elfs: (Default)
[personal profile] elfs
There is a chain of lingere stores in the Seattle area that caters to the mainstream, middle-class shoppers looking to spice up their sex lives: a broad wall of condoms, lingere in the front, massage oils, flavored lubricants and novelties in the middle, a small nook of unchallenging porn and a wide variety of sex toys in the back. Given the state of the art in porn, the sex toys reflect a wide variety of activities: some bondage toys, a panel of dildos, a panel of mostly anal toys, a panel of masturbation sleeves, that sort of thing.

I go there a couple of times a year, mostly to renew my condom supplies, and I noticed a change in the toy selection. Among all the random, non-threateningly sized sex toys, this particular chain always had one gag dildo: something absolutely monstrous. For a while, the standard toy found in all their shops was the Caterpillar, which is guaranteed to scare the hair off a mundane, although I know one store had a Cannonshot, and another had a Ream-And-Dream. Think: Two liters, or almost six pounds, of latex in each of these. All of these are from the same manufacturer, TSX Toys of UK.

Recently, though, none of the stores have had anything like that. I decided to ask the woman behind the counter. "Someone bought it," she said, indicating the space where the Caterpillar used to stand.

"You not going to re-order?"

"People kept buying them," she said, and for some reason she sounded distraught at the very notion. "Those aren't the kind of thing we want to be known for. So we decided to stop ordering them."

I didn't persue it further, but that sounds like a weird decision: you sell sex toys, you find a brand of sex toys that sells so well you keep selling out, and you discontinue carrying that brand? That doesn't seem like a smart business decision: it's not as if other patrons had to know who was buying the monsters, or why.

Date: 2011-01-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

Date: 2011-01-20 05:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] en-ki.livejournal.com
OK, I get that she's scared of the idea of people using them. It's weird that she feels that way and is still running a sex shop, but OK. But can't she comfort herself by imagining them that they're sitting on the mantlepiece to amuse one's guests?

Date: 2011-01-20 05:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lemur123.livejournal.com
8===O -> (_x_)

Date: 2011-01-20 07:43 pm (UTC)
lovingboth: (Default)
From: [personal profile] lovingboth
Hmm, the TSX website says it's an 'Inc' not a 'Ltd' company and all the toys are made in the US.

Date: 2011-01-20 10:27 pm (UTC)
kengr: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kengr
Heck, I wound up with *several* such monsters courtesy of a local kink group's annual "birethday party" where they'd buy a selection of fun and silly things and others would donate things as well and then numbers would be drawn and people would go up and grab a package (which could be traded or under certain rules "swiped (giving them another pick)).

A friend asked for one to freak out her neighbor. Sill has it.

Oh yeah, those big long dildos that are rather impractical for insertion? They make *great* impact toys!

Date: 2011-01-21 01:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elfs.livejournal.com
Really? I can't find a decent American outlet, their prices are all in pounds. I guess that's why I thought they were a UK company.

Date: 2011-01-21 05:56 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
When the price of latex goes up, as so many commodities already have, those multi-pound pieces of high-quality latex will be worth a fortune. :-) Just like the copper pennies that are now worth more than a penny, whence the saying, 'a penny saved (for long enough) is at least two or three cents of bullion value earned.' 8-O

I would like to see Glen Beck marketing these soon as an overpriced investment 'as good as marked-up gold!' :-)

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