HRM heating up with adult stores, sex workshops, boudoir photography

Shannon Marshall was travelling through Europe and noticed many of their adult stores were bright, beautiful boutiques targeted strictly at women.

“I realized there was a seedier aspect to the industry in Nova Scotia and a lot of my female friends were never comfortable going in to get stuff for their romantic life,” says Marshall. “There was a need in the market for a store created by women, for women.”

Indulgence Intimate Apparel opened seven years ago in Lower Sackville and moved to its current location on Portland Street four years ago. Marshall says they had to laugh when they compared sales trends after just a few days in their new digs.

“In Sackville we were selling a lot of massage oils and nightgowns — pretty vanilla stuff — and the doors opened in Dartmouth and right away we were selling a lot more toys and handcuffs,” says Marshall. “There are a lot of vibrant couples here in Dartmouth and people will nip in on their way home from work to grab a little packet of flavoured lube.”

“We even have one customer in her 70s who takes the ferry over from her assisted living facility!”

Dartmouth was ranked No. 4 out of the top 100 municipalities in Canada for sex toy, adult novelty and lingerie purchases, according to PinkCherry Adult Toys’ 2015 results, while Halifax ranked No. 20 out of the top 40 cities.

Marshall runs the “neighbourhood naughty shop” with her mother, Barbara, and their resident Golden Retriever adds to the relaxed atmosphere.

“The goal is to have a really warm, inviting environment and that’s where Goldie comes in,” says Marshall. “She’s the official greeter, and if you’re a little unsure when you walk in, it relaxes you to see a happy dog wagging her tail.”

It was important to the mother/daughter duo to run a store that looked lovely and smelled beautiful. They don’t put sex toys or naughty costumes in the window displays, instead choosing to display “really nice lingerie” to be respectful to those in the community who walk or drive by. There’s even a dog watering bowl outside during the summer months.

One of the ways Marshall gets nervous newbies in the store is by hosting private parties. Once people realize they won’t be accosted by a giant wall of phallic devices, she explains, they feel more comfortable coming back in another time. More than 85 per cent of their lingerie is available from size small to 4X so they’ve also become a destination shop with a strong online presence.

Marshall says toys and lingerie are meant to be an additive to a relationship and even trying something new every three months can have “tremendous benefits” in your love life. With the cost of entertainment higher than ever, she says some couples will skip the pricey movie-and-popcorn outing for a $1.75 tube of strawberry-pomegranate lube.

“It’s a fun way to spend a Saturday night!”

Kaleigh Trace is the education coordinator at Venus Envy on Barrington Street. Every other Tuesday, the author of Hot, Wet, and Shaking: How I Learned to Talk About Sex teaches a sex workshop at the store — sometimes about a specific sex act, other times it’s about a topic like consent.

While Trace says Halifax is certainly “behind the times,” she loves living here and says things have been changing for the better in recent years. Halifax, for example, is one of two Canadian cities with a women and transgender bathhouse.

“It would be great if folks were more open to talking about sex, because the more we talk about it the more likely we’re going to live in a society that’s safer,” says Trace.

Jenn Gregory never imagined she’d be known as Halifax’s premiere boudoir photographer. She fell in love with the intimate art form after a client asked her to shoot a racy calendar for her husband, and then focused all of her attention on building Halifax Boudoir Photography Studio.

Gregory says many clients arrive for their shoot fretting they weren’t 10 lbs. lighter or wishing they’d gotten Botox, but she’s firm with them: you’re perfect now, exactly as you are.

“We’re curvy girls ourselves, so when our clients see that we’re not a size six, they feel much more comfortable,” says Gregory. “We’re all about empowering yourself and being confident.”

Since it’s still her side-hustle, she does all her boudoir shoots on evenings and weekends, shooting three or four women a month in a private residential studio in Armdale. The all-female team provides professional hair and makeup, helps the subjects with their poses and will even go shopping with them to select the right lingerie.

“People feel great about themselves and they’re just so excited to share their photos with their friends,” says Gregory. “I think people are more open-minded about sex these days, which is great.”

“They’ll come in saying ‘I gotta lose weight, I never take good photos,’ but when they see these photos they say ‘Wow! You can share those with whoever you want!’”

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