Sex shop

A sex shop in Walker's Court, Soho, London.

Sex shops on Boulevard de Clichy, Paris

A sex shop (also called adult shop, erotic shop or adult book store) is a retailer that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as vibrators, lingerie, clothing, pornography, and other related products. The world's first sex shop was opened in 1962 by Beate Uhse AG in Flensburg, West Germany, and sex shops can now be found in many countries and online. Sex shops are part of the sex industry. In most jurisdictions, sex shops are regulated by law, with access not permitted to minors, the age depending on local law. Some jurisdictions prohibit sex shops and the merchandise they sell. In some jurisdictions that permit it, they may also show pornographic movies in private video booths, or have private striptease or peep shows. Also an adult movie theater may be attached. There are also many online sex shops selling a variety of adult content such as sex toys, pornographic magazines, pornographic films and fetish wear etc. These types of shop are often favoured by the consumer as they have less overheads and can be perused within the comfort of the home. Their discreetness is also appealing to some.

History

United Kingdom

By law, UK sex shops must not show goods in the window.

Soho's Original Book Shop with a licensed sex shop downstairs. Brewer Street, Soho.

Almost all licensed adult stores in the UK are forbidden from having their wares in open shop windows under the Indecent Displays Act 1981, which means often the shop fronts are boarded up or covered in posters. A warning sign must be clearly shown at the entrance to the store, and no sex articles (for example, pornography or sex toys) should be visible from the street. However, lingerie, non-offensive covers of adult material, etc. may be shown depending on the licence conditions of the local authority. The Video Recordings Act 1984 introduced the R18-rated classification for videos that are only available in licensed sex shops. No customer can be under eighteen years old.

In London, there are few boroughs that have licensed sex shops. In the district of Soho within the City of Westminster a handful of sex shops were opened by Carl Slack in the early 1960s, and by the mid-seventies the number had grown to 59.^[1] Some had nominally "secret" backrooms selling hardcore photographs and novels, including Olympia Press editions.

By the 1980s, purges of the police force along with new and tighter licensing controls by the City of Westminster led to a crackdown on illegal premises in Soho. In the early 1990s, London's Hackney council sought to shut down Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium, because they did not have a licence. Sh! took the council to court and consequently won the right to remain open as there were no sufficient reasons for the closure. In 2003 the Ann Summers chain of lingerie and sex toy shops won the right to advertise for shop assistants in Job Centres, which was originally banned under restrictions on what advertising could be carried out by the sex industry.^[2] In 2007, a Northern Ireland sex shop was denied a licence by the Belfast City Council. The shop appealed and won, but this was overturned by the House of Lords.^[3]

The licensing or closing of unlicensed sex shops, along with cultural changes such as the substantial relaxation of general censorship and the ready availability of non-commercial sex, have reduced the red-light district of Soho to just a small area. The borough has fifteen licensed sex shops and several remaining unlicensed ones. Islington and Camden each have multiple sex shops; the former also has three pornographic cinemas.

Sex shops in Scotland are regulated under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.

United States

In the United States, a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s (based on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution) generally legalized sex shops, while still allowing states and local jurisdictions to limit them through zoning. Zoning regulations often caused shops to be located either on the outskirts of town, or clumped into a single area, creating a type of red light district of adult stores and businesses. Into the 1980s, nearly all American sex shops were oriented to an almost entirely male clientele. Many included adult video arcades, and nearly all were designed so that their customers could not be seen from the street: they lacked windows, and the doors often involved an L-shaped turn so that people on the street could not see in. In addition, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, stores that also had theaters or arcades were sometimes closed by government order, citing the spread of AIDS as the motive.^[4]

On the one hand, there are stores resembling the UK's Ann Summers, tending toward "softer" product lines. On the other hand, there are stores that evolved specifically out of a sex-positive culture, such as San Francisco's Good Vibrations and Xandria. The latter class of stores tend to be very consciously community-oriented businesses, sponsoring lecture series and being actively involved in sex-related health issues, etc.

Canada

The first sex shop on the continent of North America was "The Garden". which was opened in October 1971 by Ivor Sargent on tony Crescent Street in downtown Montreal, Quebec. The Garden combined the basic concept of Beate Uhse (Germany) and Ann Summers (U.K.).^[5] The store's opening attracted long lines of curious shoppers. The Palm Beach Post commented: "Like the chicken or the egg controversy, no one is really sure which came first-the sex boutique or the so-called sexual revolution".^[6]

There are no specific laws against using or buying sex toys at basically any age, however there are laws about pornography. Although the age of consent is 16 in Canada you have to be 18+ to purchase or view pornography. Most sex shops of today carry adult videos, which means that most sex toys remain strictly in the hands of adults.

Italy

The first sex shop in Italy was opened in 1972 in Milan by Angela Masia and her husband Ercole Sabbatini. This was the first "official" sex shop. Since then more with sex shops have opened, mostly in Rome.

Japan

Front window of a Tokyo sex shop advertising adult toys

In Japan, the sex shops contain hentai magazines, adult videos and DVDs.

Singapore

Sex shops are extremely rare in Singapore, only about 1-2 currently exists. These shops mainly sell lingerie and various sex toys. Their goods can be seen through a store window.

Bulgaria

The first sex shop in Bulgaria was opened in 1991. The stores sell a variety of sex products popular in Europe.

Australia

Sex shops have operated in Australia since the 1960s, first in the urban areas of Sydney, notably Kings Cross. Sex shops in Australia are regulated by state laws and are subject to local planning controls. While laws differ between states, licensees must abide by strict conditions that commonly require premises to be at least 200 metres from schools and churches. Windows are often required to be blacked out and admission restricted to over 18s, with offences prosecuted by police under section 578E of the Crimes Act.^[7]

In the state of New South Wales (NSW) sex shops cannot trade at street level and are required to trade above or below ground. Under NSW law, non-contraceptive sex products can be sold only in shops that have been granted a restricted premise licence by local councils. Nevertheless, by 2013 a number of NSW lingerie stores had begun selling adult toys and books in shopping malls without being granted a licence.^[7]

In the state of Victoria sex shops cannot trade within shopping centers.

The Netherlands

Pussy Cat Bookshop Amsterdam (1971)

The first sex shops in the Netherlands were opened in the early 1970s, by entrepeneurs like Beate Uhse and Lasse Braun. The world's first Muslim-aimed online sex shop called El Asira opened in the Netherlands in 2010. It had 70,000 hits to the website in the first four days of operation.^[8]

South Africa

After Nelson Mandela legalised sex toys,^[9] in 1994 the world's first South African sex shop was established named “Adult World”. Adult World operated a total of 52 shops within South Africa and 15 shops within Australia.^[10] Many religious Christian communities believed that the use of adult lifestyle centres would lead to higher crime rates and attempted to organise mass demonstrations at their opening to force closure of Adult World.^[11]

In July 1998, Adult World opened up the largest adult lifestyle shop in Parow, Cape Town. South Africa which they named “Adult World Warehouse”. Famous adult movie star Christi Lake visited for the opening of the shop where a protest march of over 500 people brought traffic to a standstill. During the next couple of days the protesters had placards which proclaimed "Real men don't need pornography" and "Protect our people from banned pornography". They found that at the opening 70% of their customer base were women who wished to learn more about adult lifestyle products.^[12]

As Adult World grew more popular, a focus on the development of adult shops within Australia took place.^[10]

Ukraine

After the collapse of the Soviet Union Ukraine became an Independent European State in 1991. It took almost 8 years for the first sex shop in Ukraine to appear. The first Ukrainian sex shop was open in Kiev in 1999.^[13] For today in Ukraine there is no clearly formulated legislative base that would regulate the activity of sex shops, both stationary stores and online stores. At the same time, Ukraine has the Law of Ukraine "Concerning Protection of Public Morality" of November 20, 2003 No. 1296-IV (as amended). In this law, a definition of public morals, products of an erotic and sexual nature is given. According to the Law, products of erotic and / or sexual nature should be sold in hermetically sealed packaging labeled "sexual products, sale to minors is prohibited". When sending goods by mail or courier delivery services, the goods are placed in an opaque package. In Ukraine, the production of pornographic materials and their distribution is forbidden, propaganda of violence or cruelty is also prohibited, there is a ban on placing images of the human genital organs in the mass media.

See also

• Beate Uhse AG
• Sex industry

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sex shop.