Adult store opens female sexuality
By MARGARET FRANCOIS, AVENUE WRITER
Love is in the air - and it smells like Naughty Cravings Body Butter.
This Valentine's Day, it's all about "the romance of seduction," said Mary Jane Brunel, owner of French Addiction lingerie store. She's not just speculating either.
Brunel has seen her store's traffic increase and her inventory decrease as edible body lotion and lingerie "flew out the door," she said.
"[Valentine's Day] is really a great holiday for me because people come here that are anticipating a hot date," she said. "And they dress the part."
No matter whom you are shopping for, anything you need to steam up the night is here. Everything from barely-there panties and 6-inch patent-leather stilettos to gourmet flavored lotions and oils, sex toys and kama sutra books.
Walking into the intimate but conspicuously decorated shop, red and gold walls pop out at you along with all things lace, satin and faux fur.
Somehow, it makes you feel naughty and innocent simultaneously.
Brunel said she intentionally chose the color and decor of the store to set a sexually stimulating atmosphere.
"Gold and barn-red are a wonderful combination for passion," she said.
In contrast to other lingerie shops in the area, her store creates a very open and friendly atmosphere that specializes in catering to customer needs, brunel said.
"My niche market is for a woman who requires and deserves personal assistance, and there isn't any other place you can go and get help with your particular figure and your price range," she said. "All this figures into what we show to our customers, and we stay with them until they find something they're happy with."
But women, in general, don't really appreciate their bodies, she said.
To change that, she gets them into sexy lingerie that can hide the parts they don't like and show off the parts they do. She said she does this because there's a high point to every body.
For more than 20 years her store has brought a sense of sexual openness to Gainesville, an attitude Brunel learned in her youth.
"When I grew up, as a hippie I spent a lot of time in Europe," she said. "I'm pretty into the European attitude toward sexuality, which is a lot healthier than we get here where we think it's dirty and something you should be ashamed of."
At the time she opened the store, Brunel was married to a French man and they talked about importing merchandise from France.
"We carry merchandise designed from French lingerie, but actually French lingerie isn't viable in the market because a bra sells for $100," she said. "In France it's nothing to spend a couple hundred dollars for a bra and panties, but here people expect to get at least six or seven outfits for that price."
To give people what they want, French Addiction's prices range from about $20 to $60.
Most people can afford it, she said and it's worth it "especially if you're planning a hot date with your boyfriend."
Gabby Keane, a store employee, said that customers have more of a personal, individual experience too, as opposed to a sex shop where you buy what you need and leave.
While shopping, customers are usually assisted by Brunel or a worker, like Keane, and are given undivided attention.
The goal is for no one to leave empty-handed or dissatisfied, Keane said.
Another service Brunel offers to customers is a "home party," in which she brings sexy toys, catalogs and lotions to a client's house.
"We play girly games and usually toward the end there's some kind of disclosure that makes people feel more comfortable with their sexuality," she said.
Clients are taught how to use items and they can purchase them at the end of the party, she said.
"Home parties" are also held in the shop, she said.
"We lock the doors," she said. "People can bring whatever they want to drink - wine, beer, whatever - and we still play all the same games, but it's even more fun because they can try on the corsets and lingerie as well."
All games aside, French Addiction is about people-pleasing in every facet of the word, Brunel said.
