 |
|
|
|
Toy story
What's it really like to work in a sex shop in Canada?
By Susan Bourette
|
|
|
|
Day four Need to check out the competition, so I've got some time lined up with Seduction on Yonge Street. Step into a cavernous, warehouse-style store with fluorescent lighting. Seduction lures a broader demographic than Lovecraft and draws more from the lesbian and gay population. "There are three floors to check out," cries a clerk in his late 20s to patrons entering the store, catching the attention of a Bay Street fellow in a pinstripe suit clutching a copy of a Boss Bitches DVD. Across the aisle is a collection of Candida Royalle DVDs-a hit with women-with titles like The Gift and My Surrender. "If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right," bellows the clerk. And there's lots of fun to be had in this store. Seduction's most popular item is the Fukuoku 9000 Finger Vibe, a blockbuster seller since the tiny vibrator was promoted on the syndicated Talk Sex with Sue Johanson show. Made in China, it sells for $40 and has been on the market for about three years.
The store manager, 27-year-old Philippe Gauthier, talks me through the merchandise. "There's so much still to learn about the business," he says, "despite working for the chain for seven years in both Montréal and Toronto." He tells me that Torontonians are much more adventurous than their Québécois counterparts. "People here go much deeper into their fetishes," Gauthier explains, arching his eyebrows knowingly as I take in the titles of videos nearby: Transamore, More than a Woman, Bang Bang She Male. Gauthier shows me the jewel in the Seduction crown: the $12,000 Realdoll. Displayed in her own private room, this one-of-a-kind make-believe masterpiece is created with state-of-the-art Hollywood special-effects technology. Her completely articulated skeleton allows for anatomically correct positioning, and her silicone-rubber skin feels like real skin. The Realdoll is designed according to the customer's specifications; he can choose her body type, face, even her fingernail colour. This "dream woman" is packaged as "the most realistic love doll in the world."
Day five It's 10 a.m. and I am scheduled to work the noon-to-nine shift at Seduction today. Oddly, I feel sort of redundant. I decide to stay home instead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
OR |
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
