My Visit to CAYA

This is just a quick post to explain something I brought up on Violet’s blog.

CAYA is Come As You Are, an “Adult” store in Toronto. It was mentioned by Violet and I noted that I had been there and that there was a funny story about my visit.  At least, it was funny to me.

To understand how I came to be in a sex shop in Toronto on a sunny summer day, I have to first tell you about my friend Alessia.

I was watching TV one night, or rather it was on in the background, and a story caught my attention. It was focusing on a young Toronto woman who was an advocate for sexuality and disability.  I rolled over to the TV to see what THAT was all about.  Well, it is exactly what it sounds like, and I don’t really want to spend time explaining the idea to you, but if you’re interested, this article does a pretty good job.

Anyway, I was single at the time, and Alessia is quite attractive. I thought to myself, man, I HAVE to meet this woman. But honestly though, what I really wanted was a copy of a newsletter that she published at the time called “Sex on Wheels”

I e-mailed the TV station to ask where I could get a copy. They forwarded my e-mail to “Come As You Are” because they carried the newsletter in-store.  One of the owners of the store e-mailed me to say he was all out, but that he would forward my e-mail directly to Alessia.

So that’s how I met Alessia. We started e-mailing back and forth, I was my usual charming self, and pretty soon I was driving up to Toronto to meet her. However, Alessia already had a boyfriend, so it was not THAT kind of relationship. We  just became very good friends.  I am inspired by her. She is very smart, very strong willed and a completely and totally positive person.  Through her, I met some other people in Toronto, another one of whom I count as a wonderful friend.

So where is the funny story? Well, on one of my visits, Alessia had introduced me to one of her friends and things had gone well. On a subsequent visit, I  had lunch with Alessia, and I mentioned that I should probably get some condoms, you know, just in case. She said she knew for a fact that her friend was allergic to latex, so I would need latex-free condoms. She suggested we go to CAYA. Meeting the sexual needs of people with disabilities is a specialty of theirs, surely they would have them.  She agreed to come with me.

I had never been in such a store, so I was quite interested in EVERYTHING. After about 15 minutes, we decided to start looking for what we came for, and couldn’t find them. We found all kinds of condoms, but none that were latex free.

Alessia was closest to the sales person, and so she asked if they had any Latex-free condoms. To this day I still don’t know how she was misunderstood. The sales person called out to someone in the back and went off in search of our item, but Alessia was trying to stop her, laughing hysterically.  She was laughing too hard at first even to tell me what was going on.

Finally the sales person re-appeared from the back with a disappointed look on her face. She came over and said “I’m sorry sir, we seem to be out of extra-large condoms”

Every time I think of this story I think of a different response I could have uttered. But I didn’t say anything. Alessia was laughing too hard by now and I felt I had better explain what was so funny. The sales person just smiled and shrugged it off and went looking for Latex-free. They didn’t have those either, but she said the drug store up the street probably did. And she was right.

Anyway, it was funny to me. And clearly to Alessia. Maybe you had to be there. As it turned out,  I never did need them, and that was for the best.

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