NEW EROTIC BOUTIQUE – BOUND FOR SUCCESS?

'It's not a sex shop, it's an erotic boutique. And we're not corrupting anybody.'

So says Heather Craig, who with business partner James Anderson opened Broughton Street's newest shop – The White Rabbit – on 1 February.

The former Broughton Bookshop at No. 44 is now home to a fascinating variety of hand-crafted paddles, powders and potions, artwork, bindings, 'pretty things', fetishwear, instruments of pleasure and pain, edible items, and a selection of stimulating reading matter. 

It is an Aladdin's Cave for the sexually adventurous and the merely curious, taking its name from a happy collision of associations with Alice in Wonderland holes, the Playboy logo, and the dizzying lyrics of Jefferson Airplane.

But what has been the reaction of locals and the world beyond? Craig, who has been a Broughton resident for the last 15, years asserts that it has been:

'Overwhelmingly positive. Since Organic Pleasures closed over the road, there's been nothing like this in Edinburgh. People are even coming across from Glasgow.'

A favourable public reaction was also Spurtle's impression during a half-hour visit last Friday afternoon. In that time, eight customers came and went, browsing without embarrassment in what is a light, friendly and slightly exotic atmosphere but thankfully not a seedy one. 

Utterly unremarkable-looking folk aged in their 30s to late 60s matter-of-factly purchased diaphanous items of clothing, browsed among butt-plugs, and enquired about the price and availability of police handcuffs. Craig recalls how:

'I had one woman come in and complain about a rubber nurse-dress in the window. She told me to "Think about the children!" I told her that children love dressing up, and would certainly not be harmed by anything they saw in the display.'

The Edinburgh College of Art graduate did, however, take the advice of a sympathetic visitor who suggested she move the item in question to the back of the shop and replace it with less contentious 'fluffy items and lots of pink'.

The White Rabbit was later visited by Council officials who took a good look around but found nothing amiss. Such is the variety of items for sale, it seems, that the required 'significant degree of sex articles' has not been reached and the company need not apply for a sex shop licence.  

Craig is not in the business of causing offence, but neither is she afraid to challenge people's perceptions. She taught for 8 years at Telford College and found many young people there in their 20s surprisingly narrow-minded. She recalls:

'Every day I used to go in and think: What new way can I find to surprise them this morning? The people who come into the shop here now are older – old enough to know what they like, and just quietly get on with it.'

Her whole approach is disarmingly cheerful and frank, and enthusiastic about the quality of the items she stocks and the uses to which they can be put. Variations on bondage and S&M are a 'growing scene' across Scotland, it appears, although currently Edinburgh devotees have no particular venue or public face.

Craig and Anderson currently have plans for a range of carefully screened, strictly limited events in the future, including a women-only dominatrix workshop next month entailing some 'food, fizz and a demonstration'. Another, on Japanese rope bondage, will follow. Details will appear on their website.

The White Rabbit may not be to everybody's taste, but this correspondent considers it a harmless resource for consenting adults. An unexploitative enterprise such as this – which celebrates rather than represses or demonises sexual pleasure – is surely welcome in broad-minded Broughton.  AM

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Duncan Hothersall ‏@dhothersall

Outrageous lack of outrage in Broughton! Filth-peddlers met with acceptance. @theSpurtle fails the tabloid test.