Wed guidance in Gulf sex shop

Manama, May 30: Usually veiled and wearing a modest, flowing abaya, Khadija Ahmed looks an unlikely owner of the conservative Gulf’s first sex shop. She sees nothing wrong, however, with selling “joy jelly,” edible undies or the vibrating accoutrements offered by such niche boutiques around the world, insisting that nothing in Islam forbids the pleasures of the bedroom.

” It’s not a sex shop in the Western sense,but a place to help married couples, and only married couples, enjoy sex to the full ”  Khadija Ahmed, owner

“It’s not a sex shop in the Western sense,” she explained, “but a place to help married couples, and only married couples, enjoy sex to the full.”

Ahmed, who admits that she cannot, of course, check identity cards to see whether clients are married or not, got the idea for the business as she came to realize how many men and women were having extra-marital affairs.

Her shop, named Dar Khadija, aims “to provide a service to married couples by making their sex lives more exciting than the lure of an affair.

“Why do married men and women go looking for love elsewhere? Because of the routine that couples fall into.”

If whips and leather bondage suits are what you’re seeking to pep up your sex life then you won’t find them in Dar Khadija.

Nevertheless, it does offer risque bedroom accessories and kinky lingerie, plus a selection of ladies’ clothing which range from jeans and tops to fancy evening dresses and embroidered abayas.

And edible underwear

” The feedback from the clientele has been good. One of my customers told me that I saved his marriage, just as he was about to get divorced “
Ahmed

“The feedback from the clientele has been good. One of my customers told me that I saved his marriage, just as he was about to get divorced,” she said.

“That makes me happy as I told myself I might have helped a couple to stay together and a family has not broken up.”

Ahmed, 32, launched Dar Khadija online in 2007 and goods were available by mail order only. However, as business prospered she secured permission for a shop, the only one of its kind in the Gulf.

Bahrain’s relatively liberal environment has made the Gulf archipelago an attraction for visitors from more conservative states in the region.

Of course, there has been criticism and unwanted attention.

Appearing on a television show, aired from Lebanon, some callers told her that her business was shameful and that she shouldn’t be wearing the Islamic headcover.

The incomprehension of customs officials or the conservatism of its retail supervisors have sometimes led to her orders, she imports most of her stock from the American market, being rejected or severely delayed.

–Agencies