By Stephanie MacLellan
Pastel-coloured walls. Soft lighting. Immaculate hardwood floors. Adult contemporary music playing from unseen speakers.
It felt like I should have been picking out a Christmas present for my mother in this store, not browsing through row upon row of dildos.
Sex-toy shopping is changing, from a necessary evil for people who want to mechanically enhance their sex lives, to an experience in itself.
Shops like the newly-opened Love and Romance Store on Rideau Street are trying to make buying edible massage oil as pleasurable an experience as using it.
“We felt that for a long time, the sex industry has been too hidden, and people felt intimidated,” says owner William Parkinson, who doesn’t flinch when he tells you to call him “Willy.”
The store’s founder, cable TV sex advice host Sue McGarvie, puts it more simply:
“I wanted a place in Ottawa where people could come in and shop and not feel yucky.”
Unlike the garish adult-only stores I remember from high school gag gift shopping, the Love and Romance Store’s easy-listening ambiance is devoid of porn star posters. Instead, there’s a waterfall and a café specializing in bubble tea.
“If you’re shy, you can come in, have a bubble tea, and work your way into the store slowly,” says Parkinson.
“You can hang around, have a coffee . . . . It’s a more social atmosphere.”
At Venus Envy in the Byward Market, dozens of brightly-coloured dildos and vibrators are mounted on a wall, so shoppers can see and touch before they buy. Manager Megan Butcher says the “Toys ‘R’ Us effect” encourages people to feel more comfortable with the sex toys, and to take their time in the store.
“The store really lends itself to browsing,” she says. “Some people can spend a couple of hours in here.”
Information sheets on the walls let customers browse at their leisure, without being forced to ask the sales staff embarrassing questions. There are also couple of armchairs in the store so patrons can take a seat while they look through the erotica and educational books.
“We’re creating an environment that’s comfortable, and people feel drawn to it,” Butcher says.
Wilde’s, at Bank and Gilmour streets, sells a large selection of sex accessories along with its clothing and novelty items. It opened 10 years ago as a gay-oriented shop, but the owners say as many straight women shop there as gay men. Owner Dale Curwin says many of these women make an event of shopping.
“We get groups of women coming in from the office on their lunch break,” he says. “A few years ago we had a store on Dalhousie and we’d get groups of nurses coming from the Elizabeth Bruyère centre, and sometimes they’d bring the nuns with them.
“They got a real kick out of the place.”
As absurd as the idea of a gaggle of nuns wandering through stacks of edible panties may be, having a sex store comfortable enough for the clergy to spend time in makes good business sense. Some customers just won’t buy sex toys if the experience makes them feel like furtive perverts.
It’s a good step to have stores that don’t just make them feel comfortable, but let them enjoy the experience of picking out a vibrator.
At least that’s how I plan on explaining it to my mom when she unwraps her Pocket Rocket on Christmas morning.