The home pleasure-party business has been around for more than three decades, said Tamara Bell, CEO of the Home Pleasure Party Plan Association Inc.

"I tried Pampered Chef, but this is my calling," said Bell, who's been in the business for 11 years.

HPPPA was founded in January 2005 to help pleasure-party company owners, distributors and manufacturers network on just about anything from available products to legal issues.

Bell got the idea for the organization when people began asking her how to get their party plans started or how to make them better. In 2007, HPPPA started a magazine that now has a circulation of about 5,000.

Lisa Lawless, founder of the Colorado-based National Association for Sexual Awareness and Empowerment, has written articles for the magazine on client confidentiality and legal issues. Some states, such as Texas and Alabama, are referred to as "forbidden states" because of previous problems with home pleasure parties and the products they feature. Virginia, Bell said, is not a forbidden state.

"We're trying to help people be more prepared for what they're going into," said Lawless. "It's getting party planners kind of on the same page."

"We're a very tightknit industry," Bell said. "We pretty much all know each other."

But, she added, people who are not prepared for it - just like people who don't know what to expect of the Tupperware or Pampered Chef-type party business - typically last only about six months.

Bell sees the home pleasure-party industry's mission as twofold: to entertain and to educate.

"A lot of people think we're pornography, which we're not," she said. "We let people know it's OK to have a relationship with your husband and to bring in items to enhance it. . . . We bring the store to the working-class woman - from a stay-at-home mom to a high-powered executive - who is afraid to go out and be seen in a store."

Some people go into the business because they have a passion to educate, Bell said. Others are in it for financial gain.

"In California, we bring in millions of dollars in revenue," she said. "Probably 50 percent to 60 percent of the [home pleasure party] product manufacturers are based in California. And there are distributors in every major city."

Bell estimates that there are 10,000 home pleasure-party groups in the United States and Canada, from one-person shops to larger businesses such as Passion Parties.

Anything new on the industry's horizon? Pole parties are the next generation, Bell said. In the meantime, she and HPPPA plan to begin offering relationship coaching to party hostesses and customers.

"In this business," she said, "there's not a day I don't wake up excited about it."