Sex toys in the supermarket? Let’s leave that idea on the shelff
Icertainly don’t want to return to a time when sex was shameful and the sum total of female pleasure was meant to be lying back in the marital bed and thinking of England. I’m all for the direction of travel being away from old repressions and hang-ups as these caused untold misery. But have we perhaps gone a little bit too far along the road of sexual liberation?
The news that Sainsbury’s is to begin stocking its own range of vibrators suggests that yes, I’m pretty sure we have.
Aids to sexual pleasure should be available, sure – and, indeed, CVS, the American drugstore, and Walmart sell them already. But this is Britain, and some degree of decorum and just a teeny bit of embarrassment about sex is par for the course, surely. Do we really need our vibrators to be on the aisle between the fruit and veg and the toothpaste?
Apparently, in a newly sex-mad Britain where John Lewis is reporting bumper sales in G-strings and suspenders, we do. And so the three-product range will soon be coming to a Sainsbury’s near you, offering a Rose Gold Bullet for £8, a
Rose Blush Bullet for £12; and the A Aura Silver Vibrator and Massager at £15. (Does anyone else find the repetition of the word “bullet” a bit disconcerting?)
Of course, there’s nothing badly wrong with being able to chuck an Aura Silver Vibrator and Massager into your trolley next to your milk and cereal, but I’ve always thought that in order to be, erm, sexy, sex needs a degree of secrecy.
Erotic feeling is based at least in part on a sense of naughtiness, subversion and privacy – being able to publicly chuck your orgasm-producing friend in your shopping basket under supermarket strip lighting seems to signal the opposite.
What all this means is that sex is now well and truly humdrum. I’m glad if this makes people happier, but sad for sex – which j just became that much less, well… sexy.