NY- Belinda Ealey and her friend Marilyn Elliott were leaning on the glass counter of a West Village sex shop, giggling over the rows of toys. Visible through clear plastic-wrapped boxes, the wares left little to the imagination.
Similar offerings in quieter packaging can increasingly be found on Main Street, as the major condom manufacturers that supply chain retailers expand their arsenals to capitalize on the female sexuality made mainstream by TV’s “Sex and the City” and national discussions about the effects of menopause on the American bedroom.
This month, condom giant Trojan is shipping out subtle black boxes containing so-called “intimacy care” products, including a warming gel and vibrating ring, destined for the feminine-hygiene sections of major pharmacies. Its selection, branded Elexa and designed from “a woman’s perspective,” follows roll-outs in the last year by Ansell and Durex, which unveiled “personal massagers,” feather ticklers and edible body paints, among other gimmicks.
The products are being sold everywhere from Wal-Mart and KMart to CVS, Walgreen’s and other mainstream retailers such as Amazon.com.
Ealey, from Queens, looked on gleefully last week as the Elexa ring, to be worn by a man with or without a condom, buzzed in Elliott’s hand. “It’s on every corner!” Ealey, 28, said incredulously. “I think it’s great.”
“I wish I had one now,” Elliott, 29, of Brooklyn added longingly. “I’d test it out.”
In their ads and pastel packaging that in some cases look as innocent as that containing a curling iron, the companies are looking to bring women of all ages into their typically young, male customer base, said Stephen Mare, brand manager for Durex’s Play line. Men out-buy condoms over women two to one in the $234 million U.S. market, noted Trojan Vice President Jim Daniels.
“Has it been a long time coming? I suppose you could say that,” Mare said.
“What we’ve seen in not only the family-planning category but in the market in general [is] a desire for self-improvement and for performance enhancement for people in a lot of areas,” he said. “That extends also into their personal lives.”
Mare said it was too soon to report sales figures for the Play brand, but noted that within two days of a July Canadian Broadcast Service report about its massagers, which sell for as high as $65, virtually all of that country’s London Drugs chain stores had sold out. (The concept seems most popular among 45-55-year-old women, 60% of whom told the company they owned a vibrator in a recent survey.) Officials from Trojan and Ansell declined to say how much revenue they anticipated their new lines would bring in.
But already, Juan Baerga, general manager of the West Village’s Pink Pussycat, is impressed – and hoping mainstream sales of sex toys bring more customers into his shop. He wondered why Trojan’s $9.99 vibrating ring and condom package will hit Duane Reade before his store.
“They haven’t even approached me!” Baerga said. “Something like that would sell really well.”
But others questioned how new these toys really were to the corner store.
“They’ve been carrying them forever. It’s just that they just don’t label them as such,” chuckled Ana Moran, a saleswoman at the Lower East Side sex shop Toys in Babeland.
Still, women say their confidence inside specialty shops doesn’t always extend to the aisles of Rite-Aid. Now, the mere presence of racier items inside innocuous boxes at chain stores gives them tacit encouragement.
“I don’t like buying condoms. I usually rely on the guy,” said Christine Seddon, 27, of Manhattan, who was shopping for bachelorette-party favors at the Pink Pussycat last week. “I would be more apt to buy this. It’s more discreet.”
Trojan’s appeal to women to pick up what are still male condoms may not substantially increase the number of couples who use them, public health experts said.
“It seems extreme to say that you are empowering women when they may still have to convince men to put it on,” said Mitchell Warren, former vice president of the Female Health Company.