remind those buyers exactly what was in the inside of the package. While the Magic Wand was gaining popularity in the general consumer market, there was a feminist movement beginning to percolate with New York City’s sex educator and artist Betty Dodson (aka “The Mother of Masturbation”) leading the way. Beginning with her groundbreaking book released in 1974, Liberating Masturbation, Dodson believed women would achieve orgasm more frequently and pleasurably by co-opting a reliable, plug-in massager placed firmly on the clitoris during masturbation sessions. She was right. Betty began hosting her infamous women-only Bodysex workshops for women in New York City in the early ’70s, relying on the readily available (and much larger) Panasonic Panabrator massager. Sporting a flatter, circle-shaped head, the Panabrator was used for clitoral stimulation during the group masturbation sessions. Soon after Betty experienced the Hitachi—with its more compact head and lighter weight—she felt it was easier to use for her sessions and started incorporating the Hitachi into her workshops instead. One woman who signed up for her workshop around 1973 was a shy, petite advertising executive named Dell Williams. Williams had met Betty years earlier at a yoga retreat and waited a few years to contact Betty about her Bodysex workshops. During the workshop, Williams was captivated by her experience using the Hitachi and went to purchase one on her own. She wandered into her local Macy’s and asked the clerk for a massager. When the clerk asked her what she wanted to use it for, it thrust Williams into a state of embarrassment and humiliation. Determined, she decided to challenge the status quo and create a place where women could purchase sex toys in a comfortable, women-friendly space. Thus, the first major woman-owned, sex-positive sex store was born: Eve’s Garden, opened by Dell Williams, in the upper west side of New York City in a small office space on the 12th floor, where it remains today, 44 years after its founding. On the West Coast, Joani Blank, a public health educator in San Francisco, began teaching anorgasmic women how to be more relaxed around sex. In 1976, she published a small book titled Good Vibrations about vibrators and women’s pleasure. The book featured the Hitachi Magic Wand on its cover—and Blank knew that by having an appliance-shaped massager on the cover, it would not be relegated to the back of the store, nor be thought of as a sex book. Much like Dell Williams, Blank’s goal was to create a “safe, well lighted place” for women to shop for vibrators and she opened Good Vibrations in the Mission District in 1977. The Hitachi Magic Wand was one of the best sellers when she opened (and as it continues to be to this day at the namesake store). In keeping with Blank’s belief that more sex-positive, women-owned sex stores should be opened, two entrepreneurial women (one being yours truly), were able to learn the trade and apprentice at the flagship Good Vibrations store in 1993. Later that same year, Toys in Babeland opened in Seattle and my store, Grand Opening!, opened in Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Both stores famously carried the Hitachi Magic Wand. But then it happened. The way Hitachi does business (as it still does today) is to have an exclusive distributor of their products within a division, such as construction or, in the case of the Magic Wand, consumer products. In 1999 that distributor, Appliance Corporation of America, was not paying the bills to Hitachi for their products and Hitachi ceased shipping product, therefore creating widespread panic for the lack of Magic Wands on the market. American retailers were left scrambling, trying to find Hitachi Magic Wands available anywhere, but since Hitachi only used one distributor, there was only one channel where we could buy them. Personally, I contacted every individual at Appliance Corporation of America to get an answer as to why I could not get the Magic Wands, and kept calling up the ladder only to eventually speak to the director of Hitachi North America, who told me why I could not get my best-selling vibrator into my store. I was stunned. A few months went by and Vibratex, the well-known manufacturer and distributor of prized Japanese vibrators, including the infamous Rabbit Pearl, proposed to Hitachi that they could easily represent the Magic Wand here in the United States. At the same time, Hitachi was already in negotiations with another adult distributor but Dan and Shay Martin, the owners of Vibratex, proposed to pay for a cargo container upfront to prove that they were able to move thousands of wands. Hitachi agreed to do this, assuming that it would be a one-shot deal. The other competing distributor made it clear that they, too, only wanted to sell the Magic Wands and not the rest of Hitachi’s general consumer line of products. With the determination and investment that Vibratex made with the cargo container of Wands, Hitachi then felt Vibratex was the company to work with to distribute the beloved Magic Wand and the women of the world were saved from its extinction. Or so we thought. In 2012, twelve years after Vibratex was established with distributing the Magic Wand, the executives at Japanese based Hitachi learned why the Magic Wand was so incredibly popular in the US: it was used for sexual pleasure. Hitachi wanted to distance themselves from being associated with “that kind of product” and notified Dan and Shay that they were going to discontinue the manufacturing of the wand. Knowing that this would be an insurmountable loss on many levels, Dan quickly responded to Hitachi with the suggestion of simply removing the Hitachi name from the Magic Wand and releasing it with only the Magic Wand name, distancing the manufacturer with any association of a sex toy. At the same time, Hitachi suggested that it was time for an update to the internal workings of the wand. Previously relying on technology from the 1970s, the components were upgraded, the circuitry modernized, and the vibrating head replaced with consumer-friendly and hygienic silicone. The Magic Wand was also rigorously tested at their factory, which had Shay mentioned “was like a Magic Wand BDSM room with every painful test happening to ensure its durability. The Wand was being swung around by its cord thousands of times to make sure it was up to their quality standards. I was impressed.” The package was also changed to reflect the new name of “Magic Wand Original” when it was released in 2013. The rebranding and improvement of the Magic Wand resulted in a huge sales boost for Vibratex and adult retailers who continued to sell the Magic Wand, including more mainstream types of adult stores, not just the women-owned ones. In keeping with the increasing consumer interest with green technology in everything from cars to sex toys, 2015 ushered in the first Rechargeable Magic Wand, complete with many more settings than the plug-in model’s fast and not-as-fast speeds. The dependability of the rechargeable was still there, as was the versatility and quality of the Magic Wand Original. The Magic Wand Original itself also has created a robust accessories market, offering additional upselling opportunities for retailers. Before Vibratex distributed the Magic Wand, they sold two hollow vinyl attachments that fit snugly on the head of the Wand: one was straight and the other curved for G-spot stimulation. Years later, due to the popularity of the Magic Wand, other companies followed suit with attachments ranging from a three-way stimulator (clitoral, vaginal and anal), flutter attachments to help dissipate the intense clitoral vibrations, nubby textured caps, cylinders that a man can insert his penis into to enjoy the Magic Wand’s intense vibrations, to silicone attachments that provide solid internal vibrations for those who enjoy relying on strong, non-stop pleasure. When asked about the number of Magic Wands that have sold in the U.S. since its inception, Dan mused, “It’s easily in the upper tens of millions, if not more. And think of how many orgasms the Magic Wand has provided during that time. Billions, easily billions. And think about if everyone who owns a Magic Wand would orgasm at the same time. I’m sure it would shake the earth.” I couldn’t agree more. Magic Wand, we’re glad you’ve been around 50 years. Here’s to another half-century more of orgasms …