Established in 2002 by husband and wife team Louis and Leslie Friedman, Liberator Shapes has grown from 10 to 160 employees with over 500 storefront and online retail partners. Under holding company OneUp Innovations, the Atlanta, Georgia-based company has seen revenues triple since launch. Online interest registers over a million website visits per month.

The brand's target markets are highly dissimilar, ranging from fetishists to people with bad backs. And though Liberator bills itself as "bedroom adventure gear," it defines itself as more than just an X-treme sports brand for XXX sports, a feat that is by no means easy in its sector.

The erotic goods consumer is probably best defined by levels of awkwardness. To put it into an economic equivalent of television's "Sex and the City" cast, there are the Charlottes and the Samanthas. Though they may ultimately want to purchase the same items, their shopping preferences couldn't be more different. One is proudly adventurous, as comfortable in the dildo aisle as talking to friends about a latest discovery; the other easily blushes at carnal conversation, forget browsing any aisles. In between it's all Miranda and Carrie. To solidly appeal to this (metaphoric) market as a whole, a brand must titillate without too much tit. It is here that the Liberator brand excels.

Beginning with its ads, where most consumers probably first encounter a Liberator, the brand teases with sexy models and corny puns such as: "U lover enough to liberator?" Or "Father's Day only comes once a year. Make sure dad doesn't." This sort of tongue-in-cheekiness turns lewd into "LoveArt," a spoonful of humor to help make the sex go down. The ads appear in the back pages of man-mag staples like Playboy, Esquire and FHM along with mixed audience publications like Time Out. All ads direct interested parties to the Liberator website where material can be better targeted and more in-depth.

Once on the site, the brand defines itself further by tackling a psychographic need of would-be LoveArtists, trust. From assurances for confidentiality ("…shipped discreetly in plain, unmarked boxes with no exterior indication…") and discreetness ("When not in use, they are simply sleek, tasteful angular pillows"), the brand takes pains to present itself as adult entertainment and not "adult entertainment."

But why take Liberator's word for it? The brand wisely presents numerous testimonials under "Fan Mail," assuring users that a Liberator is not an abnormal acquisition. This first-person reassurance works on both active and passive levels. That the praise happens to come from the wide Charlotte-to-Samantha spectrum is no accident:

"WOW!!!!! Is all I can say… These products are awesome. We just got done making love I am surprised I can type. Whew!!!"

My husband has arthritis, and I have a bad back (I herniated three discs about 15 years ago), so comfort is a very important factor when it comes to intimacy. When we first unpacked the Ramp and Wedge, we were not so sure just how they were going to help us… it was great fun, and with a little practice, both products have put comfort and pizzazz back into our bedroom.

The Liberator is not the only block on the block. Several generic versions of the sex cube are marketed for almost half of the Liberator's US$ 65 to 200 price tag. Loving Angles, a UK-based brand, also makes sex cubes and wedges retailing for similar prices (£79 to £300). Of course there is different "porniture" on the market as well, such as the TLC Love Swing or the Bonk'er Extreme.

But the Liberator does the superior job of communicating its brand values and "normalizing" its products with promotional efforts that make it almost mainstream. At the recent 47th annual Grammy Awards, high profile guests and celebrities received complimentary Liberator products in their "swag bags." Also, cementing Liberator's brand image was none other than Barbra "Babs" Streisand. In last year's enormous hit film "Meet the Fockers," Streisand's sex therapist character can be seen teaching her septuagenarian class to use the wedge.

We expect to see more of the brand this year, which the nice folks at Liberator want to remind us is "The Year of the Cock." (Lunar of course, you cheeky monkeys.)

Abram Sauer is brandchannel’s resident critic on sex and all things sex related. Of course he lives in New York.