Is That a Sign for a Pilates Studio or a Gentrified Neighborhood’s Sex Shop?
Have you ever walked past a storefront many, many times while walking a frequent route? And you think that they’re a certain, tame type of establishment based on the logo? And you walk in expecting to see something like a small batch bakery, or some other type of holistic handmade good, and to your surprise, it’s filled with dildos? There was a place like that on the walk I took to my friend’s house, and the lighted sign with the logo was something I became used to passing. I knew it as the pilates studio a few blocks from my friend’s apartment. I would later discover that it was an adult toy store in the Wrigley Field neighborhood.
The logo seemed to be an iteration of every pseudo-spiritual establishment in the vein of yoga or pilates. The fan motif of the legs indicated that it probably trafficked in some sort of stretching exercise that involved the opening up of the pelvic bone. From there, I inferred that it would probably be a place that mothers frequented because I understand the subliminal messages sent to white women in advertisements. “Now that you’ve given birth, your body is so far removed from what it once was that you will never be able to put it back together the same way. Instead, maybe work on toning in a place that can help you cultivate some semblance of self confidence through vibes!” And while none of this is true, pilates continues to be marketed in this way. Clearly nobody has brought this up as an issue during college marketing lectures.
The repetition of the limbs gave me the idea that it was modeled like it was a series of stills taken during a sun salutation, then superimposed on top of each other in a half-mandala pattern. It was the perfect balance of feminine spirituality, dynamic stretching poses, and graphic design to suggest a pilates studio.
Well, as it turns out, it was an adult toy store and the logo was two women performing oral sex on each other simultaneously. Do you see it now? I guess I should’ve anticipated that given that the name of the store was “Pleasure Chest.”
But that did get me thinking. Why would I conflate the imagery of a sex toy store with a pilates studio? Anyone thinking “Well what about the inherent eroticism of a pilates studio?” Should not be allowed within 500 feet of an exercise studio. Just because something is filled with the smell of sweat and the sounds of heavy breathing does not automatically give it a sexual quality! Sure, you can find those things in a bedroom mid-coitus, just as you could a bathroom trying to pass a three-day log. People should be able to exercise without fear of their warrior pose being compared to pre-sex kegels.
I’m going to present you with a series of logos, and I want you to guess if it’s a logo for an upscale sex shop, or a pilates studio. And it’s harder than you would think. The minimalist style beloved by the denizens of neighborhoods that could only be described as “great for young professionals” (violently gentrified) really muddies the line between “spiritual for white women” and “hardcore erotic.”
This first logo should be pretty easy to guess. But you understand why it’s so easy to confuse a yoga pose with a minimalist depiction of 69ing. Though there is a striking lack of a second woman performing oral sex on the subject of this one.
Exactly. Pretty straightforward with the yoga pose.
This one is muddying it a little bit. It’s a woman, but what is she doing? Is she changing into workout clothes before a pilates class? Or is she thinking about how great her masturbation sesh is going to be with the merchandise sold at this potential sex shop?
Vibrations like intangible energy? No, vibrations like the feeling you get from sitting on a washing machine.
Okay this one has really lost the subtlety. Paris, the City of Love… the lips… the soft red neon that suggests that there’s a cutout of a blonde woman in lingerie right offscreen. If you keep her face in soft enough focus, you can pretend that she’s winking at you to thank you for your business. This is clearly a sex shop.
Oh, weird. The best part of this establishment, that clearly has no investment in saving the technique of pilates from bastardization, is that it’s not even in Paris. It’s in Los Angeles. Some young entrepreneur wanted to give their pilates studio the first glamorous name they could think of. Might as well call it “Foie Gras Pilates” at that point.
I have no clue. I didn’t even crop words out of this one, what you see is the full logo. Is it the awakening of the body’s full range of motion? Is it an awakening to the abstract concept of “anatomical sensuality” like the copy written for a gentrified sex shop would probably say? (when “blasting the prostate/clitoris” would be just fine) I have no clue. It’s too minimalist and sensual to definitively be a pilates studio, yet not erotic enough to suggest that they sell anything that would induce an orgasm. Very lukewarm logo.
Do you have your guess?
Okay, I’ll reveal. It’s a sex shop. But the way that their logo is arranged gives the sense that they’re trying to hide that fact, even though any website viewer could scroll down and see what they sell. No point in not owning it fully, in my opinion.
Sexualizing exercise is a dangerous phenomenon. I don’t want anyone to view me in a sexual way at the gym, no matter how ass-up prone I may be on a workout machine, and I certainly don’t want to be teabagged in downward dog. Neuter yourself for the hour yoga class!
Conversely, it’s also extremely dangerous to not sexualize the storefronts of sex shops enough. Minimalism is a bullshit design philosophy that undermines the basic idea that clarity in marketing is best when trying to reach your audience. Reducing the thing you’re staking your profit on to a few geometric shapes and black and white lines is a deeply stupid business practice. Frankly, if using anatomically correct genitalia as a basis for the logo is what has to happen, so be it!
All that matters to me as a consumer is convenience, and most of that is driven by knowing where to go to buy what I want. I don’t want to play “Pilates or Sex Shop” every time I want to do small, rapid exercises to build muscle tone or buy porn on DVD. And it begs the question: if this trend continues, what happens when the marketing becomes indistinguishable from one another and the two consumer bases mix? Pilates moms and sex freaks? Chernobyl.
