You may have noticed that the seedy little adult bookstore / video porn arcade at 16th and Mission has been cleaned up recently, remodeled and rendered more yuppie-friendly. The former Mission News is now reborn as Mission Secrets, a less off-putting version of its formerly lube-crusted self that specializes more in sex toys and ‘sexy Catholic schoolgirl’ costumes than in adult DVDs and copies of Barely Legal [link NSFW]. The gussying-up happens to coincide with an influx of millionaires moving into the neighborhood and onto Mission Street itself, like at the Vida at 22nd and Mission, and in the upcoming 10-story luxury rental project at 16th and Mission.
Millionaires moving to 16th and Mission. Just let that sink in for a minute.
After some inquiries it turns out the remodeling of our venerable XXX video store has little to do with the broader gentrification of the Mission Street corridor. “We’re rebranding all the stores, we’re rebranding for the female demographic,” Adult Megastore district manager Rick Crawshaw told SFist (the chain operates four stores in San Francisco). “We’re going more boutique. It’s just to appeal more to females and couples. It has nothing do with tech money.”
“Adult stores have always had the reputation of the old dirty bookstore with a guy in a trenchcoat flashing,” Crawshaw said. “We want a pretty store that’s not intimidating to women.” Indeed, the new shop is far cleaner and has a vastly upgraded stock of sex toys. The new store layout resembles the old VHS video rental stores of the 80's and 90's, with the porn DVDs partitioned off in a separate area from the rest of the store’s main stock of vibrators, lingerie, synthetic assholes, cock-shaped drink straws, and beaded anal probes.
With more than 100 different vibrators, clit massagers and butt toys onhand, the shop seemingly aspires to compete with the Good Vibrations location a block away on Valencia. And while Mission Secrets' toys are generally more affordable, the only item I saw on display at both stores' shelves was actually cheaper at Good Vibrations. (That would be the 8-ounce bottle of Swiss Navy Silicone Lube, priced $36 at Mission Secrets but just $30 at Good Vibes). Your strap-ons and handcuffs will cost a little less at the new Mission Secrets, but there are fewer high-end options. And you won’t get the Good Vibes-style sales associate with encyclopedic knowledge of, say, whether doctors recommend cock rings for Cialis users suffering from fibromyalgia.
The infamous video booths in the back of the porn shop remain unchanged, with the glory holes still intact. You can’t cruise the booths at 4 a.m. anymore, because the shop is only open until midnight on weeknights and 2 a.m. on weekends. Additionally, you can no longer watch all the videos at once for free by making small talk at the sales counter while watching the clerk's ‘admin’ screen which I'm told by a friend you used to be able to do!
The little adult store at Mission and 16th insists it was not remodeled to accommodate the techie condo clientele, and I'll take them at their word. Still, its remodel was somewhat coincidentally timed, and the optics given all the recent gentrification strife are pretty hilarious.
But seriously, people. Can't some dirty things just stay dirty?
