Seattle- A nice little package came to the office the other day. Needs a couple of batteries, and a place for me to hide it.
If you know what I’m talking about, then Claire Cavanah and Rachel Venning would like to thank you for helping them make the last 15 years a time of sexual freedom and experimentation in Seattle. And for your business.
If you don’t know what’s in the box? Then it’s high time you hit Babeland, the Pike Street storefront that serves as Seattle’s unofficial G-spot.
On Thursday from 7 to 10 p.m., the store will celebrate its anniversary with burlesque stars, go-go dancers and an after-party at the Wild Rose. (Need I tell you to leave the kids at home?)
The timing for this shindig couldn’t be better. The Dow plunged more than 500 points, and Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers are gone, as is most anything that was in the path of Hurricane Ike. And politicians are taking more potshots by the hour.
No wonder so many have taken to their beds.
It may take a little nerve to walk through the door of Babeland and take in its substantial stock of silicone and battery-operated thingamabobs.
This isn’t Lowe’s, after all.
But it is a place for home improvement, for fixing what’s broke and putting a fresh coat of … something on … whatever needs it.
“Sexuality is so important,” Venning told me. “It’s how we enjoy life and connect with other people.”
And yet it wasn’t so easy to talk about in 1993, pre-“Sex and the City,” even in this city.
“For women, there wasn’t support for discovering their own sexuality,” Venning said. “There were no shops where a woman could check out vibrators, where you wouldn’t feel like it was scuzzy and scary.”
But the timing was good then, too: “It was the grunge-rock thing in Seattle, so there was so much creativity and artistry,” she said. “We pulled it together with our friends, so it had a lot of heart and soul.”
Since then, they’ve expanded their Web site (www.babeland.com), opened three stores in New York City and partnered with the Los Angeles store Pull My Daisy.
They have also developed Babeland University and “Sexy Moms” events, where people learn … things.
There was the older woman who confessed to a Babeland staffer that she had never had an orgasm. One vibrator and one week later she came back in: “That was amazing.”
There was the “typical Seattle REI couple” who were “really into exploring stuff,” Venning said. “It was fun to be their support staff.
“We’ve loved making it OK and teaching people about these things.”
And business is good, “even though the economy is tight,” she said. “The overall adult business is recession-proof.”
Top sellers include vibrators like the Rabbit, the “Gigi,” which retains body heat, and the Fasi, which is programmable, like an iPod. It even has a “don’t stop” button.
Is there anything Babeland won’t carry?
“We don’t have a strict standard,” Venning said. “But the ‘ew factor’ has always worked for me.”