SEX TOYS & VIDEOTAPE

 

A lot of women like porn, many love it. That may come as a surprise to the boys but ask any ’under the counter’ video supplier and you’ll find that it’s a fact, and more women than men are after it.

 

The widely held belief that only men are visually stimulated is also a misnomer. Male strippers have been raking it in for the last eight years. Beneath the female rumpus and high-pitched histrionics there’s a lot of visual stimuli going on, it’s just that women can be a hell of a lot better than men at behaving badly.

 

A ‘girls night in’ with a bunch of vids does not necessarily mean a night of Brad Pitt and chick flicks.

 

So why do so many British sex shops stick to a male oriented image?

 

One overcast Thursday, my friend Amy and myself decided to ‘do’ the London sex shops. Now Amy knows her stuff. She decided to do her university dissertation on the subject that interested her the most, you guessed it, pornography. So there’s little of the Porn Industry and its history that Amy doesn’t know about. She also collects vibrators like some people collect stamps.

On our wanderings we found that most of London’s sex shops, even the ones with distinctly feminine logos and shop fronts, had stark, masculine interiors. There was a nervous hush inside and all the punters were men; men of all professions, shapes and sizes, but men none-the-less. The severe layout presented the videos, books, mags, vibrators, sex toys and clothing as part of a sombre topic – one not to trifled with. There was little sense of fun; it felt intimidating and uncomfortable.

 

A couple of mochas up Oxford street and we turned towards the new updated Anne Summers establishment. Now this place doesn’t supply vids or mags but as far as a playful image is concerned, they’ve got sex sussed.

With two 3 foot fake fur, zebra skin platform shoes at the entrance and a black and red interior, it has the air of a mischievous boudoir with a sense of humour. Horsy and piggy posing pouches neigh and grunt alongside willy lipsticks and chocolate nipples.

 

In the section downstairs, even the rubber and BDSM equipment is presented in an enticing and non-threatening manner. A back-lit shelf offers vibrators that you can turn on and watch in action. Naturally, being female and in a playful mood, we just had to crank them up to full power and set them all off before bolting with our purchases.

 

Healthy, consensual sex is not a monster and with the right marketing it would not be regarded as such. Attitudes have been improving but there’s still some way to go.

 

There’s a strong demand for sex oriented products in Britain and if the sex industry wrapped it in a prettier box, we might be able to leave the image of the man in the dirty raincoat to the dustbin of history.