DNAinfo, July 2016
Sex Shop in Bushwick Laundromat Offers Feminist Books and Bondage Gear
Every laundromat in the city will help clean your sheets, but there’s only one in Brooklyn that will help you get dirty between them.
Walk into the Mermaid Laundromat, located at 226 Knickerbocker Ave., and you’ll find all the usual laundromat stuff. Washers and dryers, a little alcove where you can buy detergent and dryer sheets and other implements of cleanliness.
But you’ll also see a small store set apart by plywood walls and pink streamers hanging down in the front entrance.
That would be the Troll Hole, Bushwick’s first sex shop/feminist bookstore, your one-stop shop for sex positive 'zines, Japanese bondage rope, Beyonce-endorsed poetry collections, a shop dog named Franics and 100 percent natural glow in the dark lube that comes in a honey bear bottle.
"If you’re into cosmic, glowing sex stuff, we’re your store,” said Justin Shock, one of the Troll Hole’s co-owners.
The Troll Hole is the brainchild of friends Shock, Hayley Blatt and Monica Yi, who opened the store in the street-facing corner of the laundromat on April 20 this year. The shop's opening was first reported by Bushwick Daily.
The three business partners had talked about the idea of opening a feminist bookstore/sex shop for about two years, and when Bushwick resident Yi came across the “For Rent” sign at Mermaid, they knew their time had come.
"The sign was the universe wo-manifesting our dream,” said Blatt.
So the three got to work, pouring their own money into the project, along with funds they raised on Indiegogo to pay for the store’s wall.
The result was a small, but colorful space with affordable sex toys that just happens to exist in a full-service laundromat.
Beyond the 'zines and sex toys though, the co-owners are also committed to the feminist rights across race, class and ethnicity.
So, you can pick up tampons, pads and panty liners at the shop for free if you need some, and the guiding philosophy behind the shop’s 'zine collection is to promote work by people who are traditionally passed over in art and politics.
"We try to carry as much work as possible women and people of color,” Yi said.
Art for sale includes Los Angeles illustrator Jeromy Velasco’s “Pig Pup Pose,” a 'zine called "Hand Job" and poet Warsan Shire’s "Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth," which was featured throughout Beyonce’s "Lemonade."
“I just want to share some of that work and talent through the shop, because I really enjoy these things and it might not be visible or available elsewhere,” Yi said.
Being guided by political beliefs doesn’t mean you’ll get a lecture when you walk in the door though. “The politics are really important to us, but we also want to be able to have fun and not be scared of anything too sexual,” Shock said, before encouraging some browsing customers to pick up and play around with any of the objects they wanted.
At some point, the Troll Hole could move out of it’s laundromat home, but for now, Blatt called Mermaid “the perfect space to start out in.”
Future plans for the store involve selling used underpants, which some fetish fans have come in asking about, as well as holding the occasional event. Nothing too big though, they promised.
“There’s something funny about selling a pair of used underwear in a glittery see through bag,” Shock said, while Blatt added: “Especially in a laundromat.”
“We’re pretty conscious of the fact that this is a laundromat and people want to do their laundry, Blatt said.
The Troll hole is open from noon to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 1 to 4 p.m. and 6to 10 p.m. on Sunday.