Last week, my good mate and creative pal Claire Christian turned forty. I wanted to celebrate her brilliance by telling you about one of the strangest and most interesting chapters in our friendship - the time we decided to write about sex shops and went to do some research.
Our sojourn took place over two bright, humid days in Brisbane. We visited the expected places - Fortitude Valley's dark and crusty corners. But we also ventured into the even-weirder pastel-coloured, Kmart-like suburban outfits.
It was a turning point for sex retail generally. It was somewhere in 2011, and it was clear that online retail would soon swallow everything. The shops were on the cusp of a turning tide. All of the owners we spoke to were struggling with the turn away from physical pornography, which had been sex retail’s traditional foundation. Pornhub and free porn sites were now saturating the market.
Nowadays, mainstream sex retail has attempted to make a pivot to ‘sexual wellness. The sloooooowwww dismantling of patriarchy has meant more women feel comfortable buying toys. Even luxury brands like Gwenyth Paltrow’s Goop have entered the business. Dildos are cool now.
Netflix has also produced a string of reality shows centred on sex a mile away from the dusty SBS midnight programs I grew up with. This includes the Goop-produced Sex, Love and Goop documentary and the compelling and surprising How to Design a Sex Room. If you haven’t watched these with your partner and struggle to talk about sex, I heartily recommend getting a glass of wine and putting an episode on. (And while we’re here, you should probably check out omgyes.com for incredibly practical coaching and sex advice.)
Now that porn has quietly exited sex retail, the business has been forced to separate itself from the male gaze and concentrated on the female market. There are plenty of toys for penis owners (cock rings, anal toys, and masturbators make up the majority), but there is a cacophony of delight for those with vulvas. It’s a renaissance for vibrators! The industry is a buzz.
Sorry, I’ll stop.
But, seriously, the female market has arrived in sex retail. There’s been an explosion in the upper-end, with luxury brands like Lelo. Perhaps sadly, the smaller, mum-and-pop-neighbourhood sex shop has been pretty much devoured by online giants like Love Honey. But this fundamental evolution has meant a complete re-working of the possibilities of sex products.
Anyway, this is getting us away from me and Claire talking to sex shop owners.
Looking back, we were researching an industry that was just about to die - or change forever. You wouldn’t know it talking to the people behind the counter. Any thoughts that sex shops would be implicitly erotic or unusual were wiped out quickly. It turns out retail is retail, and most places had a bored person behind the desk who was sick of unpacking anal beads and vibrating cock rings.
A precious few took their mission seriously. They had lonely customers, some who were physically disabled, and plenty who needed genuine help and advice on how to find pleasure alone or with others.
One lady we talked to felt her shop offered a public service.
‘If a rapist comes in, they can buy a vibrator and go home and, you know…that might save someone’s life.’
That’s a genuine quote. We wrote it down. She was very serious.
The products themselves soon lost their lustre. You’ve seen one dildo; you’ve seen them all. We were still a year or two away from products becoming interesting. A solid amount of the business was devoted to bachelorette parties, so their ‘novelty’ stock was a large part of many shops. The green, blow-up alien with three penetrable vaginas stands out as an example. (I just checked on Lovey Honey, it’s not there.)
Claire and I ended up writing a play about a suburban family-run sex shop with a teenager at the centre. It didn’t find a home. I think what we were striving for at that time was something like the tone of Netflix’s Sex Education - an honest and funny look at teenage sexuality.
Only one employee - out of about two dozen - ever said they ran into a creepy experience. A dude was masturbating near the porn. She confronted him. He fled, clearly ashamed. And that was the end of that.
Claire and I were perhaps hoping for something more inherently dramatic than what we found. We were surprised - both on the cusp of full maturity, both at the beginnings of long-term relationships - by how inherently normal sex was once you spent a little time studying it or talking about it. Our white, patriarchal educations had kept it separate from us. We started our journey giggly and nervous, but within a very short amount of time any anxiety had evaporated.
We did end up writing a sex education show designed to tour schools. Unsurprisingly, no one picked it up.
There were also a few brief months when a few of us considered opening an adult shop. But that’s a story for another time.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
And happy birthday Claire. One day, we’ll find that blow-up alien again. We will keep that dream alive.
Such classic Dave and Claire adventures. Yes to more of these.
If you want to know how to forge a life long friendship it's this right here. I adore you and our adventures. What dying industry can we reserach next?!