The first time I walked in to a sex store was in New York City, on 42nd Street, before it was Disneyified and still rampant with Triple XXX movie houses, live sex shows, many a sex store, sex video stores, and male and female prostitutes and junkies. My boyfriend and I cruised a sex store or two, which was quite an education for me. Then, we entered one of the XXX movie houses, and I spent my first porno film viewing either laughing or with my head between my knees, fighting nausea. I later learned of the uptown sex store on the East Side, and the popular-with-the-tourists sex store down in Greenwich Village. It was like walking into an attractive boutique (which it actually was), void of any “dirty” connotations and dirty people. I didn’t feel sneaky or that the clerks were thinking I was some sort of pervert. There was no lewd atmosphere or
talk, just matter-of-fact discussions over which product was right for the customer. It was a revelation to me that a sex store was basically the same as any other store in the market, and how thrilling to know that the products being sold were purely for pleasure, happiness, and contentment. Of course skanky sex stores exist, but when I moved from NYC to “the hinderlands,” the closest sex store was, and still is, not particularly elegant (it’s not the moneyed Upper East Side), but the woman who owns it has the same attitude, except she is friendlier. Weaving between the rubber life-size buttocks and the rubber over-sized vaginas, avoiding knocking over a display of various leather hoods, chains, and handcuffs, she showed me the enormous wall display of dildos. We then moved on to an even larger display of innumerable types of vibrators. The perimeter of the sex shop consisted of videos and magazines, and one space contained various oils, body paints, etc. Her guidance through the various products of the sex store was graceful, and I soon was at ease speaking words such as butt plug, clitoris, dildo, anal intercourse, etc., objectively. We did have the occasional giggle over, well, size matters, the inflatable doll’s mouth and the caterpillar-
headed vibrator, but who wouldn’t? All in all, the thought of entering a sex store is daunting (someone might see me!), but in reality, given the chosen sex store, is much easier and as casual as any other store. Mostly manned by friendly, objective sellers, I swear you won’t be entering the gates of hell. Some may consider it the gate to heaven!
Sex Store
