Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center is much more than just dildos.
Matie and Molly wanted to open a sex-positive adult store in a part of the United States that was a sex toy store wasteland. With experience at A Different Light LGBT bookstore in San Francisco and a similar Boston store, the women studied the map and chose Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city and state that had never seen the likes of Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center.
With shelves full of employee-tested toys and offering classes like Butt Play Basics: Exploring the Backdoor, Self Serve fills a niche in New Mexico—and really in all of the Southwest—that few other shops do. They even host an annual porn film festival called Pornotopia.
Matie Fricker, owner and self described sex-positive revolutionary and card-carrying muff muncher, opened the store nine years ago this month with her former business partner Molly Adler. Molly left the business in 2013 to become a sex therapist but still teaches classes such as “Keeping It Hot in a Long Term Relationship” for Self Serve. Matie says the store has seen relatively great success as a small business, exemplified by its ability to support her and her staff.
A sign in the store proclaims, “Self Serve is for Everyone,” and inclusivity is paramount to their mission. The sex-educated staff field questions and offer recommendations based on what kind of sex the client is having, not on what the individual’s identity might be, Matie explains. “Sex toys don’t have a gender or an identity—everything we carry is for every body. People experience a lot of shame when their behaviors don’t match their identity, like a woman might say, ‘I’m not a lesbian but I’m dating a girl,’ or, ‘I’m a lesbian and I’m dating a man.’ We work hard to make sure people are supported in their own stories here.”
Self Serve classes are offered on a variable schedule at $20/person and are, of course, open to all. They renamed the cunnilingus class “Going Down Like a Pro: Tips for Pleasuring the V” to appeal to a wider audience of vagina lovers. Matie has taught fisting and strap on classes in the past, but notes most classes are non-gender specific. “It’s better to be radically inclusive,” Matie says. “If you have a butt, you’re welcome in the Backdoor Basics class.”
Beyond the classes and the retail toys, Self Serve is a community resource center. The clientele, comprised of approximately thirty percent lesbians, often seek out references for support and social groups. “Living in a smaller town, we lack a gay neighborhood, so people come to Self Serve to find community,” Matie says. “We make referrals to women of color organizations, the Transgender Resource Center, youth groups, the Rape Crisis Center of New Mexico. Sometimes it’s as simple as giving medical referrals to help find a doctor or a midwife.”
Matie and store manager, Hunter Riley, both speak to groups about a variety of sexuality topics upon request, often for no charge. Matie recently presented at New Mexico Tech, a two-year college for science, technology, engineering, and math studies, about “how to flirt without being creepy. We’re taught not to use our words, which lends toward sexual assault. There’s a lot to be said for figuring out social cues,”Matie says.
Hunter, a sex columnist and blogger, is one of three employees fluent in Spanish. She gives presentations in Spanish about building healthy relationships and preventing domestic violence. Self Serve produces YouTube videos in Spanish on topics ranging from how to choose a lubricant to toy reviews with a goal of spreading sex positive education to a broader audience. “We see an incredible response to our offer of sex ed in Spanish,” Hunter says.
Since 2007, Self Serve has hosted Pornotopia, a film festival “celebrating real bodies, real pleasure, real sex,” one of the only festivals of its kind in the U.S. For years, Pornotopia fought the City of Albuquerque’s attempts to prevent the event because of zoning issues, but with the help of the New Mexico ACLU and many community partners, the NM Supreme Court ruled once and for all in favor of Pornotopia in 2013.
“Pornotopia is a community run film festival so all the decisions about curation, how we advertise, how we celebrate is all dependent on the diverse community we have here to make it happen,” says Matie, the event director. The wildly successful 2015 Pornotopia brought award winning queer porn director Shine Louise Houston and veteran porn star Jiz Lee to Albuquerque, along with workshops and films.
Since Self Serve has operated in Albuquerque’s Nob Hill neighborhood since 2007, one notable change Matie has seen is a more educated clientele who want quality toys with a warranty and better customer service. She attributes that expectation in part to other ground breaking sex toy shops like Good Vibrations, Babeland, and Grand Opening! among others. Self Serve developed an online network with other independent shops sharing their philosophy called The Progressive Pleasure Club.
“Most progressive sex stores like ours are owned and run by queer women, and that is not an accident,” Matie adds. “When you’ve done a lot of work around your own sexuality and have developed a lot of courage, it’s easier to come from a genuine place of support and to give others permission to explore their own sexuality.”