Passion Online is a large adult shop at the Newport Road end of City Road. Painted in bright cerise pink, there's no missing it, but thankfully it is pretty discrete about what it does!
I have no objection to these kinds of shops, and I am pleased to see that they are generally more accepted these days than they used to be. The fact that the sex shops of old, which were predominantly targeted at men, have morphed into emporiums that offer lots of products to enhance female as well as male satisfaction can only be a good thing. Instead of dirty vids, with their ludicrous and often deeply offensive content, as well as a plethora of other products that provide passive forms of 'pleasure', both vicariously and auto erotically, this new breed of shop caters more for a participatory expression of sexual activity, which one would hope would lead to a better understanding of the sexual drives and desires of both sexes, as well as a more democratic delivery of satisfaction all round. This is borne out by Passion's commitment to the idea "that couples who play together, stay together".
Nevertheless, I do wonder about what inspires these shops to call themselves things like Passion! Surely the vast number of products available, (sex toys, fetish gear, maids and nurses costumes, amongst many others, books and vids, S and M paraphernalia etc...), are to excite some kind of response in people that need ever increasing stimulus to get them to a place of arousal...? Passion is innate, and doesn't need the merest hint of perversion to excite it. Some of the products that Passion carry are pretty kinky, which is fine in itself, but certainly doesn't conform to my idea of passion. Nurses outfits inspire lust as far as I'm concerned, and love inspires passion. read more