Sex shops specialize in evangelical audiences

Inside a medicine chest or a bread bag. Brazilian Andrea dos Anjos, 43, takes her erotic products with maximum discretion to her evangelical clients, a business that is emerging in Rio de Janeiro.

In her online store, Memórias da Clô, launched in 2019 and especially for women, questions, advice and requests are made mainly by private message, as well as in Carolina Marques’ store, 26, which opened a year ago under the name ConsenSual.

Carolina rejects the term sex shop. “It is very aggressive for the evangelical public, whose view of sex can be very conservative”, explains this member of the Assembly of God church, who wants to become a sexologist.

Her catalog of relationship-enhancing products, as she defines them, has a self-contained presentation so that those who refer to it “don’t feel like they have to close the screen” in a hurry if anyone approaches, she says.

Before getting married, Carolina realized how delicate it was to approach sexual entertainment among the evangelical guests at her bachelorette tea.

“We Christians have this taboo on sensuality a lot. But within your marriage to your spouse it is not seen with those eyes because it can be natural. I want to remove this stigma that sex is just for reproduction,” she says in her little girl house with yard in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro.

To launch her store, one of the pioneers in the sector, she informed the pastor of her church and his wife. “They always warn me: be careful with packaging” and were the first against talking about a sex shop. “‘That scares. It shows something different than what we are. It leaves something very vulgar,’ I was told.”

Discretion is the watchword, she guarantees. “I’m not going to distribute pamphlets at the end of the service” evangelical, a current of Christianity to which around 30% of Brazilians belong, according to recent surveys.

Sin?

Cotton candy or love apple flavored lubricants, aphrodisiac scents, or egg-shaped devices to improve tuning. Marques limits itself to offering less transgressive products so that clients, married or engaged, “don’t feel like they’re doing something wrong” before God.

Thus, prostheses, objects to have fun “alone” or the anal sex line are left out.

What is sin, what is not? Andrea, who attends the Baptist church, sought answers in the sacred texts, but came to the conclusion that each couple must set their boundaries.

The idea of ​​Memórias da Clô was born with her first visit to a sex shop, after she divorced her husband, who forced her to have relationships.

“I didn’t know what pleasure was. The person there was a man. How am I going to explain it to him? I thought other evangelical women thought that too.”

In addition to marketing products such as female stimulants, she dedicates a large part of her activity to counseling women with lubrication problems, postpartum, etc.

But he also receives couples, like a virgin man and woman who advised them for days to get closer to each other. “The sale happened later,” he says.

“The temple of the Lord”

Jessica, 24, is one of ConSensual’s regulars. “Today I use massage gels, lubricants, flavors… It makes the relationship more pleasant and fun”, she explains via message on WhatsApp, to maintain her anonymity.

This young woman tells of having convinced some friends to try the experiment. Others, however, reject it out of hand, because of that “formed prejudice” that it is something “aggressive”.

Marques, who started to receive orders from other states in Brazil, reveals his maxim to seduce his clients: “Our body is our temple, the temple of the Lord. So we have to take care of it”.