Sex Shopping With the Red Hat Ladies

By Liz Langley, AlterNet. Posted March 31, 2006.

You've noticed them -- groups of older women in regal purple dresses and signature scarlet caps. They are the Red Hat Society, an international group of women dedicated to enjoying their mellow years with a vigor that makes "mellow" seem quaint. Their mission is to have fun, and to this end, they get around.

So you've seen them. But I'll bet you've never seen one of them hold up a vibrator and mime like a sword swallower just to make her friends laugh. I have, and it was charming -- seeing women who'd fit as the fifth "Golden Girl" mulling over dildos, cracking wise about cock rings and wondering how those darn pasties stay on. This is my local Red Hat chapter's "Romance Revival," and I've never seen a group of people enjoy themselves more than right now, at our neighborhood adult department store.

Fairvilla Mega Store is the kind of sex shop one might expect to find in a bigger city like Miami or New York, rather than in little G-rated Orlando. It's a clean, well-lighted place, two stories of bright candor and casual maturity. It feels like a mall store -- it just happens to sell vibrators, porn videos and lots and lots of leather.

The store's amiability probably makes it easier for the Hatters to be here. The red wine doesn't hurt, either. When I arrive, the pink-cheeked ladies are seated around a long table doing a little icebreaking craft called "Mold Your Perfect Penis," as conceived by Fairvilla's Nikki Mier (whose mom is a Red Hatter, and so today's trip was born). While the women keep busy rubbing a Play Doh-like substance into cylindrical shapes, Nikki's mom, a sweetly soft-spoken older woman, comes up to say hello. Her name tag says "Inky."

I don't think anything of this; two other tags read "Brownie" and "Princess." Finally, when I notice "Lassie," I'm told that the ladies are using their "porn star" names, aka their first pets' names. Lassie has a laugh that's explosive and catching. She's made a small red weiner, which would be funny enough, but people keep calling it "Uncle Bob" (a long story, but less perverse than it sounds).

As "Muscles," "Buttons" and "Bounce" keep working away, quips fly through the cacophonous room: "I can't remember; it's been 35 years since I had sex!" and "How do you get the wrinkles out of it?" They build their phalluses in "Hulk" green, indigo blue and multicolors. Someone drips wine on the Hulk's head: Penis Noir.

What I love about being here, with this crowd, is their bubbly reminder that sex -- and silliness -- aren't exclusive to the young. The Hatters aren't hitting on the staff or anything, but they aren't prudish, either. Watching the ladies' eyes light up as they buy lingerie is a sweet reminder: never assume. Just because someone is discreet doesn't mean they don't know what time it is.

Now that the ice isn't just broken, but pulverized, the women begin shopping -- and breaking the stereotype that older folks are resistant to new technology. Many say they've never been in a store like this before (though at least one has tried catalogs), but they're buying and browsing with abandon. They buy vibrators. They photograph one another holding them. "This is going in my scrapbook," someone says. I imagine her at the craft store, framing happy snaps of Dildo Day.

As things wind down, I elbow Lassie in the arm and point out the penis pinata, just to hear that laugh. I ask her what she found most surprising about today's excursion, and she gestures towards the vibrator area. She says she can't picture anyone buying one when they've got the real thing at home. But, I say, not everyone has the real thing at home. What if you can't wait? She can't fathom this; how could it be any fun if it isn't with someone you love?

You think you've heard it all, then you get an eye-opener from Lassie. I'm so used to hearing about alternative sexualities that her traditionalist take seems more surprising to me than anything in the store (well, almost -- let's not go nuts).

The Red Hat ladies leave in a cloud of chatter and charm, and I feel genuinely glad to have spent the day with them. They were as much fun as their club philosophy promised. It's true that sexuality is still important when you're older, but camaraderie is, too. And how could a Play-Doh penis be any fun at all without someone you love to laugh at it with?

Liz Langley is a freelance writer in Orlando, Fla.

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