Orgasmatron: Debbie Harry’s pivotal role in the invention of a rather extreme sex toy
Finding the right place and time is an essential thing for any artist. Debbie Harry knows that more than most.
Before she finally broke through in the world of culture at 31, she had been a secretary for BBC Radio’s office in New York, worked as a waitress in the renowned rock joint Max’s Kansas City, became a go-go dancer at a New Jersey discotheque, and even tried her hand at being a Playboy Bunny.
In that time, amid a crumbling New York City, she had watched the art world blossom like flora springing from the cracks of the fracturing city, and now it was opening up for her as she found her place in punk. As she once said, “I’m a culture vulture, and I just want to experience it all.” Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust for Life’ would certainly be an apt theme tune.
In fact, her insatiable lust for experiences stretched beyond music. Harry is undoubtedly a sex symbol, and boy oh boy, is she happy to embrace this bestowment. In fact, she has branded it as a source of power since entering the arts, boldly stating, “I wish I had invented sex.” While that might be nonsensical, it taps into her contributions to eroticism’s overlap with pop culture, with Harry happily declaring, “Being hot never hurts.”
Even in 2015, at the age of 69, she still cites sex as a central part of her outlook. “It’s funny,” she explained, “The Victorians were very enlightened about that. They are often viewed as being very conservative, but actually, they were wild. And sex was pretty rampant. There were a lot of goings-on.”
Her willingness to flaunt her sexual prowess even drew the watchful eye of the authorities as Blondie were breaking through. However, being banned for flashing her panties is far from her most daring contribution to carnal temptation. That would come in a far more straightforward fashion: she gave her ex-boyfriend Penn Jillette the idea of having his jacuzzi’s water jets specifically positioned for clitoral stimulation.
This rather robust sex toy became an early business venture and personal passion project for Jillette, with Harry once joking, “Penn patented the orgasmatron tub. I kept expecting his wife to at least send me flowers.” Perhaps she was too busy soaking in the tub?
This bespoke ‘Orgasmatron’ device might have been responsible for endless pleasured quiver chasms around Jillette’s place, but the magician – yes, it was that Penn Jillette – seemingly kept the clitoral jiggery-pokery to himself following the patent, as it doesn’t seem to have ever become a commercially available hot tub.
For those surprised that Penn of Penn & Teller was big in the punk scene, the waistcoat entertainer just so happened to be friends with a whole host of pivotal figures. “I was good friends with the Ramones,” he once recalled. “I was very, very good friends with Lou Reed, I was very good friends with Debbie Harry, I went out with Debbie for years and years…”
They broke up amicably, and Harry left him and his new partner the parting gift of a jittering jettison of water, a fact that flies out of the first few pages of her memoir as a particular proud achievement and the source of some regret. She seemingly broke up with him before he had completed the initial prototype. Once again, timing wasn’t on her side.
Nevertheless, this eagerness to discuss topics that were previously cagey – such as industrial-sizes sex toys – typifies her punk ways. As she famously declared: “I like that I was on the fans’ bedroom walls, helping them to entertain themselves,” she writes in her memoir. “Sex is what makes everything happen. Sex is why people dress nice, comb their hair, brush their teeth and take showers.”
In the Penn household, it is also why the hot water bill is more than most mortgages.
