Hey, freshmen. It’s college. Your parents will never know.
A handful of adult-themed shops surrounding the Boston University campus are scattered about for adventurous students — and maybe even a few proud parents and professors — to explore their wild sides with cuffs, cakes, condoms and anything else that aids the avant-garde in their quest for erotic enlightenment.
Boasting a not-so-subtle store name, Condom World, located 13 steps below Newbury Comics at 332 Newbury Street, unleashes a world of novelty sex toys, bachelorette party favors and, of course, a variety of condoms and lubricants.
Over a dirty red-and-black checkered floor and alongside signs that read “These handcuffs are REAL. In case of a lock-in, see an employee!” Mike Morrison said the collegiate bunch forms his typical crowd.
“We certainly have a lot of college students,” he said. “A lot of women, a lot of couples come in.”
In addition to road signs that read “Booty Way,” fishnet stockings, “stand-ins” and S’M handcuffs, the shop offers a relatively small amount of wall space dedicated to condoms considering its name.
“They’re kind of a grab-and-go type thing,” Morrison said. “It’s like you go in a convenience store, and you’ve got all the candy all lined up and stuff, you can just grab it and go. It’s kind of cool and unique.”
Sweet-N-Nasty, an erotic bakery located just around the corner from Condom World on Massachusetts Avenue, offers patrons savory atmosphere.
“It’s really fun,” said employee Alison Brown while she wrapped a metal tray of curved, white chocolate phalluses with clear saran wrap, while a co-worker stood close and carefully shaved excess chocolate off their dark chocolate counterpart.
“I like having a job where I am doing something that makes people happy,” Brown said.
The store offers seasonal decorations – now ranging from garland spiders to chocolate ghosts with large breasts protruding beneath their sheets for the Halloween season.
“It’s certainly a more fun way to celebrate,” Brown said.
Good Vibrations, located at 308 Harvard St. in Brookline, is a sex shop with a mission. The franchise started as a mail-order service in 1985, and shortly after began opening store locations, said manager Christine Breland.
“[The goal is] to make people feel comfortable, like they can come in with friends or alone and not feel dirty, or like it’s OK if they want to come in and buy a vibrator,” Breland said.
Good Vibrations’ boutique offers an array of products including books, movies, toys, party favors and fetish gear – including a duckie-shaped vibrator charmingly named ‘I Rub My Duckie’ and an 18-karat gold-plated vibrator, YVA Gold, valued at $1,500.
“We want to promote a really sex-positive mood,” Breland said, adding the staff is trained to answer any questions that customers may have about the store’s products or various sexual practices.
Breland said that every time TBS reruns the Sex and the City episode featuring the infamous Rabbit product, students flock to the store.
“We give a 10-percent discount with student ID,” she joked.
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