BY COLIN MIXSON | Talk about getting your kicks.
Workers at upscale sex-toy store Babeland — with locations on the Lower East Side and in Soho — may soon get lessons in martial arts as part of their new union-negotiated benefits package. The self-defense is reportedly needed because homophobes and other bigots sometimes get a bit too frisky at the shop.
“We asked for a number of different safety trainings, which include self-defense, because customers do get physical,” said Stella Casanave, a non-binary-gendered Windsor Terrace native who works at the mom-and-pop shop’s Soho outlet, at 43 Mercer St.
The move comes after a recent rise in homophobes entering the shop and targeting their venom at queer and transgender employees, prompting workers to request martial-arts training and other security measures. Babeland’s other Downtown location is at 94 Rivington St.
Babeland staff subsequently voted to organize through the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in May, largely because they felt management was not providing enough support for workers facing routine harassment by customers.
“Because the demographics of the workforce are such, you do get people who are looking to target trans women, they’re looking to target young lesbian women,” said Phil Andrews, the union director who is negotiating with Babeland on behalf of the workers.
Babeland owner Claire Cavanah said the problem is real and her business is doing what it can to deal with it.
“There have been a bigger number of prank calls, and, in some instances, there are people who act inappropriately in the store,” Cavanah said. “People just get kind of crazy, and we kind of stumbled in our actual store-manager positions there, and the hourly workers felt they were not being backed up.”
In addition to subsidizing martial-arts training, Babeland will provide seminars teaching employees how to support each other during confrontations, how to formulate exit strategies, how to prevent themselves from getting cornered during an incident, and how to use verbal and physical cues to de-escalate threatening situations.
Workers also deal with shoppers who fail to grasp the distinction between asking a salesperson at Home Depot what brand of power sander she prefers, and inquiring whether a sex educator at Babeland prefers her handcuffs with or without fuzz, according to Andrews.
“It’s a sex-toy shop, so you have people being a little ignorant and thinking that, because it’s a sex-toy shop they can ask questions like, ‘What vibrator do you use?’ ” Andrews explained. “It’s kind of creepy, but not intentional.”
Cavanah pointed out that it is store policy not to divulge if its workers have taken any devices for a test ride, but instead just to point out what product manufacturers purport their products do.
Babeland and employees are about halfway through bargaining negotiations, and are expected to sign a contract to put the new training and security measures into effect sometime before year’s end, Andrews said.
In addition, as reported by Brooklyn Paper last week, Babeland is certified “senior-friendly” thanks to its wide aisles, discounts and quiet music.
