Down There Press |
Aunt Lute Books |
Down There Press is the only US independent publisher devoted exclusively to the publication of sexual health books for children and adults. As a part of their sex-positive philosophy, erotica - both literary and photographic - for women and men are also published. Publisher Joani Blank launched Down There Press in 1975 in San Francisco with the publication of "The Playbook for Women About Sex." She had worked as a sex therapist and sex educator in the early 1970s, taught human sexuality at community colleges and led sexuality workshops for women. After her clients urged her to put her ideas into book form, she created the "Playbook" as a project for a calligraphy class, hand-lettering the text. Soon after, she wrote the first edition of "Good Vibrations" and in 1977, frustrated with the trade booksellers' reluctance to buy her books, she opened her retail store Good Vibrations in San Francisco's Mission District, making vibrators and other sex toys as well as books available. Their first mail order catalog was launched in 1985. Now major book wholesalers and chain stores carry their titles and another Good Vibrations store was opened in Berkeley in 1994. Down There Press is presently part of Open Enterprises Cooperative, Inc., "a worker-owned, women-owned cooperative providing access to accurate sex information and sex toys, books, and videos through its retail, mail order and publishing companies to promote healthy attitudes about sex." They have a staff of over 100. http://www.goodvibes.com/dtp/dtp.html |