Shopping Advice 
The Brooklyn “Uproar”
Who knew opening a sex toy store could cause such a stir? While most of the news coverage has been fair if not good, I’ve been chuckling the past few days over a few recent articles. It seems that Claire’s comment about the Brooklyn store having a changing table in the restroom has taken Babeland from a parent-friendly store to a kid-friendly store. That distinction is important among conservatives. Parent-friendly isn’t really anything to sniff at. Kid-friendly implies that I’m standing out on the sidewalk with ice-cream tempting eight year-olds inside to buy sex toys.
Clearly this isn’t what’s happening. Regardless, Focus on the Family, one of my favorite organizations to hate, has picked up the story. Their name sounds friendly but behind it is the most misogynist, bigoted rhetoric I’ve ever seen. So, when I’m doing something that Focus on the Family disapproves of, I’m happy:
“The sex industry thrives on euphemism and deception,” said Daniel Weiss, senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action. “Adding lights and changing tables doesn’t change the damage pornography causes to individuals and families. The only thing this changes is who is being targeted by the lie.”
Actually, our business thrives on directness and honesty. Lights help people actually see the toys and we believe that pornography doesn’t have to be damaging but in fact can be hot.
The best article I’ve seen so far is this one from One News Now in Mississippi:
Incredibly enough, Babeland features hip tunes, nicely-dressed saleswomen and infant changing tables (emphasis theirs) in its effort to sell itself as a cool place for couples to shop. Babeland’s efforts to attract customers are not alone; it seems that there is a growing trend across the U.S. in an effort to remove the sleaze from the sex industry.
Hip tunes are pretty incredible. See how unimaginable it is for these people to even conceive of a place like Babeland? It’s nearly impossible. I love the second sentence too – watch out! These less-sleazy sex toy shops might get you!
Then come the blatant lies:
Sexually oriented businesses attract more crime and drive down property values wherever they are located, not to mention the fact that you cannot remove the sleaze from the sex industry, no matter how hard you try.
That might be the case for more mainstream stores but this blog just got done telling us how (incredibly) Babeland is different. Maybe they should check their numbers because the last time I checked, Babeland has been a long-time member of some of the most vibrant and growing neighborhoods in New York City and Seattle. In fact, a Lower East Side real estate agent cited Babeland as being a key part of the revival of that neighborhood.
And lastly, you can remove the sleaze from the sex industry; unless you believe that talking about sex at all is sleazy in which case you may never “get” Babelalnd. But for those of us who do, we’re so glad it’s around.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Focus on the Family comes from a tradition that believes that pornography is inherently harmful, so they’re not going to be swayed by woman-positive sex-positivity.
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I can totally sympathize with where you are coming from. My wife & I, after following Babeland for some years, were inspired and attempted to open up our own store as well with the same sort of approach. Women & couple-friendly, upscale, sex-positive, etc. After about a year of being in business, the city came in and revoked our business license.
We got the exact same reasons: lowers property values, think of the children, it’s all still porn, blah, blah. All of which were completely bogus reasons as the area is growing and thriving and our neighbors in the shopping center we were in all loved us.
Unfortunately we’ve had no recourse but to close our retail store and move the business online. We just don’t have the resources to take on the city and fight a protracted legal battle.
The sad thing is that there are numerous sleazy porn shops all around. The kind that feeds the stereotypes. But we attempted to do something positive and we were taken to task for it because we would not move into the abandoned neighborhoods where no one wants to venture after dark.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Matt
I’m so sorry. Those battles are so difficult and I’m sorry that you had to close your brick and mortar. I hope the online business continues to thrive and that maybe one day you’ll be able to open back up again.
What part of the country were you in?
June 24th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Dallas,
Thanks so much for the support and kind words. We are located in Georgia in a suburb of Atlanta called Gainesville. Being in the Bible Belt, we knew that our road was probably going to be tough.
The really frustrating part of the whole situation was that we met with the city officials several times and received nothing but blessings from them. We wanted to be totally upfront and let them know what we were doing, but also that this was something different from the stereotypes. But then a year after we were open, the right people complained, so they twisted a couple of regulations around and used those to shut us down.
If we’d gotten rebuffed when we first approached the city, it would’ve been something we could work through because we wouldn’t have sunk all this money and effort into the store. But at this point, it would be like starting all over again. Plus the areas that they want to force us into would make it impossible to create the positive, inviting environment we were after.
We had LOTS of unhappy customers when it happened though. We did pull off what we were hoping to do as far as our customers were concerned. Our customer mix was about 70% women, 20% couples and 10% men. Everyone raved about how different the store was and how much they loved it. Now everyone is severely upset because it’s back to the sleazy shops or nothing at all.
All of this is still in process right now. This just happened about 3-4 weeks ago and is quite some way from being resolved. But we really don’t see any positive way to save the store. So as I mentioned, right now we’re focusing on the website, our blog and also starting up some in-home parties. Basically, re-grouping and trying to figure out where to go from here.
And just so you know, you guys (Babeland) have been a huge inspiration for us. You were the template that we molded ourselves around. And in the backs our our minds, we hope that one day we will find ourselves in the position to take another shot at having a brick and mortar store. In the meantime, you guys should open a store in Atlanta. My wife would make the perfect manager for you
June 4th, 2009 at 7:47 am
[...] what they need, we’ve held brunches and workshops and had giveaways, and we even installed a changing table. The Brooklyn Paper helped us reflect on the year in a terrific article [...]