In the early ’90s, what is now the bustling Pike/Pine corridor was a rundown stretch of nothing much, and sex toys were things you found primarily in dank windowless rooms hawking “marital aids.” Twenty years later, things look different, thanks in part to Claire Cavanah and Rachel Venning, two Seattle women who followed the inspiration of San Francisco’s woman-powered sex emporium Good Vibrations and their own sex-positive feminism to create Babeland, Seattle’s legendary sex-toy boutique which is today celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Full disclosure: Cavanah and Venning are old friends of mine, and when they first told me of their plan to open a woman-centered sex toy shop west of Broadway on Pike—Toys in Babeland was the name then—I wished them all the luck in the world while wondering about the iffy, distant locale and potential turnover in sex toys. (How many sex toys did even the most adventurous people need/wear out? Were these toys to be made of quickly-dissolving sugar?) Of course, Babeland soon became a bicoastal powerhouse as beloved for its community and concepts as its life-enhancing products, Pike is now all condos and destination revellers, and I am reminded again of why I am not a businessman.
Congratulations, Claire and Rachel! (Babeland’s 20th anniversary party is tonight, but it is entirely sold out. Wait list info here.)
