Private Use, Public Image

The Post carried a tragicomical story this Sunday about a piece of property at 210 King Street in Alexandria. The three-storey building is a historic structure that had previously housed a sportsman store owned by Michael Zarlenga. However, when the capriciousness of the Board of Architectural Review stopped an apparently tasteful renovation, he was forced out of business, literally with tears in his eyes. He wanted to add an elevator, some new retail space, and a new bathroom, all in the local style. But the Board determined that the loss of his rear roof would have caused irrevocable damage to the physical history of the city. Zarlenga, disillusioned and losing money, just had to give up. 

So what happened to the property? He rented it to someone with less demanding needs: a store of erotica and other unspeakable modern things. So yes, Le Tache, a relatively local boutique for bachelorettes looking to explore their hidden places, has filled the gap in the storefronts, increasing the diversity of uses, adding to tax revenues, and still preserving the physical fabric of Old Town Alexandria.

But of course, this has gotten a few people upset. 

After the jump it gets a little NSFW.

Loudest of neighbors’ complaints is that the sexuality, even if the whips and latex are safely hidden from view, has no place “our old and historic district,” as the mayor told the Post. What does that even mean? Is sexuality not historical? Are we accepting the moral values of the Federalist era with the look and the bricks? True, a Martha (Washington) stayed at an inn down the street, but in all likelihood, so did some Magdalenes. Moreover, sexuality and things that enhance sexuality in no way desecrate the memory of any great figure or devalue their actions. To suggest otherwise is a nihilistic argument that Washington and Lee were superhuman, a notion they both would reject; one that does the republican spirit of the country a disservice.

That people are simply displeased with the content is also quite funny. The prior store was a hunting and fishing outfitter; killing animals for sport is an activity and culture many people consider very unethical, if not evil. Yet that was not forced out of existence by a band of irascible vegans. Perhaps the city does think that big time sensuality is disgraceful and evil. They’re still forcing their values on the owner’s legal use of private property. Yet I don’t think they do despise sexuality; nothing in their comments suggests so. Rather, the opponents don’t respect it enough to see it in public. This disdain is nothing more than an aversion to “perverts,” an image whose time passed with the destruction of the Deuce peep shows. Everyone knows that hentai is best acquired from the internet. Quality sex shops – sex boutiques, we’ll call them to make them appealing to the Whole Foods crowd – like Babeland, and to a lesser extent, the Pleasure Chest in Georgetown in no way ruin the neighborhoods they are in. 

Should it tone down it’s displays? Possibly, maybe. There is a degree of decorum owners ought to present to the general public, as a matter of courtesy. And perhaps the displays can be obscene, in the sense the models are posed in shocking and titillating ways simply for provocation. But otherwise, a sex shop is a pretty benign. The way that the media treat human sexuality for profit is not only more crass, but also more derogatory to the value of human sexuality and fundamentally non-participatory. Stores that only admit legal adults, ones who have shed the immature attitude of shame, are considerably less likely to cause teenage pregnancy than dolls of the Pussycat and Bratz variety. 

I don’t want to cast this as a simple case of NIMBY prudes versus progress. Many advocates for urbanism conflate the weird, the decrepit, or the unpopular with social ills. In doing so, they marginalize a considerable group of people. As shown in The Urban Villagers and The Death and Life of Great American Cities, cultural biases against lifestyles and appearance are usually unfounded. But people still buy into it. James Howard Kunstler, generally an advocate for the components of healthy cities, but often just a curmudgeon, has also made this mistake. In one of his features, he criticized a perfectly good storefront for having a tattoo parlor because, “Tattooing has traditionally been a marginal activity among civilized people, the calling card of cannibals, sailors, and whores.” The social dysfunction he sees is not even there. It just looks like it’s there. The same is true of Le Tache: A perfectly good social asset suffers from stigmatization, when in truth its presence signals a healthy differentiation of commercial uses.

Nonetheless, it is mostly the local people who have gotten all fidgety and shouted out their alarm call to the mayor. So what is the city’s cure for a non-problem caused by unreasonable government oversight? More oversight! The city council is apparently looking to rewrite its zoning rules to keep sex shops out of Old Town. Since that won’t get rid of Le Tache, the Alexandria DA is threatening to declare the store’s existence obscene. That is a pretty extreme abuse of government power. Where is the line with them? When is this just pushing people around for power’s sake?

But like a dog who has learned to test his master, Mr. Zarlenga is onto it. “Actually, I was hoping for a fast-food chain because I thought that would be more annoying to the city,” he told the Post. Spite is an unfortunate consequence of the soul-grinding review process, one that has irrevocably harmed the neighborhood by spitting out a good businessman. Zarlenga has left another property in the area dilapidated, apparently cheery in its disuse. To me, that is a real shame, so I do hope he chooses to restore it and fill in another blighted hole in the city. But I do understand why he wouldn’t want to.

I will not resort to intervention to save the store. Instead, I intend to go there this week, and I will purchase something. Actually, I may try to organize a CarrotMob some time. If anyone’s up for it, leave a post. There is nothing greater for the health of local businesses than to support them, but I assure you, dear reader, that the pleasure is all mine.