By Vivian Moreau
Forget notions of Cupid and romance. Valentine’s Day is all about selling the horizontal tango.
“Valentine’s is our busiest night of the year,” says Ingrid, who works for Gentlemen’s Club, an Ottawa escort service. She sees a lot of travelling businessmen “who are lonely deep down inside. They may be happy at home, but if they’re away on Valentine’s Day they want to be with someone.”
Carrie Moon (not her real name), of Ottawa Escorts, agrees. “Our clients often book us for a ‘girlfriend’ experience, whether they are from out of town or regulars,” she says. “Some book because they want that experience and some book to fulfill a certain fantasy. In my case because I’m tall and busty, it’s often the busty factor.”
But Carleton professor Rod Phillips says the day has less to do with a human drive to mate at a particular time of year and more to do with selling a commercial product.
“Valentine’s Day is about marketing,” says Phillips, an expert on family and marriage. “It’s an American phenomenon that’s become universal because of the spread of North American culture.”
Phillips says that just as the champagne industry linked dining out to the bubbly in the first half of the 20th-century, so the greeting card industry linked its products to Valentine’s Day.
In 2005, Ottawa’s Adult Fun Superstore has taken that idea one step further. Tucked in between nondescript warehouses in the St. Laurent/Belfast area, the store is 4,000-sq. feet of sexual aides, enticing clothing, literature and toys. A solid wall of pastel-coloured vibrators butt up against another wall of precariously high shoes; there are racks of bustiers, camisole sets, teddies, and dress-up outfits, arrays of aromatic oils, and another wall of inflatable and insertable devices and sex slings. And at 9 p.m. on a chilly Tuesday the place is a-jumpin’.
“This is quiet compared to last night,” says the manager, Nemesis. (The staff adopt goddess names while on shift.) There are a dozen people in the store, which opened just over a year ago and is open until 11 p.m six nights a week. Monday night was Ladies Night — only women are allowed in the store. “It was a different crowd, mostly older women looking for something for Valentine’s Day,” she says.
Amanda Vanier, 24, was shopping for the first time with her boyfriend, Shane Primeau, 21. “I’m not so much into the toys,” she says, “mostly the oils, and I wouldn’t mind the clothing if I could fit into something.”
February 14 will be the couple’s first Valentine’s Day and they will be most likely celebrating with something purchased from the store. “It’s a pretty cool place,” she says.
It was Julie Moreau and Eric Ethier’s fourth visit to the store in a year. Moreau is intrigued by the shoe collection and Ethier’s checking out the oils.
Outfits which range from $150 to $300 are too pricey. “Maybe I’ll make something instead,” Moreau says.
Sales have been brisk for the past week, in preparation for Valentine’s Day,” says staffer Atalanta. “There’s been a lot of chit-chatting amongst customers about what to buy for the day.” The brightly lit store has lots of room so customers don’t feel crowded. Most of the staff and customers are female.
“Most adult stores are geared toward men,” the day manager, Pandora, explained earlier. “But we don’t hide the fact that we’re a girly-girl store. Although we do get a lot of men this time of year who rush in at noon and say ‘I only have half an hour to buy something!’”
Ingrid, of Gentleman’s Club, says that for some of her clients “Valentine’s Day is a chance to fulfill the fantasy of being with the woman they’ve always dreamed of.”
Valentine’s Day may have started out as a commercial contrivance in the midst of winter, but it’s evolved into the hottest day of the year.