{image1}For decades, San Francisco's "Good Vibrations" has provided women with a comfortable, safe environment to purchase erotic items, and soon, Milwaukee women will have a similar erotic boutique.
Eilis O'Herlihy and Molly Cassidy will open "The Tool Shed" this summer in a yet-to-be-determined Riverwest location. They plan to sell condoms, vibrators, post cards, menstrual supplies (homemade heating pads; raspberry leaf tea), "lube cozies" and other erotic toys.
"I'm trying to order as much as possible from small manufacturers," says O'Herlihy, 26.
O'Herlihy, who is from California, says she was inspired by Good Vibrations as well as a similar shop in Los Angeles called "Grand Openings."
"I want to open a comfortable place to buy stuff that doesn't feel sleazy," she says. "Women don't want to go into a place where they sell boob pasta and fake asses."
The Tool Shed's décor will be what O'Herlihy calls "grandma antique-y" and very kitsch. She hopes to bake cookies during all hours of operation and plans to give away chocolate tool suckers with purchases.
For now, O'Herlihy continues to work shifts at Barossa and Onopa and is shopping around for a space. She originally moved to Milwaukee to help take care of her sister's child while her sister attended graduate school, but when her sister left town, O'Herlihy stayed.
"Milwaukee is a gem," she says. "I have friends from hectic and overwhelming places who just love it here."
O'Herlihy harbors a few concerns that Milwaukee women won't embrace her erotic emporium. "People are a little weird here about sex," she says.
To "ease the pain," O'Herlihy says her shop will be discreet on the outside (it will not include the word "sex") and will offer non-sexual gifty items like wrapping paper and cards.
But overall, O'Herlihy has faith that Brew City babes will hang-up their hang-ups and she looks forward to creating a successful business and someday buying a house -- something not feasible in California.
"I flew into Milwaukee from L.A. at Christmastime and the houses were snow-capped and beautiful, and then I got off the plane and saw a woman smoking a cigar in the airport, and warm weather at Christmas suddenly just seemed wrong," she says.
Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.
Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.
