Support your local T & A store
Adult stores should hire more girls who look like Harmony Bliss.
The Internet has changed everything. Some things for the better, other things for the worse. What’s on my mind today is somewhere in the middle. I live literally two blocks from an adult mega-store. I can walk there in five minutes. I used to drop in once a week to look at all the new mags, products and DVDs. I’d look at our products, see what was missing and what needed stocking. I’d talk to the clerks (some good, some apathetic) and ask how our products were selling and what suggestions they might have. It’s not one of my job functions but I like to do it because I think it’s important. But I haven’t walked into the place in five weeks. I keep meaning to go but I don’t. And my inertia, my laziness, is partly because of the Internet. The Net has made people lazier and less inclined to physically get out of the house and go somewhere. Ten years ago, when I lived in Las Vegas, I’d get in my car and drive two miles to Showgirl Video once a week to see what TSG products were on sale and what everyone was releasing. Now I don’t walk five minutes to my local store once a week. This is not good because I should be supporting my local store more often.
Sabina (at left) from Pounding The Pledges worked in an adult store.
Many independent store and chain-store owners have put money into their properties (besides paying their lawyers for the never-ending court battles). The industry has changed and a lot of stores are no longer the dumpy smut parlors they used to be. They’ve gone upscale: bright, clean, nicely decorated, safer, computerized, and they have a better level of employee. There’s even an adult store trade show this September in Vegas called StorErotica. Many stores are geared to the comfort and security of the female customer, selling clothes, shoes and other feminine goods. Did you know that Voluptuous Girl and sexologist Sabina Leigh used to work in an adult store in Colorado? She once emailed me that Voluptuous was getting hard to get in her area so I contacted our management and they corrected the situation.
The adult retail business has always been difficult to operate since day one. Communities don’t want them so they ghettoize them. The police bust them for whatever. Prosecutors prosecute them. Courts punish, restrict and fine them. Civic groups give them a hard time. Yet they survive and endure against all odds. But I believe the greatest threat comes from technology. Like the VHS tape wiped out the adult movie theaters in the 1980s, the Net is threatening the neighborhood adult store as well as the adult “downtown” sections of many American cities. Why drive, walk or take public transport to a store to buy a magazine or a DVD or a sex toy when you can do it on-line anonymously without leaving your home? For me, the reason is I like physically browsing in a brick-and-mortar store, looking at all the stuff. But that inertia is even hitting me. And that’s not positive for the retailers.
What about you? Do you still go to adult stores?
Tags: adult stores, porn, Sabina Leigh
Categories: Boobs in the News, Confessions
Hi Elliot,
I hope it’s nto too late to respond on this interesting topic. I have thought about this this trend too.
I used to buy my monthly Score and Voluptuous printed magazines at a newstand, but now I subscribe to home delivery. However, I have always been used to a printed magazine for years (and also newspapers), but I’m not the future. Younger Score readers may likely just go to the website to watch a video or view photos.
This has huge implication to publishers and retailers alike. I have seen adult stores respond by improving their image and expand thier stock for women and lingerie.
Now i just purhcase anything over the net without any of the time, trouble and stigma of going to an adult store. I have not been in an adult store in ages, but if I’m in Little Rock, Sienna, I will definitely drop by and give you some busines 🙂
Thanks Elliot, My store is called 12th St. News Stand…It is located at 7307 Kanis Rd, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204…So if you are ever in town, just drop by and see me…
Smooches…
Sienna Hills
I used to buy magazines at a regular newsstand in Margate, Florida, even though I was a regular Scoreland subscriber (this was before I came to SCORE). I went there for one reason only: the huge (fake) tits on the girl who worked at the store. She always showed them off in tight, low-cut tops, too (you know how girls dress in South Florida). I think her name was Sherry, but I don’t remember. I do remember her tits, though!
i for one used to go to my local newsstand, i would pick up my score,v-mag and xl for the month. since the inter net things are easier. i can go to scoreland which i am a proud member of and see august issue of v-mag or score. so why would i go to the newsstand and be looked at like some prev. on sunday i would go get the paper and get a cup of coffee. now it’s sitting in front of the computer on sunday morning drinking coffee and reading cnn.msnbc, hell even the local paper has a website. it’s just easier and in fact i started shopping for clothes on the web.it saves time and gas and i’m done in a hour instanted of driving looking for my size..i love the internet and who knows what 10 yrs is going to bring elliot. this is just the start… 🙂
I fear you are right, Elliot. I now live two hundred plus miles from London but grew up in the London area and have known the sex shops of central London since the early 80s.
Over that time, we here have had the whole (quite recent) process of the legalisation of hardcore porn as well as the changes brought by technology. Until ten years ago, the shops were full of pirated videos and smuggled in porn mags! That’s now gone.
For quite a time, certainly until three years or so ago, the main (good) Soho sex shops would invariably be very busy, almost at any time of day.
I usually drop in when I am in London, every couple of months or so. Even then, that’s not every visit but last time, I was going around on a Saturday evening and there were very few people in the shops.
I like to pop into the shops and buy magazines and DVDs, not just download off the internet. I also like to browse and see what is around. Like you, I like having the bricks and mortar – the place to visit.
Many of the shops here are also gearing to the female customer, toys, lingerie etc, and that must be the way forward, a combination of both this market and the traditional men’s one.
As with newspapers, music and video stores, if we want them to survive, we’ve got to support them.
Hi Sienna, thanks for joining our blog group. Why don’t you comment back with the name and address of your store so everyone will know it.
Well as you all know, I own a News Stand in Little Rock, Arkansas. And the biggest bulk of my sales comes from my adult products. One of my biggest magazine sales is XL Girls. The second is Voluptuous and the third is Score. I often wonder if it is because I work at the store on a daily basis. Imagine coming into your local porn stop and actually seeing a girl who has actually been published in that magazine. And you can even pick up DVD’s by that same company with her in them…Now we are not talking about your average girl. We are talking about a 5’2″, natural blonde, green eyes, with some gigantic all natural 34JJ Breast…And you better believe I do show them off on a daily basis…I make sure to wear low cut shirts to show off the beautiful cleavage I have been blessed with…I also love showing off my beautiful legs, men love my legs, so I love wearing short skirts or short shorts with a nice pair of stilletos on my nicely pedicured feet. Could you just imagaine walking into your local porn stop and seeing that behind the counter everyday…OMG!!!!!!!! You will think you have died and went to heaven. And of course we are now selling adult novelties and lingerie, too. So now you can pick up some of your favorite mags and dvd’s and also pick up a few things for your lady…An all one stop porn shop for you…And the girl at the counter ain’t to bad either…LOL…
Smooches…
Sienna Hills