|
Target |
Kmart |
Wal-Mart |
Sears |
| Sexy Magazines |
For sale: Publications we see in our dermatologist's office.
Location: Second floor, near the escalators.
Obscured how: Not at all, but the dermatologist vibe is a good way to turn us off.
Sex rating: 4/10. Add a point for muscle mag with "Ultimate Sexual Pleasure" headline.
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Reading material by the checkout counter: The Da Vinci Code, The South Beach Diet, and various Christian titles.
Sex Rating: 0/10 |
For Sale: Sly, with a disturbingly attractive Sylvester Stallone working out, and Outside, promising “Women of the Rock World Nude.” Amazingly, they don’t mean music.
Location: By the checkout and doors, also next to the expensive sympathy cards.
Obscured how: Not at all, unless you count disorganization.
Rating: 6/10. Comfort yourself from the death of a loved one with Sly's dripping muscles. |
No magazines, or reading material of any kind.
Sex Rating: 0/10 |
| Condoms and Lube |
For sale: Durex and Trojan condoms, including a sizable Trojan "pleasure pack" for the economically-minded. K-Y lube. Three brands of home pregnancy tests.
Located: In the health and beauty section, unmarked, in a corner section of an aisle that stocks nothing but maxi pads.
Obscured how: When searching for condoms, the maxi-pad aisle is not the first place you might look.
Sex rating: 6/10. Decent selection but nothing special. |
For sale: A bonanza of condoms (3 brands, 20 varieties); Conception vaginal contraceptive gel; 7 brands of pregnancy tests; 3 brands of lube. 
Location: In glass cabinet, crammed into a darkened corner, against a back wall, on a shelf between Lubriderm lotion and a cardboard display of Sweet 'n' Low packets.
Obscured how: Behind glass, locked with a key.
Sex rating: A frustrating 5/10. Kmart may provide customers with ample sex material, but asking an employee to unlock the cabinet so you can access the Durex Tropical Luscious Flavor condoms is likely to prevent purchases. |
For sale: Fourteen varieties of K-Y lube. Either rarely purchased or it was freshly stocked, because there was A LOT.
Location: In secret corner, by the pharmacist consultation window with all the dirty-dirty products; they should be the under the watchful eye of a pharmacist, but no pharmacist was visible.
Obscured how: Not so much obscured as reluctantly included in the inventory.
Sex rating: A slippery 7/10. |
No lube or condoms; no pharmacy.
Sex rating: 0/10. |
| Lingerie |
For Sale: Matronly nightgowns, bikini underwear in bold colors, transparent negligées. Men's crotches are given the standard treatment in the "Basics" section.
Location: Women's on main floor near cash registers, men's on upper level.
Sex Rating: 6/10. Add a point for men's g-strings, subtract one for privacy-invading video cameras mounted every ten feet in the women's section. |
For Sale: The laciest, tiniest things you can imagine, $4.99 each.
Location: Conveniently placed closest to the front door on top level, about five or ten seconds' walking distance from entrance.
Sex Rating: 8/10. Cheap thongs at the front door? Those are the rules in our office. |
For Sale: Thongs and large white underpants. Also, girls underwear: while teens were encouraged to label their crotches “Princess” and “Hottie,” “Baby-Maker” and “Cum Dumpster” undies were not in evidence.
Location: The thongs were buried in the skivvies section, but a shamefully sheer top was right by the aisle.
Obscured How: Hidden by curtain of granny panties.
Sex Rating: 5/10. Plus for rainbow Superman G-String. Minus for making us look through grandma's tighty whities to find them. |
For Sale: Modern-day girdles and black and red silky, lacy, furry nighties. Sears, a mother by day, Motel 6 temptress by night?
Location: The escalator deposits you in the midst of it all.
Obscured How: Inexplicably not on the first floor with the women's wear, bathing suit and stockings. We had to ask an employee if the store carried lingerie.
Sex Rating: 5/10. The strappy nightgowns were too cheap to make us hot. |
| Sex Toys |
For sale: One personal massager, an innocent-looking, heated device whose box portrays a woman in pain.
Location: In a section called "Muscle and Joint Relief," between the band-aids and braces.
Sexiness: 2/10. One vibrating toy is better than none. |
For sale: Care Bear battery-operated toothbrushes.
Location: Next to the large selection of douche.
Sex Rating: 1/10. It vibrates, but even Love-a-Lot Bear wouldn't want you to use him that way. |
Found: Vibrating Hokey Pokey Elmo.
Location: Toy section — with no shame! In view of children!
Obscured How: Disguised as toy.
Sex
Rating: 2/10. While the vibration could make this toy sexual, the excruciating singing would surely kill the mood. |
For Sale: $24.95 ballpoint vibrating pen.
Location: On the first floor, a five second walk from the front door, in a glass case in the pen/watch/keychain section.
Obscured How: In a locked, glass case whose key was held by a elderly, heavily accented Chinese man.
Sex Rating: 8/10. The real deal, but you'd never know it was there unless you asked. |
| The Unexpected |
In the party favor aisle, plastic novelty handcuffs, furry slap bracelets and a suggestive-looking balloon pump were all for sale. In the toy department, pink feather boas suggested that perfect gift for that eight-year-old burlesque devotee. In the home improvement department, a display of sinister and phallic garden hoses equipped with "turret pistols" sat next to a display of batteries. If these hoses were indeed battery-powered, that they would be flying off the shelves.
Sex Rating: 7/10. Target is well-stocked for a BDSM scene, if you know where to look. |
In the poster section, we found a pin-up of Lindsay Lohan with a guitar. She may be sexy, but the actress-turned rock star shtick doesn’t do it for us. We also found a skull poster that said "DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES" next to a Jesus Christ poster.
Sex Rating: 0/10. One Lohan better is than no Lohans. |
In the "pet" section, Bag Balm. “Massage it in, softens bag.” Cause for suspicion: Who owns a cow?
Also found: avariety of collars and chains, oddly erotic-looking dog nursing formula.
Sex Rating: 7/10. |
A rack of underwear that said "30% off Personal Identity Hipsters." Rainbow key chains next to "I Heart Jesus" key chains.
Sex Rating: 0/10. |
| Customer Service |
Nerve: Do you carry massage oils?
Employee: Try the liquid soaps.
Nerve: Where can I find Maxim magazine?
Employee2: (rolls his eyes like he’s already been asked that question seventy-three times) We don’t carry Maxim.
Nerve: What about The Advocate?
Employee2: What’s that?
Nerve: A magazine.
Employee2: If you don’t see it out, we don’t have it.
Sex Rating: 6/10, for an unintentionally funny joke about being in the closet. |
Nerve: Which lube would you suggest?
Employee1: K-Y Jelly.
Nerve: What about cooking oil?
Employee1: (recoils in horror) No, that's nasty! (moves back a little) You put cooking oil . . . I don't put cooking oil there.
Nerve: Do you sell shoulder massagers? (shoots meaningful look)
[Silence.]
Nerve (to employee2): Do you have shoulder massagers?
Employee2 leads us to an aisle of gel inserts for shoes.
Nerve: These are for FEET.
Employee2: I know, yeah.
Sex Rating: 4/10. |
There seemed to be no staff around.
Sex Rating: 0/10. |
Nerve: (examining vibrating pen) Do people use this pen for writing?
Employee: For massage. (Holds pen to the back of his neck.)
Nerve: Do they use it for anywhere else?
Employee: Very popular with people from the Orient.
Nerve: (Points to acupuncture diagram of person. ) They suggest that you use it here (points to pelvis) to cure insomnia?
Employee: (Smiles) Yes, it's very good.
Sex Rating: 8/10. |
| Overall Rating |
31/60.
All the Isaac Mizrahi in the world can't make up for the absence of a vibrating shoulder massager. |
19/60.
Kmart loses points for the absence of reading material, and for keeping its abundance of prophylactics behind the employee-only wall. |
27/60.
Surprisingly kinky for a place that stocks a lot of Bible keychains. |
21/60.
Our pen-cum-vibrator-hawker was pleasant enough, but Sears doesn’t go near the really sexy stuff. |
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
