Sex shops are getting cool: Stylish sextoys
The "Boutique Bizarre" in Hamburg
The Lust Shop is located at the Reeperbahn number 35. Between the gambling den and rundown hour hotel shines a bright, stylish erotic department store. With elegantly designed shop windows, modern white lettering and a glassy and also white facade.
Who goes in here, no longer looks around, even if no one sees him. There is decent lounge music, the decor is influenced by industrial design, some walls radiate in warm red tones. The "Boutique Bizarre" on the Reeperbahn. 1400 square meters and very hip.
"We just want to try something new", say Lissi (20) and Tom (20) from Switzerland, who are visiting Hamburg for a weekend and are enjoying themselves at the Frauenporno-Regal. There are stripes like "All about Anna" or "Constanze" especially good.
Sextoys for every guy
The range of hot lingerie is great
In the basement, physiotherapist Simone B., 44, is buying a collar for an SM party and a long sexy skirt. Unpleasant or even embarrassing is her shopping in the "boutique Bizarre" not. She's here for the third time today - and she'll be back soon, she says.
Bye-bye shame: Sextoys are rapidly becoming lifestyle products. The purchase of vibrators, dildos, love balls or cock-rings has become fancy. The offer of clothes made of lacquer, latex and leather, of hot lingerie is more varied and of high quality.
On the next page: Customers are self-confident and cool
Clean, bright and stylish
"There is nothing that does not exist"says Kay Arnold, CEO of "Boutique Bizarre". "Our clients can give their imagination free rein." Like the maiden to the child he had come to his job. Kay Arnold, 42, is a trained banker. In 1998, when he took over the big, established, but very run-down sex shop on St. Pauli's best mile, it was purely pragmatic. A good nose for business. "I could as well sell refrigerators," he says.
Clean, bright and stylish: In 2002, Arnold then created a novel type of sex shop together with three partners, architects and designers. 365 days a year, between 10 am and 2 am, the department store has opened for high-quality sex toy shopping. Nothing seems more disreputable and grubby, no shabby curtain has to be pushed aside.
Vibrators in every game
And since opening, the business is getting better and better every year. A new clientele has grown up. She looks loosely and of course for erotic toys, for sensual pleasure objects. Vibrators in every style, glass dildos or a bondage manual.
The visitor tries the Lack Nurse Outfit. Her partner chooses a new porn DVD. "Sex and the City" fans are looking for the "Rabbit Vibe", the toy from season 1, episode 9. "More and more couples are coming to us - and in total, 40 percent of the customers are already women," says Arnold.
Most customers are self-confident and cool. The cliché of the scared or slightly sleazy sex shop clientele is rarely confirmed. "Our clientele is 18 to 88 years, I always say," says Arnold. There is "everything", every type of person.
On the next page: Sexshop including gallery and seminar room
At the weekend it is so full that an entry of one euro is requiredthat counts towards the purchase. "Otherwise, the store is full of bowling clubs and tipsy tourist groups." The more specialized clientele, who in the basement with toys of stainless steel staples for nipples over hand restraints, comes more in the week. Then someone is already constricted in a leather sleeping bag for a few hours rehearsal.
"For many, the buying experience is already part of the game"says Andreas Hahne, buyer for the BDSM department. BDSM stands for Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission, Sadism & Masochism. So many femdom comes with her "slave" - and enjoys the shopping trip.
Gallery with somber nudes
In the basement there is also the gallery. There Arnold shows regularly new works of art on the topics of eroticism and sexuality. "Art noir de l'abstrait" is currently being run by the so-called independent painter Trashed Soul. Gloomy nude pictures of mostly bound women. "We want to bind the community to us," he says. This includes the seminars, which take place every two weeks in a black-painted seminar room with red and black chairs on a red carpet. Every second Thursday something is told about bondage or other techniques.
Funny it is on the ground floor. In the so-called "demand area". There you find, straight through the shop, in front of the porn DVDs, toys called Dolly Dolphin, Angelo and Patchy Paul.Vibrators of the Fun Factory brand. Rather for connoisseurs is the PVIBE 2002 for 99 euros. A vibrator for him and her: He is fixed on the penis - and the partner feels the vibration and increased stimulation during intercourse.
Beat Uhse store in Munich
"The consumer of tomorrow wants sex with style and pleasure"says Beate Uhse. The German market leader in the erotic trade with the slogan "Sex up your life" now also relies on the premium sex shop trend. Out of the twilight, ran to the good business situation. The flagship store of Beate Uhse, also bright and not very plushy, is located in Munich on Sendlinger Straße. "Customers are greeted with innocuous items such as wellness and fun products," says Assia Tschernokoff, spokeswoman for Beate Uhse. Everything has become more stylish and exclusive. "A new era of sexy shopping" has begun. Because love and lust were just part of the modern lifestyle.
On the next page: playfully see eroticism
Chernokov is strengthened by the results of the study "Sexstyles 2010" by trend researcher Matthias Horx, commissioned by Beate Uhse. Thus, "the variance of the love life increases". Men and women consciously seek variety, increase and transgression. According to Horx, eroticism is increasingly brought into a certain playful context.
Designs are just as important as stagings. You play "small scenes of seduction" and "pornography" your own perception. Thus, the "sex gadgets" meet a growing demand and "drive ever more diverse flowers". Lovetoys become accessories to spice up the individual lovemaking. 21 percent of German women own a vibrator, of the 25- to 34-year-olds one in three.
Lingerie and fashion are getting closer
Even the fashion world, especially the lingerie manufacturers, react to the increasingly informal social interaction with the topics of eroticism and sex. Companies like Schiesser and La Perla, Agent Provocateur anyway, play with both fetish and SM themes. Eye-catching sexy underwear belongs to the entire fashion photography meanwhile naturally to it. Nevertheless, Kay Arnold believes that not necessarily more and more sex toys are sold.
The property is no longer embarrassing, but rather cool. He explains the success of his erotic megastore first and foremost with the casual image, with the "new external effect": "We are long out of the dirty corner."
