Oakland’s newest sex shop is cut from a different cloth
on February 18, 2011
Feelmore510, Oakland’s newest adult store, opened—somewhat appropriately—on Valentine’s Day this week, but it has not been universally welcomed. When Nenna Joiner applied for permits to open the store two months ago, opponents complained that Feelmore510’s Uptown location would put it within 500 feet of several major gathering places for young people, including Youth Radio, a foster housing agency called First Place for Youth, and Oakland School for the Arts.
But not everyone objects to Feelmore510. Joiner calls her store “sex positive”: a welcoming shelter for customers of any gender, race, or sexual orientation. Besides toys and other sex shop staples, Joiner sells literature and vintage records, and plans to host sexual health workshops in the future. Donn Harris, executive director of Oakland School for the Arts, says the store fits into Uptown’s identity as an arts and entertainment center, and that almost any store would be better than the empty storefront it replaces.
Despite vocal objections at an Oakland Planning Commission hearing in December, commissioners approved Joiner’s application unanimously. The store is located at 1703 Telegraph Avenue at 17th Street. More information is available on Feelmore510’s web site.
2 Comments
Oakland North welcomes comments from our readers, but we ask users to keep all discussion civil and on-topic. Comments post automatically without review from our staff, but we reserve the right to delete material that is libelous, a personal attack, or spam. We request that commenters consistently use the same login name. Comments from the same user posted under multiple aliases may be deleted. Oakland North assumes no liability for comments posted to the site and no endorsement is implied; commenters are solely responsible for their own content.
Oakland North
Oakland North is an online news service produced by students at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and covering Oakland, California. Our goals are to improve local coverage, innovate with digital media, and listen to you–about the issues that concern you and the reporting you’d like to see in your community. Please send news tips to: oaklandnorthstaff@gmail.com.
A sex shop with a positive approach to physical intimacy is a public service of sorts. One of the keys to making sex a positive experience is understanding the ordinary nature of the activity. We are all here as a result of sex so it should not be such a taboo subject. This is part of the reason young people, particularly children from some racial/ethnic groups, are not navigating their way to healthy physical or psychological experiences with sex/physical intimacy. Boys and particularly girls need to feel comfortable talking about their genitalia (and of the opposite sex’s as well)and the importance of reproductive health. Welcome to the neighborhood and please see to it that you provide enjoyment and information in a responsible manner.
Exorcism and sex?
Let me tell you about my families setting me up for an exorcism and her need for money through political, and religious pandering concerning sex.
I remember living behind a church were Brian Lamb, and a bunch of these Cspan guys used too have a wood shop. At that place of residence my mom thought I needed an exorcist, after playing in the mud the way very young children will sometimes with my uncle who mixed a glass of this red clay in water and told me it was chocolate milk.
After drinking it as he would force me to do thing all the time like the time he made me cut off the limb I was sitting on and the device came out of my shoulder being more powerful and in control I broke out with ring worm all over my body and my mom told me it was writing that could not be understood so she had priests come in from the church.
I guess my Dad did not know that one of the people at the church was in line for being my new dad but that was not in the cards because I guess he felt I was in need of discipline after an accident in the wood shop. I had been check out on the band saw by my grandfather who was a millwright in Arkansas and to do some jobs the blade shield had to be removed. Some kids came in and wanted to use the saw, then got mad that I wanted to warn them to put the guard on and they told me they owned it all and I was not to tell them anything, and after this head strong kid cut his thumb off the other kids said they would tell their fathers it was all my fault, but it was not.
I had a fever of well over a hundred and I was a bloody mess with the infection. The priests came in with outer guys and one had a camera. The priests would throw me across the room well the other snapped a picture. I would fall on furniture and the floor and they would tell me get on the bed, don’t get off the bed very loud and when I would crawl back on the bed they would pick me up and throw me over and over again well the other priest would snap another picture and this went on till one guy said we have enough picture and they left me in the blood, mud, and bedding, then my aunt came in with some save that was for ring worm.
She spread the save and kidded me about dying when the rings got to my heart. After getting well I went back to the wood shop and the guys had made me a special shield and gave me my sword which were both made of wood and I had to fight one of the guys in my shorts because I did not want to remove them and the other guy was naked (he know who he is). I was still not up too speed and lost the battle. They then called me the bad guy and this group was supposed to be my gate keeper or something like that appointed by the priests. My Dad did not like them much also but that did not matter much because someone at the church was going to be my new dad till he said no, my mom cried allot, my dad was gone, I healed up, but I still have a case.
Please know that there is nothing any of you can do to make what you and the rest of the ones involved can do to make this my fault. See at the time I was about seven years old. Since then the church has made an effort to kill me, to the extent of trying to pass laws to kill sex offenders.
Come on, keep it up, keep pushing laws that you as a group of very said individuals know have no value. Take me too court so I can own a network. I have met with your staff members in private since along with military personal and others.
Now lets note when this happened I was only a small child being thrown around a room like a rag doll by people that started all this clear back in the late fifty’s and the steering by very bad people that think abusing kids to make laws to stop abuse, Ha! these laws are bogus and the fact that they can not kill gays anymore does not justify the use of laws too kill someone set up by them to create some worthless set of laws by a fusion of church and state is wrong and realty designed by them to harm us all.
My case was pragmatic but more than that I know what was done and who was involved making vendetta laws that really have no bases in truth, and are based in lies.
Keith Richard Radford Jr
PSS don’t be cowards, let me know you received this e-mail through a response.
It’s time to communicate
richard.radford@att.net