40 Things You Didn't Know About The Pleasure Chest

40 Things You Didn't Know About The Pleasure Chest. Enjoy these 40 years of Fun Facts about your favorite sex store!

1) The Pleasure Chest started out in New York as a waterbed store. Mood lighting, cockrings and handcuffs were quickly added to the inventory, before it became a full fledged sex shop.

2) When it first opened, the main floor of the flagship store in New York was only 47” wide and 12’ long.

Vintage Pleasure Chest - West Village

3) The Pleasure Chest was founded by partners Duane Colglazier and Bill Rifkin.

4) The Pleasure Chest was the first adult retailer to not block out store windows and hide merchandise.

5) “We treat our customers just as though they were walking into Gimbel’s to buy a table and chairs.” – Pleasure Chest co-founder Bill Rifkin, 1972

6) In a New York Times article from 1972 which describes Rifkin and Colglazier as “bachelors,” Bill Rifkin claimed that 60% of the customers were “obviously heterosexual.”

7) Many celebrities have identified themselves as proud customers of The Pleasure Chest, including Victoria and David Beckham, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Queen Latifah and Olivia Munn.

8) The 1984 gay porn feature Fantasize was shot in the Los Angeles store.

9) Frequent customer Joan Jett says that she bought a leather ring belt from the Los Angeles store, and gave it to Sid Vicious. The belt can be seen in many photos of them from the 70s

Joan Jett at Pleasure Chest Los Angeles - Photo by Brad Elterman

10) “Enough to warm the cockles of the coldest Sado-Masochist heart.” – Playboy

11) Duane Colglazier was a former Wall Street trader and Bill Rifkin was a former banker before they co-founded The Pleasure Chest.

12) The Pleasure Chest has sold over 10,000 Rabbit vibrators since their appearance on Sex & The City, which was shot in our New York store.

13) “Make regular visits to the Pleasure Chest! You can't forget your sexuality. You can still embrace your body by going to the gym or The Pleasure Chest." – Halle Berry

14) The Queen song “Let Me Entertain You” released in 1978 includes these lyrics: “If you wanna see some action/We get nothing but the best/The S & M attraction/We got the Pleasure Chest.”

15) Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens met his wife Josie while shopping at The Pleasure Chest.

16) Many people believe that the Los Angeles store is haunted.

17) The Pleasure Chest used to accept Diner’s Club.

18) In a 1972 interview with The New York Times, Duane Colglazier claimed that Kama Sutra Oil was the store’s top seller.

19) The deleted scenes for the first Jackass movie feature a hidden camera prank at our New York store in which Johnny Knoxville attempts to return a rubber ass covered in fake blood. Our fearless salesperson donned rubber gloves, inspected it and refused to take the toy back.

20) Past store locations include Miami, Toronto, Washington, DC, Atlanta, New Orleans, Key West and Philadelphia.

21) The first Los Angeles store was at 1022 North La Brea, south of Santa Monica Blvd. The second Los Angeles store opened at 8549 Santa Monica Blvd. In 1980, The Pleasure Chest moved again settling at its current location 7733 Santa Monica Blvd, the former site of two houses.

Modern Day Pleasure Chest LA - Photo by Perry Gallagher

22) “Sex has been a good business for me.” – Pleasure Chest co-founder Duane Colglazier in The New York Times, 1981

23) When The Pleasure Chest announced plans to relocate its Chicago store in 2006, the company won a zoning battle with some local opponents.

24) Costumers for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge went to The Pleasure Chest for the outfits in a leather bar scene.

25) A hardcore gay sex comic from the 1970s was shot in the Los Angeles store.

26) Graphic artist Peter Saville, famous for his cover art for New Order and Joy Division, called The Pleasure Chest “the best fetish store in the world.”

27) “At last, New York has a respectable little store called The Pleasure Chest.” – Rolling Stone

28) Many TV shows have filmed on location at the Los Angeles store, including Tori Spelling’s So NoTORIus, The Girls Next Door, Penn & Teller: Bullshit, The Wanda Sykes Show, Secret Lives of Women, Tough Love Couples & Entourage.

29) The New York Times consulted The Pleasure Chest for a 1971 article on the “trend” of men wearing earrings. The store only sold them in pairs, because they were sourced from women’s costume jewelers.

30) Famed British music impresario Tony Wilson said of The Pleasure Chest: “Unlike Britain, people in America don't talk about sex, but they (The Pleasure Chest) have things there that you can't find anywhere else in the world.”

31) “One big classy Neiman Marcus.”-- Hustler

32) When Pleasure Chest employees earned individual sales commissions, competition was fierce. Most of the staff were men and many were known to stuff their jeans to attract customers and boost sales. The company sought to level the playing field and banned the bulge. Aprons became mandatory uniforms for staff, until the individual commissions were finally abolished.

33) “I was going to a bachelorette party and doing a little shopping. I went in there to get tons of tiny sex toys and pin-the-penis-on-the-man games and stuff like that. I knew the paparazzi were there. I knew my picture was going to be taken when I came out. And I’m wearing my Stella McCartney sex-store-shopping jacket.” – Gwyneth Paltrow

34) “I remember being so happy when it opened here, at a time when Chicago was still kind of a cultural one-horse town. It was a real harbinger of liberal thoughts and times to come!” – Cynthia Plaster Caster

35) Pleasure Chest co-founder Duane Colglazier used to drive an ice cream truck in California.

36) Most of the women’s apparel and shoes sold by The Pleasure Chest in its early years came exclusively in men’s sizes, to serve crossdressing and trans customers.

37) The Pleasure Chest used to sell jars of Vaseline and T-shirts with the Crisco logo.

38) The Pleasure Chest once sponsored a car in a demolition derby.

39) “I have gone to the Pleasure Chest. Hey, you know what, there’s nothing wrong with The Pleasure Chest. I don’t care if you’re famous or not, everybody needs a little toy here and there.” – Queen Latifah

40) Over 1 million cock rings sold since 1971.