How Common Is It For Women To Visit A Sex Store?

Montreal, my hometown, has historically been a very liberal city. The downtown area has numerous strip clubs and sex shops. More than a decade ago, in my consumer behavior course, a group of my undergraduate students took advantage of the ubiquity of sex shops to study sex differences in browsing behavior in such outlets. Needless to say, their term project generated quite a bit of interest when they presented their findings at the end of the semester.

A few days ago, I came across a 2010 study titled Female Patrons of Porn that tackled similar issues to those originally addressed by my students. Specifically, Richard McCleary and Richard Tewksbury investigated the percentage of men to women that entered 33 adult stores in Southern California, the manner in which the two sexes patronized the stores (i.e., alone, in same-sex groups, in mixed-sex groups, or as couples), and whether specific store-related variables had an effect on the likelihood of women visiting a particular store.

Here are some of the key findings: Trained observers noted that of the 1,258 patrons who visited the stores within the observational period, 83% (1,044) of these were men. It is instructive to note that the authors cite two studies that found that 50% of the sex shop patrons were women. Whereas men constitute the majority of consumers of hardcore pornography (see my earlier post on pornography here), these studies demonstrate that depending on the particular sexual products and services, women can constitute a substantial proportion of the market in question. Should feminists rejoice at this fact or denounce it as an instantiation of patriarchal brainwashing?

Interestingly, 75.6% of the men who entered the stores did so alone whereas only 13.1% of the women were solo patrons. Hence, it would appear that women are more likely to construe this as a "social" event whereas men are likely to visit the private booths in such stores (for sexual release). I suppose that this is similar to the fact that men will frequently go to a strip club alone whereas to the extent that women visit a strip club wherein the dancers are male, they do so as part of a large group of women.

The three store characteristics that had the greatest effect on women's patronage were the presence of a security guard, the presence of viewing booths, and the number of female employees in the store. Specifically, security guards increased a woman's likelihood of visiting a store; the presence of viewing booths decreased it (perhaps because this cues a more seedy establishment); and the greater the number of female employees who worked at a store, the lesser the likelihood of a woman visiting the store. This might be due to intra-sexual embarrassment. In other words, women might feel greater discomfort in visiting sex shops if "judged" by other women.

Ciao for now.

Source for Image:
http://pictures.directnews.co.uk/liveimages/Sex+Shop_670_17924329_0_0_1…