Jackson Free Press

If there'd been an award for Best Adult Emporium in last issue's Best-of-Jackson roundup, first prize would surely have gone to Romantic Adventures, an unassuming-looking establishment—on the outside, that is, and that's about to change—situated just across the Pearl River on Highway 80 East. "A Very Nice Naughty Shop," says the sign, and indeed, this is one clean-scrubbed, brightly lit sex-stuff place, perhaps a first for the Jackson area. On any given visit you're liable to see—in broad daylight, mind you, and right in Rankin County, no less—demure-looking couples perusing sexy DVDs or ladies on their lunch break picking out nasty-girl lingerie and selecting among personal stimulation devices so stylish they could be displayed on the mantel.

Here's the place to pick up a special something for your unsaintly valentine: A crazy-cool Pleasure Swing, for example—"the ultimate sexual enhancer … it will rock your world." Or the Honeymoon for Lovers Kit, with all its assorted love suds and edible massage unguents. Or how about fulfilling your desires with a game of Intimate Commands … "for two people or more"?

Finally (though we've hardly scratched the surface of the possible list here), consider a Condom Hat with Reservoir Tip … after all, "you've got to use your head these days."

Brothers Tom and Craig Harris were looking for a business to launch from the old motel their parents once owned; with the help of their friend George Clinton, they hit on the idea of opening an adult novelty and video store, but not just any old seedy one. "We had never done anything like this before," says Tom. "I'm an engineer, and my brother has a law degree."

The three partners say that they discovered that Mississippi has more in-home sex-toy get-togethers (the Tupperware Party of the postmodern age) than just about any other state. It didn't take them much ciphering to figure out why (fewer adult-oriented shops in this neck of the woods that women feel comfortable going to) or where to go from there. "What we decided to do," Tom says, "is target a different clientele—women, primarily, and couples."

Since opening in March 2001, Romantic Adventures has enrolled more than 20,000 members for the token fee of a dollar each. (An old code, still on the books in Mississippi though extinct in most other states, makes selling memberships—and having customers sign a form that declares such stimulating art-objects as those mentioned above mere novelty items—a necessary hedge against officious harassment.) More than one shopper has dropped 500 or even a thousand bucks in a visit. Bondage gear sells surprisingly well to Mercedes-Benzers. And true to its original mission, women and couples make up most of the store's clientele. Men by their lonesome are also welcome, of course, but peeping pervs had best lurk elsewhere.

"We're very conscientious about customers not harassing each other," Tom says. "There's not gonna be some letch over there in the corner of the store trying to hit on you. We want it to be comfortable and secure for people to come in here. We're trying to overcome the stereotypical image of this business. The theme we're really projecting is more romance than sex"—although romance, he allows, tends to lead to sex and the best kind of sex at that.

On that score—better sex—Romantic Adventures weighs in with an assortment of purported anti-aging and sex-enhancing aids like Pro-hGH (a human-growth-hormone precursor) and arginine supplements (which claims to foster the production of nitric oxide, essential to a guy's getting and keeping it up). These guys swear by the stuff: Craig says his high blood pressure has normalized and his hair has gone from white almost back to blond since he started taking Pro-hGH. (Experts are divided on the risks and benefits, if any, of over-the-counter hGH; consult a physician before popping any pills.) Tom says his risk-of-stroke factors—historically high due mostly to hereditary factors—dropped to near-zero after he underwent a cycle of intravenous chelation therapy (which proponents claim clears away arterial and other body-damaging plaques and opponents debunk as quackery).

The grand plan is for Romantic Adventures to expand, over several phases, from the single wing of the old motel it occupies now into a sort of French Quarter-themed shopping-and-strolling experience. When the other two wings of the motel are renovated, there'll be showrooms devoted to, for instance, erotic-dancing attire on one hand, and to roses and fine chocolates on the other. After that a warehouse will be built so that the shop's Web effort (romanticadventures.net) can be launched in earnest, and satellite stores opened in several nearby towns. The final stage calls for construction of a two-story building in the center of the complex, one with a deck where people can sit and drink coffee and look down into the courtyard below.

Doesn't sound much like your daddy's porn store, granted, but maybe it's not too late for your wife or your girlfriend to make it hers. Or maybe that deal is already done. Maybe she will be like the middle-aged woman whose first visit to Romantic Adventures the brothers Harris most fondly recall: the woman who walked in, looked around, fell to her knees and cried, "Thank you Lord, I have found my home!"

For more details, call Romantic Adventures at 932-2811.