So I don’t think I’ve actually talked about it on my blog before, but I used to work in sex toy retail. Specifically, I used to work for Sh!, which was founded in 1992 as the UK’s first sex shop centred on women. While it’s been a while since I walked through Sh!’s doors, I still think of it as one of my most valuable jobs, both in terms of the work I do on this blog and in skills I carry into my personal and professional life outside it. And I wanted to talk about it! While my initial idea for this post was a bullet-point-y ‘5 Things I learned Working in Sex Toy Retail’, as I wrote it it became a lot more reflective and less listicle-y, so I hope this slightly rambly format is still interesting to read!
Meet People Where They’re At
While not directly sex toy related, I think this is the most important lesson I learned working at Sh!, and it’s informed not only how I approach talking about sex toys with people, but how I approach a ton of subjects in my personal and professional life.
Prior to working at Sh!, while I had some experience teaching it was very script-centric classes about consent for a student’s union, without much room for the people who were learning with me to interject. While I didn’t directly teach classes at Sh!—although I did work at the classes that Sh! hosted prior to the pandemic, some of which are now available online—there was still an element of that in interactions with customers. We all live in a patriarchal and cisheterosexist society that’s often sex-negative, and this of course informs how each of us relates to our sexualities. Even if somebody takes the big step of going to a feminist sex shop, they’re still likely to have questions, hangups, and things they don’t know or understand about sexuality or sex toys. Because of this—unlike other retail jobs—working in sex toy retail involves being an educator.
For the record, I loved that part of my job—I loved the feeling of sending somebody away with not just a new toy, but equipped with new knowledge! But because of the same structures they often came with some presumptions and assumptions about sex. Helping people with the actual problem they came to me with rather than ‘correcting’ those assumptions (e.g. if somebody wants a toy they can use ‘during sex’, helping them find a vibrator that can fit between bodies during penis-in-vagina sex is more helpful than pointing out any toy can be used during sex) was something I practically had to do, and—to be honest—made the experience far more valuable for whoever I was helping.
‘Meet somebody where they’re at’ is a piece of knowledge I’ve used in practically every other environment you can think of—educating people about trans issues, explaining to somebody why a piece of data analysis shows the conclusion it does, explaining if/elif/else statements to somebody I was teaching to code, literally every and any environment where I’ve taken a teaching role. And Sh! was where I learned how to put it into practice.
People Are Both A Lot More Anxious About Sex Than You Think, And A Lot More Chill About It Than You Think
So I talked in the last section about the impact of living in a sex-negative society and how it left a lot of the people who I met at Sh! with missing knowledge about sex. For the record, this absolutely isn’t something shameful—absolutely everybody internalises some of these narratives and ideas about sex—including me!—and it’s not a moral failing to be at the beginning of your journey unpacking it. But as somebody who grew up in a relatively sex-positive household (although my parents did have some shortcomings when it came to non-cishet sex), working at Sh! was one of the first times I was exposed to how anxious society can make some people about sex. For the record, this never bothered me—if somebody came to me with a lot of questions, that meant it felt even better and like I’d empowered them even more sending them away with new understanding!
On the flipside, despite the anxieties and hangups that people sometimes came to the boutique with, I rarely met somebody who let that stop them being curious. The products I found myself explaining the most to customers were the packers and STPs—which is understandable, given the average cisgender person isn’t likely to come across one in their day-to-day life and a flaccid penis can look really odd without the context of what it’s for—but once I explained it, I never had a negative reaction. Even if people came to Sh! not knowing things or holding anxieties, they were curious and willing to learn. I think it can be easy to become fatalist when it comes to particular kinds of feminist, sex-positive, or LGBT+ activism, and as somebody who started at Sh! when I was burned out from activism, it was really nice to have a grounding reminder that most people really do want to be understanding and positive.
Beyond that, despite the way society presents sex—as solely the sphere of young, able bodied, cisgender straight people—people of all kinds buy sex toys or come to places that sell them looking for advice. While that was something I knew on an intellectual level, being able to see it on the shop floor really made me internalise it.
The Absolute Coolest People Work At Feminist Sex Toy Businesses
This last point is entirely me gassing up my former co-workers, but it’s true! I met some of the coolest people working at Sh!, and them sharing their experiences, stories, and knowledge changed me for the better. Sh! have created a blog post about the ‘Story of Sh!’, but trust me, the story is even more awesome when Ky is the one telling it. And without my coworkers at Sh!, I never would have discovered events and spaces like the London Alternative Market or Anatomie Studio.
One of the most profound examples is that a co-worker and I were talking about her experience as a queer burlesque performer, and a class that she had been to prior to developing an act came up. I decided to attend the next course, and while I didn’t manage to debut my act (and still haven’t due to the pandemic), I really enjoyed it. I’d been assaulted a few months prior and felt very distanced from my body, but having that safe space surrounded by other queer people to reconnect with my body was really healing. And on a less heavy note, that class also helped me with developing fun and empowering erotic personas and internalising that sexuality can be funny and silly and still wonderful!
This post was not sponsored, I just wanted to have a little reflection on my good memories of working at Sh!, although some of the links are affiliate links. Also, you can get 10% off any Sh! products with the code KELVIN-Sh10
I had no idea that you worked at Sh!. That’s really cool. And thanks for sharing what you learned. When I went into the local sex shop in CA – Good Vibrations – the atmosphere was great because of the people that worked there and no one was hanging their head in shame.