Steven Potter
Over the past few decades, sexual fetishes and fantasies have come out of the shadows. People into what used to be shameful kinks have opened up about their adventures. And retailers are ready, willing and able to assist. Sex-themed stores have also become more open.
Case in point: Red Letter News at East Washington Avenue and Milwaukee Street is now named Lovers Playground. The longstanding adult entertainment venue made the name change late last year.
“We’re not your dad’s or grandpa’s dirty bookstore anymore,” says Tim Himmelmann, the company’s midwest regional supervisor. “We don’t want to be seen as a seedy store. We don’t want to be an eyesore. We want to be part of the community.”
Name change or not, local Ald. Larry Palm isn’t a fan of the shop. “I would simply prefer that it wasn’t there,” he says. “It’s a highly residential neighborhood [and] in the past, there have been problems with things like prostitution in the area.” Though Palm says that has “improved over the years,” he still feels the store is “a potential trigger for some of that behavior.”
The new name — and much more obvious outside signage — reflects a shift the Chicago-based parent company, Capitol News Agency, is making to align its 21 stores under one brand. Previously, each store had a unique name. The Madison location is one of the last to change its name.
Rebranding of Red Letter News to Lovers Playground means more open spaces on the interior...and just in time for Valentine’s Day, a sex shop’s version of Christmas.
The change reflects how the store has “softened it up a bit, become more of a boutique,” says Himmelmann. Over his nearly 30 years in the industry, “Things have become much more female-focused,” he adds. “There’s an educational push now — it’s become about sexual health.”
The shop itself has changed a lot from when it first opened in 1976. Walking in through the parking lot entrance at the back of the store, you now step into a well-lit, very open space. Products include a full array of toys and bondage equipment, DVDs, magazines, life-like dolls, kegel training kits, stripper poles, erotic dice, edible body paints, and board games with names like Monogamy and Twisted Minds. There are a couple racks of lingerie and almost every kind of condom is available. The store stocks a rainbow of edible massage oils and lubes, an assortment of batteries and chargers and there’s even a clearance section.
And of course, there’s a “gifts and gags” section that includes penis-shaped pasta and lollipops, pecker ring toss games, X-rated fortune cookies, and nipple covers — aka “pasties” — in the shape of alien faces, patriotic stars and marijuana leaves. Prices range from $1 for samples of lube to almost $200 for the high-end dolls.
The atmosphere inside is laid-back. “We let the customer come in, check things out and get comfortable. We’re here to answer questions they have but we find it’s best to let them look around and explore,” says Himmelmann.
The store’s biggest gift-buying season is still coming up, he says. “Valentine’s Day is our holiday. That’s when people are out buying things to make their partners and themselves happy.”
And while online retailers have definitely cut into the store’s sales, Himmelmann says there’s still a need for neighborhood sex toy shops. “A lot of people still want to see what they’re buying up close. They don’t want to buy this kind of stuff sight unseen.”
