Photo by Erin FredrichsTribune

Tribune

Moxie watches customers come and go at Self Serve, the Nob Hill boutique that aims to provide upscale sex toys, lotions, books and gifts.

Photo by Erin FredrichsTribune

Tribune

Molly Adler taste-tests some "lust dust" powder from the hand of Matie Fricker. The business partners run Self Serve and are planning a film festival of pornography this weekend at the nearby Guild Cinema in Nob Hill.

Photo by Erin FredrichsTribune

Tribune

One of the many products dangling from the shelves at Self Serve is a whip tipped by a leather skull, fringed with hearts.

RELATED STORIES

• Albuquerque zoning codes might threaten Nob Hill erotic film festival
• Despite warning from city of Albuquerque, porn movie festival goes on

More Movies

• Review: Hit man comedy 'In Bruges' mixes laughs, blood
• Coen brother, 'Old Men' top picks for Oscars
• Review: 'Be Kind Rewind' has funny bits, but not enough

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

Twentysomethings Molly Adler and Matie Fricker run a quaint boutique on the east edge of Nob Hill, an unassuming but doting mom-and-pop shop where sometimes Moxie the mutt happily greets customers.

The women have been eagerly implementing their business plan as first-time entrepreneurs since opening in January, working to assimilate into their adopted home of Albuquerque.

They've made community outreach a part of their mission.

And this weekend they are renting out the Guild Cinema down the road to show a bunch of X-rated movies as part of a skinfest they are calling Pornotopia.

Their store is Self Serve, 3904 Central Ave. S.E., and rather than call it a sex shop they have dubbed it a "sexuality resource center."

And their film festival is not billed as a return to the sticky-floor era of raunch — except in a kitschy way on Friday and Saturday when they screen a late-night movie from the '70s in 3-D starring John Holmes. No, it's an "independent erotic film festival."

It's a cinematic exposition aimed at the general public, albeit those couples, soccer moms, alt-hipsters or grandparents secure enough to sit in a theater to watch such fare as "Annie Sprinkle's Amazing World of Orgasms," tonight's opener.

Adler says the 10 films won't be your typical male-centered, under-produced, plot-challenged videos of Olympic-competition-style sex acts. This will be a kinder — if not gentler (they are screening "The Pain Game," after all) — series of films aimed more at the HBO "Real Sex" crowd. And women.

"We want to show people that sex isn't just about fake boobies and fake blond hair and no body hair," Adler said, "images that don't represent real sexuality and real people."

"I haven't heard of an erotic film festival ever happening in Albuquerque," Guild Cinema co-owner Keif Henley said. "If it happened, it happened back in the '70s."

Henley said the Guild and Don Pancho's, which was by the University of New Mexico, would occasionally show X-rated fare such as "Flesh Gordon" back in the day, but neither was ever a classic seedy porn theater.

He welcomes his Self Serve neighbors and their clientele.

"They're doing this in a way that's not a lowest-common-denominator way: Get 'em in, get their money and get 'em out of there," Henley said. "It's a community-minded thing. That's how they (Adler and Fricker) are. That's how they run their shop."

Viewers this weekend will get more true-life couples, attempts at story lines and a celebration of pleasure.

"We definitely know there are a handful of independent filmmakers that are being more creative — more plot, more acting, more feelings involved," Adler said.

One director is Tony Comstock, who will be represented by "Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together," about a real couple (albeit porn stars) having real sex.

"He got sick of documenting violence and hate and war," Adler said. "And he said, 'I want to make films about love.' "

Adler says she has no idea what kind of audience will show up for a weekend of porn at the Guild.

In a way, it's bringing adult films out of the closet and to folks who flocked to a feature like last year's "Shortbus," which mixed explicit sex into a movie featuring plot and character development, which appeals to mainstream moviegoers.

"If they're going to see images that are erotic and beautiful, they want to see things that they can relate to and that will turn them on," Adler said.

Other titles this weekend include "Hot and Bothered: Feminist Pornography," a documentary about how women in the industry are working with feminists to "engage with the politics and poetics of female sexuality." Another documentary about a dominatrix, with a title that can't be printed in The Tribune, crossed over and won an award (for best all-girl feature) at the Adult Video News awards.

Pornotopia walks that fine line between triple-X and the kind of erotica you'd find in the latest Ang Lee film.

"It's geared toward people who don't appreciate mainstream porn," Adler said. "There's value in the '70s stuff, because it was a cultural phenomenon . . . but most women don't like the formulaic stuff that's out there."

Adler, 28, and Fricker, 29, met as employees at a sex store in Boston five years ago.

Adler has a background in women's studies and psychology, and she weds those areas of study in running a shop that tries to empower women and people with alternative lifestyles to explore their sexuality in a healthy way.

They sought out a venue that didn't have this type of sex shop in a community that could support it — and with weather that didn't have "the six months of winter" that comes with the Northeast, Adler said.

And their boutique behind the frosted windows isn't the typical wall-to-wall toys and videos. And that's pretty much by necessity — Adler said Self Serve isn't zoned as a sex shop, so only a fraction of the store space can be given over to merchandise that is clearly X-rated. (Does the wall display of whips count at a New Mexico store?)

So a wall of devices "for her" is tucked around a corner. There is generous floor space and a central seating area with two chairs and a retro-vinyl silver sofa around a coffee table covered in naughty books that are tamer than what you'd find in some barbershops.

Adler and Fricker also offer educational classes each month, such as "The Big 'O' " and "Healing Through Bellydance."

"It's more about you as a whole person feeling good and comfortable and safe," Adler said.

Adler said her first year in Albuquerque has been fulfilling.

"This kind of work is most gratifying. . . . We empower people to help themselves."

Adler said a male customer came in looking for a book about survivors of sexual abuse and opened up to her about his past as a victim. A young woman who had been in a strict Christian marriage and now was exploring her sexuality broke down in front of her and started crying.

Then there were the older women (the store offers a senior discount, by the way) who came up a dollar short on a purchase of some merchandise. Adler said a younger customer in the store overheard the exchange and offered to make up the difference.

"I'm like, 'Wow. Look at where I work," Adler recalled.