NEW YORK — The New York Times’s "Modern Love" column today featured an essay by an 83-year-old woman about her experience as a shopper in an adult boutique.
The essay, titled “Why Won’t Anyone Help Me in This Sex Shop?” was penned by Diana de Vegh, a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City.
“I’m a perfectly respectable woman who knows what she wants and has the ability to pay for it,” de Vegh wrote. “At 83, I may be a little older than most, and legally blind, but generally speaking, people are pleased to welcome me into their shops and boutiques and promptly move forward to offer assistance.
“But here? In this sophisticated SoHo sex store? It was like a parting of the waters, with me marooned on a distant shore. No one was asking if I needed help finding anything. Worse yet, the friend I had invited specifically to review and report on the merchandise seemed to have vanished. Had she been magically vaporized in a mist of embarrassment by the array of multicolored dildos greeting us upon entry? What did she expect in a place like this? Variety is their specialty.”
De Vegh wrote that she wanted to “purchase a couple of delightful toys because I believe in the pursuit of happiness for people of all ages and proclivities.”
“My motto is: 'Sex for one, sex for two, sex for all who desire it,'” she wrote. “And that emphatically includes those of us who are deep into old, old age.”
The therapist said she finds prudishness around sex shops baffling.
“I grew up in the 1950s when many of us were in thrall to Dr. Freud’s pronouncements concerning simultaneous vaginal orgasm. In the world of psychoanalytically prescribed correct sex, the use of accouterments would diminish the primacy of the almighty male organ. Out of the question back then. But surely we’re no longer bound by male ego syndrome.”
“For some of us, the era of the quickie is over,” she concluded. “Nonetheless, a midday solo excursion or a teatime rendezvous for one might be just the ticket. No matter the setting, 'Toys Can Be Us' for adults.”
To read “Why Won’t Anyone Help Me in This Sex Shop?” click here.
