As the students trickle into the room, nervously glancing around for familiar faces, Karen… As the students trickle into the room, nervously glancing around for familiar faces, Karen Derzic puts them at ease with her warm, disarming smile and invites them to sit. She looks innocent enough, standing beside her set of vintage leather suitcases.

“I like telling people they belonged to my grandparents,” she says.

A few minutes later, Derzic unzips the cases and lays out an array of sex toys, lubricants and other wares that she will soon describe to the mostly female crowd of more than 50 Pitt students gathered in the small conference room on the fifth floor of the William Pitt Union.

Many of the girls are squeezed together on the carpet, wearing pajama pants and T-shirts, speculating about each of the objects as they wait for Derzic to begin the discussion.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” one student says, laughing.

On Thursday night, the Campus Women’s Organization and Girls-Night-In.com co-sponsored the event, a “party” organized to educate the public about sex-toy safety, while also promoting tolerance of sexual practices like masturbation and bondage.

“We aim to inform people of their sexuality and allow them to be comfortable discussing it,” Derzic said.

“It’s still taboo to talk about, especially for women,” said Gretchen Lasser, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore. “How many words are there for guys to describe masturbation? How many are there for women? Here you can meet other women who aren’t ashamed.”

“We don’t talk about masturbation in our society enough,” CWO president Emily Schweiger said. “Part of a healthy sexual identity is to learn that it’s OK to masturbate and that you’re not the only girl [who does].”

Derzic, a graduate of Pitt’s College of Arts and Sciences, founded Girls Night In, a sexuality resource center and store, with her friend Alison Bodenheimer in January 2003. During her appearances, Derzic dispels many of the myths commonly associated with the overuse of vibrators and sex toys, such as the idea that frequent masturbation can lead to desensitization.

“That’s just not true,” Derzic said. “It hasn’t been proven and was probably perpetuated by someone who was intimidated by sex toys. Nobody completely gives up sex for toys.”

Several products circulated the room as Derzic spoke, ranging in price from $3 to $100. They included the Zeenger ($20), “a multi-speed vibrating egg that’s small in size but big in sensation,” and the Fukuoku ($25), a “small vibrator that slips onto a finger so it can hit all the right places.”

For those still a little modest about asserting their sexuality, many toys are designed with the user’s privacy in mind.

“It will affect your neighbors if it rattles the walls,” Derzic said.

Others, like the popular “Rabbit” and “Dolly Dolphin,” are waterproof and have been featured on hit television shows like HBO’s “Sex and the City.”

As tubes of lubricant were passed around, students sampled the products as casually as if they were appraising department store hand lotions.

“Vaginas don’t wash out silicone as well as other lubricants,” Derzic said. “And never use silicone on silicone. If you’re going to spend $65 on a toy, then you don’t want to ruin it on your first time.”

The use of vibrators dates back to the late 19th century, when they were used to cure women of “hysteria.” The symptoms included anxiety, insomnia and a diminished appetite. Women were frequently brought to the doctor to be “cured” through stimulation of the clitoris, a process that sometimes took more than an hour. Vibrators were not widely accepted into the mainstream until the 1970s, vis-a-vis the proliferation of seminars and parties similar to those that organizations like Girls Night In continue to host today.

As the evening concluded, girls swarmed to the table to fill out order forms.

“I knew I was going to make a purchase, but this really helped me to decide which one,” said an A’S student.

Others simply watched, satisfied with having gained knowledge from an evening well spent.

“People don’t realize how they could benefit,” sophomore Elizabeth Walter said.

“I came here expecting it to be funny and really learned something,” she added.