Valentine Secrets

Not so when walking through Secret Desires' wonderland of silk g-strings, microscopic panties, and leather bustiers. To the contrary, the lingerie selection in Santa Monica's notorious sex shop on Lincoln Boulevard transforms me into a loitering, gawking, Venusian gatherer.

If you’ve ever wondered where women get those Halloween outfits, this is it. There seems to be an acre of Naughty Nurse, Naughty French Maid and Naughty Cowgirl costumes.

At Secret Desires, it becomes clear that any occupation can become “naughty” with the addition of a hot pink garter belt, fishnet stockings and feather boa. I could swear I saw a Naughty Crossing Guard get-up.

Unlike grittier sex shops, here you will not encounter glassy-eyed men in trench coats leering at you over magazines. It feels, instead, like you’ve wandered into a bachelorette party.

Jorge, the day shift manager, explains, perhaps redundantly, that the establishment is geared towards females. “We opened two and a half years ago to create a place that is less intimidating to women,” as opposed to Hollywood’s sleaze shacks.

There are racks offering fur-lined handcuffs and edible undies, lotions, sexy chotzkies, and Pin-the-Balls on the Stud games.

While a shelf’s worth of literature contains serious tomes devoted to “female sacred sexuality,” unlocking the hidden female orgasm and Tantra, men are played for laughs. There are penis-shaped drinking straws, penis-shaped pencils, willie-themed playing cards, cake pans shaped like male genitalia. Basically, anything cylindrical has been turned into a cheap, plastic, Chinese-made phallic party favor.

This is not deep kink. There is something light and romantic about the place. It’s the kind of store in which a blushing couple would seek out a bottle of “Hot Lips Lotion,” rather than purchase weapons to leave stripes on each other.

Jorge says that the shop attracts all kinds, but mostly “happy couples, looking for some fun." They often include “people coming back from nightclubs," looking for a nightcap of sorts, considering the shop is open as late as 3 a.m. on some mornings.

Valentine’s Day, of course, is big.

It is only until you reach the darkened back of the shop when things get a bit heavy and the ‘70s porn “waa waa” guitar and electric piano starts playing in your head.

Behind the massive selection of nearly indistinguishable porn CDs, there is a wall offering female blow-up sex dolls. They are modeled on “real life” porn stars with a penchant for geographic names: Asia, Montana, Paris, and Vienna offer their untiring silicone orifices. A “Nubian Love Doll” can be had for under one hundred bucks.

The face of one doll, “Tera Patrick,” stares out at me from the cellophane packaging and the reaction I have to her beckoning mouth is complicated and disturbing. I realize, terribly, that she is a dead ringer for my Aunt Carol, circa the summer of ’76, screaming at me after having discovered that I just ruined her velvet couch by sitting on it in my wet swimsuit.

Jorge states that the shop is designed to “reduce embarrassment” among female patrons. Note to self: never again enter a female-oriented sex toy shop scribbling into a steno pad while women shop for vibrators.

In the back-most chamber of the store I encounter two executive-looking women. They are a couple. Each one is weighing an impressive piece of hardware that requires two D batteries, lots of lube and courage. They are considering their fleshy purchases with the kind of care newlyweds consider China. All is fine until they notice your humble observer, a bald Margaret Mead, earnestly taking notes. They bolt.

Having destroyed their buzz, I am left alone in the sanctum sanctorum. Just me and about three hundred male appendages of various shapes, sizes, colors and talents.

When I spy the pair of rubber feet next to the selection of whips, I’m outta there.