http://divaasia.com/article/5144
Wed, Sep 16, 2009
The Sunday Times
Sex in the suburbs
by Boon Chan
Soft, intimate lighting casts a warm glow over comfortable-looking couches and neutral-tone wallpaper. At first glance, this could pass for someone's living room. And then one notices the sexual pleasure paraphernalia.
Welcome to Mr & Mrs Smith: The Couple Store, tucked away in the affluent neighbourhood of Bukit Timah.
The upscale sex shop, where on average, customers spend $2,500 a visit on novelty items including specially shaped 'love' lounges, is the very picture of discretion.
It fronts a busy thoroughfare and yet looks as though it could be a video rental outlet or a novelty his 'n' hers store.
There is even a sign when you enter that reads: 'For the due respect to one and all, the use of profanity or coarse language is not allowed.'
Indeed, the owner, Mr Ian Ong, 44, prefers to think of his boutique as a place to facilitate sexual intimacy for couples rather than as an adult sex shop. He points to the 'Mr & Mrs' in the name and stresses that he wants to promote couplehood.
'It is about helping couples regenerate the spice of life. A sexually satisfied person is an overall productive human being,' he says.
He is married to wife Christine and they have an 11-year-old daughter.
In addition to his zeal to improve the quality of Singaporeans' bedroom life and increase the dismal birth rate, there was another reason for opening the boutique store in November last year. Doing so made business sense.
Mr Ong saw a gap in the market for couples to jazz up their sex lives, given that the options at the time consisted of doctors and therapists at one end and novelty sex toy stores at the other.
He decided to offer a non-threatening, genteel environment for couples seeking to spice things up in the bedroom.
There are also plans to offer seminars and workshops for couples to learn about topics such as Tantra yoga, a specific school of yoga that has been said to enhance sexual health, and 'orgasmic' birthing.
The self-described serial entrepreneur is no stranger to retail ventures: In 1999, he started The Tatami Shop, which sold tatami furnishings and floorings, and in 2004, the V Tea Room, later renamed the Cookie Museum, for which Christine is the baking consultant.
At The Couple Store, 80 to 90 per cent of the clientele are, in fact, couples. Customers are often managers and business owners in their late 30s and 40s who spend $2,000 to $2,500 a visit.
Some of the most popular items at Mr & Mrs Smith include couches from Liberator, an American line of bedroom adventure gear. Prices range from $380 for a ramp-shaped couch to $1,255 for a black various cuffs and restraints.
Another sort of sex shop are those in the S.E.X. In The City chain, which has four outlets. Its manager Jan Toh, 30, says that popular buys are novelty items including souvenir mugs and pens which are anatomical replicas. They cost between $5 and $50 and are bought mostly by tourists.
Mr Ong services a different market. He says: 'I'm not looking for tourists. I wanted a place that is in a residential area because couplehood is about being in the home environment as well. We thought there might be a big rejection from the neighbourhood, but it didn't happen.'
It helps that the store front is circumspect and designed to blend in. Marketing executive Karen Tan, 27, lives in the neighbourhood but had not even noticed the place until LifeStyle pointed it out to her.
She says: 'Bukit Timah is a very residential place and there aren't really stores like that. The nearest one is probably in Orchard Road, not even Holland Village. But if it's tastefully done, it's fine.'
Those who have noticed have not kicked up a fuss either. Mr William Koh, 39, a laboratory assistant at the 35mm curious customers ask about Mr & Mrs Smith and he would tell them it is about enhancing the sex lives of couples.
Personally, he does not have strong feelings about his neighbour.
He says: 'It all depends on the customers, and our customers don't have a problem with it.'
This article was first published in The Sunday Times.
Wed, Sep 16, 2009
The Sunday Times
Sex in the suburbs
by Boon Chan
Soft, intimate lighting casts a warm glow over comfortable-looking couches and neutral-tone wallpaper. At first glance, this could pass for someone's living room. And then one notices the sexual pleasure paraphernalia.
Welcome to Mr & Mrs Smith: The Couple Store, tucked away in the affluent neighbourhood of Bukit Timah.
The upscale sex shop, where on average, customers spend $2,500 a visit on novelty items including specially shaped 'love' lounges, is the very picture of discretion.
It fronts a busy thoroughfare and yet looks as though it could be a video rental outlet or a novelty his 'n' hers store.
There is even a sign when you enter that reads: 'For the due respect to one and all, the use of profanity or coarse language is not allowed.'
Indeed, the owner, Mr Ian Ong, 44, prefers to think of his boutique as a place to facilitate sexual intimacy for couples rather than as an adult sex shop. He points to the 'Mr & Mrs' in the name and stresses that he wants to promote couplehood.
'It is about helping couples regenerate the spice of life. A sexually satisfied person is an overall productive human being,' he says.
He is married to wife Christine and they have an 11-year-old daughter.
In addition to his zeal to improve the quality of Singaporeans' bedroom life and increase the dismal birth rate, there was another reason for opening the boutique store in November last year. Doing so made business sense.
Mr Ong saw a gap in the market for couples to jazz up their sex lives, given that the options at the time consisted of doctors and therapists at one end and novelty sex toy stores at the other.
He decided to offer a non-threatening, genteel environment for couples seeking to spice things up in the bedroom.
There are also plans to offer seminars and workshops for couples to learn about topics such as Tantra yoga, a specific school of yoga that has been said to enhance sexual health, and 'orgasmic' birthing.
The self-described serial entrepreneur is no stranger to retail ventures: In 1999, he started The Tatami Shop, which sold tatami furnishings and floorings, and in 2004, the V Tea Room, later renamed the Cookie Museum, for which Christine is the baking consultant.
At The Couple Store, 80 to 90 per cent of the clientele are, in fact, couples. Customers are often managers and business owners in their late 30s and 40s who spend $2,000 to $2,500 a visit.
Some of the most popular items at Mr & Mrs Smith include couches from Liberator, an American line of bedroom adventure gear. Prices range from $380 for a ramp-shaped couch to $1,255 for a black various cuffs and restraints.
Another sort of sex shop are those in the S.E.X. In The City chain, which has four outlets. Its manager Jan Toh, 30, says that popular buys are novelty items including souvenir mugs and pens which are anatomical replicas. They cost between $5 and $50 and are bought mostly by tourists.
Mr Ong services a different market. He says: 'I'm not looking for tourists. I wanted a place that is in a residential area because couplehood is about being in the home environment as well. We thought there might be a big rejection from the neighbourhood, but it didn't happen.'
It helps that the store front is circumspect and designed to blend in. Marketing executive Karen Tan, 27, lives in the neighbourhood but had not even noticed the place until LifeStyle pointed it out to her.
She says: 'Bukit Timah is a very residential place and there aren't really stores like that. The nearest one is probably in Orchard Road, not even Holland Village. But if it's tastefully done, it's fine.'
Those who have noticed have not kicked up a fuss either. Mr William Koh, 39, a laboratory assistant at the 35mm curious customers ask about Mr & Mrs Smith and he would tell them it is about enhancing the sex lives of couples.
Personally, he does not have strong feelings about his neighbour.
He says: 'It all depends on the customers, and our customers don't have a problem with it.'
This article was first published in The Sunday Times.
