Not your father's sex shop

Over the next several days and nights I wait on a 60-year-old woman looking to replace her Pyrex dildo (“They last a long time if you don’t drop them on the tile of the kitchen floor,” she tells me), a man and woman firefighter couple, a deputy sheriff, an elected school board official from a nearby town, several military veterans and a guy named “Artie” who has a disturbingly encyclopedic mind for porn-video trivia. 

I help self-described Christians, Mormons, Catholics, the daughter of a preacher and one Episcopalian. All explain why they shop here with reasons like “It enhances my life,” “It deepens our intimacy” and “It’s fun.”

“I’m trying to expand my knowledge about sex,” explains Linda Wurzbacher, a 52-year-old, semi-retired pharmaceutical salesperson. She strolls the aisles in her black dress, a Dooney & Bourke bag over her shoulder, and says that as she has gotten older she doesn’t much care what anybody thinks about her life and that she has become more sexually experimental. “I see it as an extension of my physical fitness.”

Yet despite trying to project a squeaky clean image, and attracting a seemingly desirable clientele, Fascinations, like other such stores around the country, often faces a lot of community opposition. 

This year, citizens in nearby Tolleson, Ariz., were furious when the city council approved a Fascinations. The store was protested. But according to news accounts, about 500 customers showed up the first day.

The store I’m in (where I am quickly becoming a top lube salesman) was vigorously opposed by the home builder T.W. Lewis and other community members. But now, says Pat Jagos, Fascinations’ corporate general manager, his company has proven the store makes a good neighbor. He and T.W. Lewis are even discussing a joint parking lot expansion.

A spokesperson for T.W. Lewis did not dispute that account, but declined to comment further, seeing no particular advantage in saying anything either positive or negative about an adult store.

Shhh, don't tell
Some customers feel the same way. While they defiantly say there is no stigma attached to being here, they won’t be quoted by name. What they really mean is that they don’t think there should be any stigma attached because walking into a sex shop — no matter its size or lighting or the moniker “romance superstore,” this is a sex shop — is their right. But they acknowledge that not everyone feels this way. Much of America is not ready to own up. 

“Everybody does it,” a female software engineer tells me after buying a new sex toy. “They just don’t want to admit it.” 

Just as I have the creative director of a Phoenix advertising agency and his wife convinced to buy a pricey silicone lube made in Germany ($42 a bottle), a young man and woman walk in. My customer recognizes her. She spots him. They pause awkwardly for a moment and laugh.

“Isn’t it something to see somebody you work with in this store?” she says.

“I just hired her as my administrative assistant,” he tells me.

“This is one of those secrets, OK?” she says, laughing.

“I don’t care,” he says.

“Well I do,” she replies, and then she and her companion lock arms and head for the DVDs.

Brian Alexander, a California-based freelance writer and MSNBC.com's Sexploration columnist, is traveling around the country to find out how Americans get sexual satisfaction. Alexander, also a Glamour contributing editor, is chronicling his work in the MSNBC.com special report "America Unzipped" and in an upcoming book for Harmony, an imprint of Crown Publishing. In the next installment, he crashes a ladies-only sex toy party.

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