Sex in the city

Adult stores have been around for ages, but whether through apprehension or simply the feeling of not knowing how or where to start, it’s not uncommon to find oneself over the legal age, never having set foot in one of these places.

Until last week, I was part of that demographic. It was in the hope of educating myself (and hopefully some of you, dear readers) that I chose to dive face-first into Winnipeg’s sex shops and tour three local establishments: Osborne Village’s Smitten, the St. James St. location of Adam Eve, and Taylor Ave.’s Love Nest.

What I found in each was a positive, welcoming atmosphere with both staff and management dedicated to providing customers with a fun yet educational environment to explore their sexual preferences.

According to Cheryl DePaulo, manager of Smitten, an increasing number of people are beginning to realize this.

“Everything’s a lot more mainstream,” DePaulo told the Manitoban.

“You’ve got TV shows that are talking about toys and advertising them, which has people coming into the store that normally wouldn’t.”

Linda Zuzanski, president of the Love Nest, cited registered nurse, media personality, and sex educator Sue Johanson as an early driving force behind growing sexual education and awareness in Canada.

“She was the woman who started the birth control pill movement back in the 70s in Toronto,” said Zuzanki.

“She got known all across Canada and the universities as a sex educator. She started a radio show back in the 80s [Sunday Night Sex Show]. We’d have customers come in on a Monday or Tuesday morning and say to us ‘do you have that toy that Sue talked about last night?’”

Each establishment displayed an acute awareness of the need to acclimatize newcomers to their line of products. According to Adam Eve sales associate Joanne Byra, this was exemplified by the very layout of their store.

“The lingerie’s first, then your lotions and lubricants, then your smaller toys that, like [fellow sales associate] Tracy said, don’t look like big phallic penises. If people are shy, they don’t have to go past that point. They can stay up here,” said Byra.

With slight variation, each shop was laid out in this manner. From the entrance of each location, I could see the aforementioned “accessible” sex items displayed in plain sight. Upon venturing further into the store, sensual lotions and lingerie would be gradually replaced by larger, realistic dildos and vibrators, as well as fetish-specific sections (like the wall dedicated to BDSM/bondage gear that could be found in each shop).

A positive demeanour and tactical layout was shared by all three locations, but my sources at Smitten, the Love Nest, and Adam Eve each spotlighted a different focus or specialization of their shop.

According to DePaulo, Smitten prides itself on its support of Winnipeg’s LGBTTQ* community, dedicating a kiosk to rainbow flag-emblazoned items year-round. DePaulo also stated Smitten is the only shop in Winnipeg that consistently carries merchandise specifically geared to transgender individuals. This includes, but was certainly not limited to, packing dildos designed for “comfortable, all-day wear.”

DePaulo also stated the importance of education to Smitten, pointing out an entire wall displaying free pamphlets, with titles ranging from “Choosing a vibrator” to “Sexual Intimacy and Aging” to “Sex Toy Care” to “Finding the Female G-Spot.”

Zuzanski also cited education as an imperative aspect of Love Nest, pointing out a stand near the front of the store that displays a variety of documents pertaining to the health benefits of masturbation, the power exchange and lifestyle employed in role play and BDSM, among many other topics. The stand also included business cards for drop-in health clinics, as well as copies of Outwords, a free magazine for the LGBTTQ* community and its allies.

Another Adam Eve sales associate, Tracy Chlopecki, cited the store’s emphasis on sexual education, as well as the store’s self-identification as a sex “boutique,” rather than a shop.

“We have a lot of training in sexual education. We’re here more to help than just sell,” Chlopecki said.

“We’ve had a few seminars, we’ve had them on the female orgasm, knowing yourself. Last year, we had one for Fifty Shades of Grey on Valentine’s Day on rope-tying, the right way of doing it. Our next one starts December 3rd and that’s on percussion play […] it’s like, the floggers [whips] and the proper ways to use them safely, how to bring them into the relationship. We want people to be safe before just buying it and trying it.”

The erotic drama Fifty Shades of Grey, in both novel and movie form, has gained pop culture infamy for not only its writing – one critic called it “a sad joke” – but an inaccurate portrayal of the relationship that occurs within BDSM practices.

However, Chlopecki told the Manitoban she believes there’s a silver lining to Fifty Shades of Grey.

“More people are more interested to get to know the real, behind Fifty Shades story. That’s why we do seminars on the proper ways, the safe ways,” she said.

“I think Fifty Shades did open a lot of eyes. It’s not just behind locked doors. It had bad ways of doing it, but it did make people want to be more educated.”

Regardless of the particular, defining aspects of each shop, all staff and management expressed a genuine, profound enjoyment of the business.

“It’s a fantastic job,” said DePaulo, who has been working in sex shops and boutiques for 10 years.

“You get up looking forward to going to work in the morning […] You never know what a day of work is going to hold in this type of industry. It’s a lot of fun, I get to talk about sex all day.”

Zuzanski, who has been in the sex shop business for 28 years, agreed wholeheartedly.

“It’s fun helping people. Everybody that comes in here is happy, or sad because maybe their body parts aren’t working 100 per cent. So, because it’s this kind of environment, it’s fun to help them.”

“I’ve loved lingerie since I probably shouldn’t have,” said Byra, also a 10-year veteran of the business.

“Once you get a taste of this industry, once I realized how comfortable I was and how comfortable I make customers feel, you can’t put a price tag on that. I don’t care if they spend $5. When they tell you they drove out of their way to come and see you because of the service they receive, that is the biggest bonus ever.”

 

For more information about the stores in this article, please visit www.adamevewinnipeg.com, www.areyousmitten.com, or www.lovenestonline.com.

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The brand name you’ll never forget

If you want to understand the challenges of choosing a name for your product in the ever more interconnected global market, look no further than an Indian sportswear range.

It demonstrates that what works in one market can be a disaster in another.

Brand names are supposed to embody the core values a product wants to project. That is why big companies spend millions of dollars choosing the right name.

The owners of the new clothing range clearly believe they are onto a winner. It was launched with some fanfare earlier this year by Saif Ali Khan, one of India’s leading Bollywood actors.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary its name means courageous and plucky. In Australia it is slang for an attractive person. Appropriate themes for a brand designed “for those people who have a flair for movement… and enthusiastically give in to the rhythm that surrounds them”.

People “who are free of any inhibitions of mind and body” continues Futurebrands, the company behind the new range.

But “Spunk” must surely rank as one of the worst brand names in history – at least when it comes to the British market.

That’s because in Britain the original meaning of bravery and valour has been almost entirely eclipsed by its use as a slang word for semen. (The first use of the word in this sense recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary dates back to 1890.)

I am sure I was not the first British person to let out an involuntary guffaw when I saw the brand name proudly emblazoned on an otherwise rather nice tracksuit.

You can, I discovered, also buy Spunk shoes, T-shirts and socks.

And Spunk is not alone. The market for appallingly named brands is surprisingly congested.

I showed my new Spunk socks to a friend over lunch.

Like everyone I have subsequently mentioned the brand to, he immediately produced his own favourite unfortunate brand name. In this case “Fanny”, a Vietnamese ice-cream company which will struggle to whet the appetite of its sniggering English-speaking potential customers.

A cursory trawl of the internet brings up a host more.

Pschitt lemonade, anyone?

Image copyright
Steffi Njoh Monny/Flickr

Or how about Bonka coffee, perhaps accompanied by a Plopp chocolate?

Image copyright
Duncan C/Flickr

Then again you might prefer a bag of the Chinese snack Only Pukeet washed down with a bottle of Pee Cola from Ghana?

And don’t forget a pack of the Swedish toilet paper, Krapp, and a box of Barf detergent from Iran.

You could always store it in a Bol-lock zippable plastic bag.

Image copyright
servibolsa.com

No doubt these products sell well in their home markets but they may find it hard to expand into the English-speaking market.

Many companies find it easier simply to change their names.

The Belgian chocolate company Isis is just one of a number of businesses named after the Egyptian river goddess which have decided a re-brand is the only way to avoid confusion with the Islamist militant group.

A US mobile payments company has done the same, and the British company Ann Summers has apologised for any offence caused after launching a range of “erotic lingerie” called The Isis Collection.

Meanwhile, the actor Hugh Bonneville has vigorously denied claims that the scriptwriters behind Downton Abbey decided the Crawley family Labrador was to develop cancer and die because it also shares its name with the jihadist group.

Many companies have dealt with perceived problems with their brand name by replacing them with brand new words.

That worked very well for BackRub (Google*) and Brad’s Drink (Pepsi Cola), but seven years after the British insurance company Norwich Union decided to rebrand itself as Aviva, the jury is still out.

The chorus of disapproval was so overwhelming when the British Post Office re-styled itself as Consignia a decade ago that just over a year later it shamefacedly switched back to the original.

And a surprising name isn’t always a handicap.

After all, the British clothing brand French Connection did very well after renaming itself FCUK.

*Google is a play on the word googol – the term for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros

Here is a selection of interesting brand names readers have seen:

Robert, Luxembourg: Looza is a soft drink found often in vending machines here.

Siobhan Redmond, Edinburgh: Travelling in France I found “Zit” ice cream.

Anthony Johnston, London: I start gagging at the thought of quenching my thirst with a bottle of Japanese drink Pocari Sweat.

Kannan Athreya, London: How about Coolpis… a fruit drink from South Korea?

Kyle McAllister-Grum, Carbondale, IL, USA: When I was in Panama City over the summer, I saw a bread truck with a friendly marshmallow bear and the word BIMBO across the top.

Ian Richards, Selby: I lived in Denmark for nine months, and over there “Spunk” is the name of jelly sweets.

Lisa Flint, London: Arcelik is a major electrical/white goods manufacturer in Turkey so the brand name and adverts are everywhere.

Kees Haasnoot, Netherlands: While travelling on a train in India, I saw someone transporting a newly-bought pillow. The name of this pillow, proudly presented on the packaging, was “Nightmare”.

Beth Gibbons, Nottingham: In Montenegro we found “Noblice” biscuits.

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