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" I thought turning 20 was pretty whack. It&amp;#039;s just another year of not being able to get into bars. Big whoop. But when Babeland, a female-owned sex toy shop, turns 20, it&amp;#039;s a pretty BFD. In 1993 in Seattle, when everyone was listening to grunge and getting super depressed, best friends Claire Cavanah and Rachel Vennin decided to open a business. They were thinking about a coffee shop, but that was too obvious, when all the sudden it hit them like a leather riding crop: &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s open a sex shop!&amp;quot;  Now with four stores and a booming online business, it&amp;#039;s safe to say that the ladies of Babeland have arrived. I sat down with co-founder and co-owner Claire to talk about 20 years in the sex toy biz\u2014and what&amp;#039;s it like being a &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; feminist.  Cosmo: So how did you become interested in owning a sex toy shop?  Claire Cavanah: Well, Rachel (co-owner) and I are both feminists. We were both educated during the culture wars of the 80&amp;#039;s where honest feminists were disagreeing about the roles of sex in feminism. And there were the &amp;quot;take-back-the night, rape crisis center, obscenity laws&amp;quot; feminists and then there were more the more progressive, much more fun, &amp;quot;let&amp;#039;s have sex, let&amp;#039;s get turned on&amp;quot; feminists. And during my time in college, I went from one side to the other.  Cosmo: You went to the fun side. Good call. Was there an original mission behind Babeland? CC: Our goal is to get a vibrator on every bedside table. We want to take the shame out of sex and bring it out into the open in a way that&amp;#039;s more earnest and encouraging. I think of sexual pleasure as a birthright. Cosmo: Preach! Have there been any major milestones in Babeland&amp;#039;s career? CC: Opening in New York City was a big turning point because it just took off so fast. It was 1998 and Sex in the City was on TV and business was just booming. That show actually changed a lot of things for sex in the mainstream culture. Tthere was a direct correlation to that show airing and women buying more vibrators. Another big moment for us was winning &amp;quot;Best shopping experience in New York City&amp;quot; from Zagat. It was like winning Best Picture [at the Oscars]! Nobody gets that award, how could it be us? Cosmo: Do you get a lot of women who come into Babeland who have never had an orgasm? CC: That happens at least once a day. I remember a pretty moving incident about that actually.At our opening party for the Park Slope store, this woman came in, she was about 40 years old, had four kids and her husband had pretty much begged her to come here. She had never had an orgasm and her husband wanted her to experience one. She came up to me and said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve had my kids and I&amp;#039;m done. I&amp;#039;m finished having sex. I don&amp;#039;t see what the point is.&amp;quot; I was like &amp;quot;Oh my god, sex is really fun! Let&amp;#039;s try and get you to a place where you can enjoy it.&amp;quot; And I think a lot of women feel like she does. They just don&amp;#039;t know how to find pleasure and they don&amp;#039;t have the tools. So I set her up with some lube, a vibrator, and some batteries, and she was on her way. I think her marriage was about to get a lot better. Want more from Rose? Follow her on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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