2008 Woodie Awards
Women buy more than just food at grocery store
Female Prophylactics Hit the Store
Stephanie Allmon ; Knight Ridder Newspapers(KRT)
Issue date: 2/1/06 Section: Life
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But a funny thing is happening in shopping carts across America: Boxes of condoms, "extra help" and "those things" are seeing the light of day right alongside the grapes and Blue Bell and toilet-bowl cleaner. Women are practically perched on the shelves in Aisle 5: declaring, "I am woman! Watch me score!"
Their cries are being heard, too. And not just by the men in Aisle 6.
The selling of sexual satisfaction to women has gone mainstream. Companies are cashing in on what some health experts are saying is women's desire - demand, even- for better sex, and more of it.
You need only look as far as the feminine-care aisle in the grocery store to find condoms that promise women extra pleasure, lubricants that claim to heighten sensation and novelty items such as flavored intimacy creams. Log onto venerable amazon.com, and you'll find a "Sex & Sensuality" section, where thousands of sex toys - most geared toward women- are for sale. Or tune into a daytime soap opera and count how many times commercials for products like "feminine warming gels" air.
When Trojan took direct aim at women last fall, it was officially a trend. Inspired by female focus groups, America's best-known and most profitable condom maker began wooing women during reruns of "Sex and the City" and in the pages of "US Weekly" with a sleekly packaged line called Elexa. Women can choose from a variety of condoms, a warming gel, even a vibrating ring that is against the law to sell (except as a "novelty item") in some states. A brightly colored female silhouette pops off every shiny black box, making it appear softer, more feminine, more like cologne than condoms.
And Elexa has some company on the shelf: A new line of Lifestyles condoms called "4PlaybyLifestyles" pairs condoms with pleasure-enhancing novelties such as warming massage lotions, edible body paints and body shimmer. K-Y Brand's lubricant called "Touch Massage 2-in-1 Warming," also introduced last year, is described as "the world's first and only body massage oil and personal lubricant in one."