Call me old fashioned, but I’ve always wanted to visit a sex shop in the rural Midwest. So while staying at my mother’s bizarre quasi-plantation like homestead in Northeastern Iowa I felt the opportunity would finally present itself.
Now I didn’t want any of those roadside “24 Hour Bookstore and Video Booth” establishments. The kind that cater to truckers, look to be extreme sub-code firetraps and are frankly just too low end, even for someone such as myself.
No, I wanted a real shop catering primarily to couples just like Babeland or Kiki De Montparnasse in New York, if the rural Midwest has such a thing.
Enter Pure Pleasure, on the outskirts of Mason City, Iowa. A huge warehouse-like building that could have been one of the giant Organic Candles or “Antique” stores that endlessly dot the sides of the highways sandwiched between corn fields, cow herds and storage silos. In fact, at one point it may have been.
I loved it immediately. Its sign – “Pure Pleasure Adult Megastore. Welcome our Boys home! Dildos – 2 for a dollar” had a quaint Midwestern charm I found hard to resist. (It didn’t really say anything about dildos. But I very much wanted it to.) I had to pull an extremely tight turn off the freeway into the parking lot, which was nearly empty.
In its pleasantly air conditioned entryway it had the ubiquitous Sex Store ATM to get cash if you do not wish your purchases to appear on a credit card bill and solitude enough to perhaps consider the gravity of your coming actions.
Once inside it was at first absolutely surreal. To the right was a passageway to a sub-store within the store full of New Age-y crystals, incense, Dragon Sculptures and porcelain statuettes of Dutch children performing various cute farming duties.
The main show floor was huge. High ceilings, not a hint of claustrophobia, I was pleased. On the left was the “Toy” section with every conceivable device catering to every shortcoming or desire I could imagine, which was strange because I can imagine a lot. Down the middle of the floor was a four-foot high rack of magazines dividing the “serious” toy section from the cheap lingerie, “fantasy” costumes and basically tame “adult novelty” items.
My super platonic friend Pamela, who accompanies me on my rural adventures opted to go into the Crystal/Incense/Dragon/Ceramic Dutch Farm Children section and left me to wander.
The more serious left side of the store was amazingly tasteful in its appointments. (As tasteful as an ad for The Extender can be). Spaced out between the racks were flat screen TVs playing videos demonstrating various wares. Again surprisingly tasteful videos considering their subject matter. I felt as clean and wholesome as I ever had in any Erotic Megastore.
In my wanderings I couldn’t help but notice a group of five women in their early thirties nervously loitering in the lingerie and novelty section. They all had perms and Iowa Hawkeye or Victoria Secret Pink sweat clothes. Midwest incognito.
Frequently and cautiously they would migrate towards and peek over the magazine rack into the racier section beyond only to quickly retreat back into the relative safety of Naughty Nurse Costumes and Plastic Penis Cups. They obviously wanted to venture into the racier section but felt uncomfortable. Dirty even? I feared my presence was further hindering their adventurousness and planned to leave. But before I could retrieve my friend from the incense and Enya of the Crystal/Dragon/Happy Farm Children Room an announcement blared over the loudspeaker.
“Cindy will be giving a We-Vibe direct intercourse vibrator demonstration at the checkout counter. “
The women giggled amongst themselves but no one moved. My pity and sorrow for them deepened.
Then- “The We-Vibe has been featured by Dr. Oz on the Oprah Winfrey show and is an Oprah pick as the best Sexual Aid on the market.”
There was a moment of silence as the women looked at each other and then STAMPEDED towards the checkout counter almost knocking over a tastefully appointed rack of Wet Personal Lubricant in the process.
I followed them and watched them watch Cindy, a plump middle-aged woman, with complete, enrapt attention.
“The We-Vibe is a c shaped vibrator designed for internal and external stimulation during intercourse.” Oh neat.
Cindy’s demonstration was far more explicit than anything in the videos on the wall. Her deft use of her hand as a stand in for the female pubic bone spoke of some kind of corporate training seminar or extensive experience as a puppeteer.
As a group, we listened to Cindy’s soothing voice describe how once we opened the We-Vibe’s “beautiful and discrete packaging” we would find it “soft, warm and supple to the touch.” Its unique combination of “harmonic throbbing,” and “pleasure waves” sounded cutting edge and yet friendly. “The dimples and charging port make the We Vibe look a little like a face.” I did find this a little creepy but the ladies didn’t seem to mind so whatever works.
These women, who would have been otherwise consigned to impotently browsing the shedding boas and fruit roll ups reprocessesed as edible underwear, gave themselves permission to openly and cheerfully discuss their g-spots and orgasms albeit with Cindy’s expert guidance and hand shadow anatomical demonstrations. We were a happy, cheerful and dare I say very liberated group.
So, thanks in part to Oprah sexual liberation is thankfully alive and well in the rural Midwest. Now maybe she can help me find a decent bagel out there.
–Shawn E Milnes
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