Perhaps you caught the news story on the teevee recently about nylon ropes disappearing from hardware store shelves thanks to the popularity of mommy-porn bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.
That isn't the only business crediting E.L. James' book with brisk product sales, according to a Huntington Beach-based company that has been proudly catering to the kinky since 1995.
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Sportsheets supplies all kinds of products to your finer adult novelty retail establishments. According to founder and CEO Tom Stewart, the company's Sex & Mischief collection has been in particular demand lately. That collection includes handcuffs, sex swings, nipple clamps, wrist and ankle restraint kits and not-your-grandma's breathable ball gags.
“”We are experiencing a crush of orders like never before,” Stewart reportedly tells AVN. “We hit a sales record for June that
we couldn't believe and we're on a steady track to double our sales for
July. Sex & Mischief is blowing up and we couldn't be more proud!”
Considering what's lying around Stewart's warehouse, to get an exclamaction point out of him is quite an amazing feat. But no one knows for certain whether there is a direct link between the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey and Sex & Mischief items selling like hot-cock cages. AVN raises “a more general growing awareness of BDSM and fantasy play” as another possible draw.
After all, it's not like moms are walking into Pink Kitty, lowering their Gucci-knockoff sunglasses and whispering to the clerk, “E.L. James sent me.” Then again, according to the Irvine shop's recent Weekly ad, Pink Kitty is “Your Fifty Shades of Grey Shopping Headquarters.” The plot isn't the only thing that thickens!
Something happening behind closed doors has resulted in Sportsheets having to increase staff and production this summer. Yes Virginia, growth industries do still exist. (“Heh-heh, he said growth.”)
The proof may be revealed at this weekend's Adult Novelty Manufacturers Expo–known as the ANME Founders Show–at the Marriott Burbank Airport. Sportsheets will unveil its latest Sex and Mischief products there, and pre-orders are already brisk, according to president Julie Stewart.
So should you see a middle-aged lady tucking a smart black flogger into her canvas Barnes & Noble bag, you know who to thank.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.