TORONTO, Canada — Local alt-weekly Now Toronto recently profiled historically progressive adult boutique Come As You Are as part of its "Toronto Pillars" series spotlighting "longstanding legacy businesses that make the city what it is."
The occasion of the profile, written by Now Toronto’s Richard Trapunski, was the reopening of Come As You Are at a brick-and-mortar location after years as an online-only store.
“Come as You Are is bucking a Toronto retail trend: it’s actually opened a shop during the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote Trapunski. “The long-running co-op sex shop has been online-only since 2016, but reopened as a brick-and-mortar in Kensington Market late last year.”
The retailer is described in the progressive terms consistent with its self-characterization across platforms: “The city’s only ethical, feminist, queer-friendly, worker-owned co-op sex shop.”
The profile features an interview with Jack Lamon, Come as You Are’s most senior worker and “functionally the owner.”
Come As You Are was founded in 1997.
“The original incarnation came about amidst a burgeoning sex-positive movement centered around the influential Good Vibrations in San Francisco,” Trapunski wrote. But although the store “once fit right in on [the] Queen West [neighborhood],” gentrification “changed the character of the street and made things tough for an anti-capitalist co-op that aimed more to foster community rather than sell out of inventory. So they closed up shop in 2016 and went online.”
The Now Toronto article also highlighted the store's staunch inclusive attitude.
“Yes, we’re a sex shop,” said Lamon, “but we’re not here to turn anyone on. When you think of the traditional sleazy sex shop, it’s this hypersexual experience, and we’re actually the opposite. We try to make sexual products less loaded and less sexual, partially to make them less threatening, but also so that people can explore the products in a neutral environment where they can apply the context.”
“When I hear about training that happens in other sex shops, it’ll be like, ‘Okay, here’s what you do if a gay man walks in, here’s what you say to him,’” Lamon continued. “And for us, it’s like, no, a 'person' walks in. 'What are you looking for? What have you had in the past? What’s your desire? What are your needs and wants?' We’re really trying to meet people where they are rather than projecting some idea of what we think their sexuality should be or is supposed to be.”
To read “Toronto Pillars: ‘Come as You Are’ Is the City’s Most Inclusive Sex Shop,” visit Now Toronto.
For more from Come As You Are, visit their website and follow the company on Twitter.
