commodity fetishism gone right \/\/ come as you are, toronto
Ah, freshman year in college. Freedom from the oppressive schedules of high school and parental supervision, talking until the break of dawn with newfound friends, bad cafeteria food, worse laundry hassles, goateed professors in corduroy jackets, testing the limits of binge drinking — and of course, plenty of sexual experimentation.
My higher education kicked off in 1998, when I arrived to the Oberlin College campus as a teenager jacked up on rebellion and Salt-n-Pepa lyrics, eager to find someone who’d be curious to discover my clitoris as I had been a few years earlier from a bathside boombox softly crooning Aaliyah’s “One In A Million”: essentially, how to get me rode hard and put up wet.
Whether or not I could manage to get laid, I also showed up to college with my collection of erotica. A bibliophile since childhood, my attentions turned to literature with a sexual focus as a hormonally-addled adolescent: by the time I was 18, I had everything from the Marquis de Sade to Anaïs Nin, Pat Califia to Eve Ensler, and everything in between, in my possession, all purchased with teenage allowance and babysitting money.
My alma mater offered a program for students or community members to teach their own courses for credit, on a pass/fail system. The Experimental College department boasted a catalog to fit any fancy. If someone else could get credit for a class on underwater basket weaving or rave culture, I was sure as hell going to try my luck with something of my own. My class on Erotic Literature was born.
My class of fifteen dissected Philosophy of the Bedroom, discovered Marilyn Hacker, pored over Tropic of Cancer‘s most lurid moments, and marveled at our fascination with fetishes previously untapped. We eventually wrote our own erotica for the final exam, and read each piece to each other on the last day of class.
Over a decade of sexual frustration, fantasy, longing, experimentation — and, ultimately, satisfaction — later, I visited Come As You Are during a recent visit to Toronto. Though the frosty Canadian climate doesn’t necessarily scream “this is so fucking hot,” Come As You Are is an oasis of all things sexy, no matter what the individual persuasion might be.
Originally incorporated as a Canadian worker cooperative in 1997, Come As You Are is the ONLY sex shop in the world run democratically with the primary mandate to keep its members employed, rather than meeting a financial bottom line. This system allows for the owners to make decisions that align with the core values of their mission, grounded in a love for sex toys, sex books, and porn that opens an umbrella to any possible customer: gay, straight, or somewhere in between; single or in any sort of relationship; agonizingly hurt and still shy or hollering for the next time to get skintimate. They even believe, blissfully, that there are more than two genders.
Come As You Are's owners (from left to right): gill lamon, Holly Hirst, Sarah Forbes-Roberts, Cory Silverberg
Co-owner Cory Silverberg explains that the collective “doesn’t think that cookie cutter solutions work when it comes to sex, and therefore see no reason why anyone should have to deny parts of themselves just to get by. It’s hard work, but we’re a retail store that refuses to objectify our customers.”
T.I. might enthuse about “hot sex, so wet, so tight,” but Come As You Are actually delivers on their promise that you can have whatever you like: there’s every sort of DVD porn (prices vary) you might dig, conveniently labeled with a five-scale rating system for everyone from one-star (“Light and Breezy” keeps action relatively clean) to five-star (“Hard As We Want to Be:” no-holds-barred ejaculations, penetration in every orifice imaginable, etc.), with helpful descriptions of each film, all available either for rent or purchase.
There are also toys and accessories galore for all of our inner child gone aroused adult: the highly-rated Lelo Ina ($150*) says yes, yes, fucking yes to a g-spot without forgetting the clitoral stimulation; the Fleshlight Butt is the most ingenuously-designed toy for men with the ability to warm it up and apply lube; Ice Queen Nipple Gel ($28) provides a tingly sensation without any toxic consumption for that partner in crime who can’t help but suck; and the possibilities are truly endless for LeatherBeaten’s Prisoner of Love bondage kit ($105), complete with one-inch-wide belt leather wrist and ankle restraints plus four 24″ nylon tie-down straps to affix the object of your affection to almost anything. And for sure, there is a hell of a lot of lube, flavored or not, even if you want it from a pump-container by the gallon.
The Famous Lelo Ina
Come As You Are also boasts an impressive selection of erotic literature, with the notable additions of The Best Sex Writing 2009, On a Bed of Rice (an anthology of Asian-focused erotica), or Spanked (the spanking fetishist’s literary goldmine). Take it from an expert on the subject, you can touch yourself or turn on a sexy spectator. You can read your best friend illicit poems when the two of you are in bed together on a drunken night. More than anything, you can experiment with whatever you thought sex meant, reading about other people who were willing to put it on a platter for you in words.
Best of all, they have a website from which you can order any of their products, which they all ship to the United States. Let the weekend begin!
Photos courtesy of Come As You Are
COME AS YOU ARE:
701 QUEEN STREET WEST, TORONTO, ON M6J 1E6, CANADA
TEL (416) 504-7934
HOURS:
MON-WED,SAT 11am-7pm; THU-FRI 11am-9pm; SUN 12pm-5pm
WEBSITE: www.comeasyouare.com
* All Prices listed in Canadian Dollars
The tag collection for this column: incredible.
Shucks, a review that references de Sade, Eve Ensler, AND Walt Whitman…you’re a customer after our own heart! Thanks for reminding people that Toronto can be hot, even in winter. Come back soon.