Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Sex Shop Draws Curtains for Discreet Shopping Hours

By Nicole Levy | October 15, 2015 11:28am
 Please, an adult store on Fifth Avenue and 15th Street in Park Slope.
Please, an adult store on Fifth Avenue and 15th Street in Park Slope.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Leslie Albrecht

You'll never have to feel overexposed at this sex shop.

Please, an adult boutique that opened in Park Slope earlier this year, is instituting discreet shopping hours from 5 to 7 p.m. daily. The store will close its curtains for "patrons who like to keep their sexy secrets private," an email announced Tuesday.

"Now, there is no reason not to indulge in those not-so-guilty pleasures," the email continued.

The new shopping hours are a logical extension of Please owner Sid Azmi's views on sex: she believes that customers should be proud about their efforts to nurture their sexuality, rather than embarrassed, she told DNAinfo New York in April. Her store is designed to feel welcoming and tasteful, she said, to attract customers who may need help rediscovering their sexual selves.

But the shop's floor-to-ceiling windows might be intimidating Park Slope parents who'd prefer to keep their sex lives — and vibrators and wrist restraints — to themselves.

With the curtains drawn, cautious customers are more likely to "come out of hibernation," Azmi hopes.

Few sex-positive adult boutiques in New York City have storefronts quite as transparent as Please. Known as the first feminist sex toy outlet, Eve's Garden has operated below the radar for decades out of the 12th floor of a Manhattan office building in Midtown. The storefront window of Tic Tac Toe in Greenwich VIllage is covered in streamers and mannequins, and Babeland shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn favor frosted glass.