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Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium is a British sex shop with a retail store in the Hoxton, London and an online store. The business was established in 1992 by Kathryn Hoyle and Sophie Walters. [1]
The first Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium store was opened in 1992 on Hoxton square, in the Hoxton neighbourhood of London. [2] In 2017, the store relocated to Pitfield Street also located in Hoxton.
In 1992, Hoyle discovered the Rabbit vibrator named "Roger Rabbit" in a sex toy warehouse. She branded hers "Jessica Rabbit," which became renowned from its appearance on television shows, including Sex and the City . [3] Cosmopolitan ran an article on female masturbation in 1999, resulting in sales increasing. [4]
Sh! runs educational workshops and collaborates with National Health Service trusts in providing sex toys for women with sexual difficulties. [5] [6]
In 2003, Adeola Agbebiyi from the Barts and the London NHS Trust, and Kathryn Hoyle and Angel Zatorski, both from Sh! Women's Emporium, presented two papers exploring the relationship between women and sex toys. [7]
Sh! has been awarded Ethical Consumer status by ethicalconsumer.org, the 2005 Erotic Awards Special Judges Award [8] , and the 2007 Readers' Poll 'Best Adult Store Online' and 'Best LGBT friendly business'. [9] In 2008 the business was awarded the Readers' Poll 'Best Online Retailer' award. [10]
A sex toy is an object or device that is primarily used to facilitate sexual pleasure, such as a dildo, artificial vagina or vibrator. Many popular sex toys are designed to resemble human genitals, and may be vibrating or non-vibrating. The term sex toy can also include BDSM apparatus and sex furniture such as sex swings; however, it is not applied to items such as birth control, pornography, or condoms. Alternative terms for sex toy include adult toy and the dated euphemism marital aid. Marital aid also has a broader meaning and is applied to drugs and herbs marketed to enhance or prolong sex.
A sex shop is a retailer that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, pornography, and other related products.
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic appearance in the middle of the 19th century, and permanently reshaped shopping habits, and the definition of service and luxury. Similar developments were under way in London, in Paris and in New York (Stewart's).
Hustler is a monthly adult-targeted magazine published by Larry Flynt Publications (LFP) in the United States. Introduced in 1974, it was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter, originally conceived by founder Larry Flynt as cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from an uncertain start to a peak circulation of around 3 million in the early 1980s; it has since dropped to approximately 500,000. Hustler was among the first major US-based magazines to feature graphic photos of female genitalia and simulated sex acts, in contrast with relatively modest publications such as Playboy. In the 1990s, Hustler, like several of its competitors, began featuring depictions of sexual penetration and oral sex.
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Susannah Bright is an American feminist, author and journalist, often on the subject of politics and sexuality.
Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more items or products.
Hamleys of London Limited, trading as Hamleys, is a British multinational toy retailer, owned by Reliance Retail. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest toy store, it was founded by William Hamley as "Noah's Ark" in High Holborn, London, in 1760. It moved to its current site on Regent Street in London's West End in 1881. This flagship store is set over seven floors, with more than 50,000 lines of toys on sale. It receives around five million visitors each year.
Ann Summers is a British multinational retailer company specialising in sex toys and lingerie, with 80 high street stores in the UK, Ireland, and the Channel Islands. In 2000, Ann Summers acquired the Knickerbox brand, a label with an emphasis on more comfortable and feminine underwear, while the Ann Summers-labelled products tend to be more erotic in style. The chain had an annual turnover of £117.3 million in 2007–2008.
Larry David Paciotti is an American director of pornographic films. He appears as the drag-diva persona Chi Chi LaRue, and has been credited as director under the names "Lawrence David" and "Taylor Hudson".
Charles Philip Lazarus was an American entrepreneur, executive, and pioneer within the retail toy industry. Lazarus founded the Toys "R" Us retail chain, which evolved from a children's furniture store he originally opened in Washington, D.C. in 1948. He opened his first store dedicated exclusively to toys, which he named Toys "R" Us, in 1957.
Good Vibrations is a sex-positive San Francisco-based corporation selling sex toys and other erotic products. It operates nine retail stores: seven in the San Francisco Bay Area, one in Brookline, Massachusetts, and one in Harvard Square; a mail-order business; an e-commerce website; a wholesale arm; and an erotic-video production company, Good Releasing. Formerly, it operated three publishing companies: Down There Press, Passion Press and Sexpositive Productions.
Babeland, until 2005 known as Toys in Babeland, is a sex toy boutique offering erotic toys, books and pornographic films. Babeland has an online store and four retail stores.
The Venus Award is a film award in the adult film industry presented yearly in Berlin since 1997 as part of the Venus Berlin trade fair, an international erotic trade festival, on the exhibition grounds at the Funkturm.
Hoxton Square is a public garden square in the Hoxton area in the London Borough of Hackney. Laid out in 1683, it is thought to be one of the oldest in London. Since the 1990s it has been at the heart of the Hoxton national arts and media hub, as well as hosting entertainment, with globally eclectic musicians, actors and dancers. Most of the square's buildings, quite tall for the Victorian age, diverge in use, with many floors converted to bars, restaurants and offices and at least one live music club of note.
Lovehoney is a British business that sells sex toys, lingerie and erotic gifts on the Internet. Their tagline is "the sexual happiness people". In addition to retailing, Lovehoney has over 400 own brand products and does development and publicity. In 2014 the company was the focus of a television show entitled Frisky Business, which looked at their day-to-day operations.
Wolf & Badger is a global online marketplace for independent fashion, beauty and homeware brands, with storefronts in London, New York City and Los Angeles.
Bondara is one of the UK's largest adult retailers, specialising in the sale of sex toys, lingerie, bondage and erotic gifts.
Lucy Sparrow is a contemporary artist originating from Bath, England. She works at the intersection of contemporary art and craft setting the agenda for textiles within the urban art scene. She works mainly with felt and wool, creating life-sized replicas in addition to oversized soft versions of existing objects. Her work often features the SSRI prescription drug Prozac and often features Sparrows interpretations of the retail environment, the intricacies of product branding throughout the modern era and her full-sized representations of supermarkets.
Sidney Baillieu Myer, also known as Bails Myer, was an Australian businessman and philanthropist. A member of the Myer family retailing dynasty, he was the son of Sidney and Merlyn Myer. He joined his family's company, the Myer Emporium, in 1949 and became its chairman in 1983. He oversaw its merger with GJ Coles & Coy to create Coles Myer and retired from business in 1994. In his later life, Myer was involved with philanthropic, scientific and arts organisations.