BERLIN - Handcuffs are the fastest selling item at five new shops tailored for women by Germany's biggest retailer of sex merchandise, the store chain said on Wednesday.
Beate Uhse AG said handcuffs have been flying off the shelves of stores it opened this year to focus on sex toys for women, rather than the traditional male clientele.
"Women's sexual appetites are steeped more in the realm of fantasy -- they like to use their imagination more than men," said Assia Tschernookoff, a spokeswoman for Beate Uhse at corporate headquarters in Flensburg.
Beate Uhse, founded in 1946 and recently floated on the Frankfurt stock exchange, has more than 200 shops throughout Europe offering a myriad of sexual aids from lubricants to a taste of the lash. Attempting to capture new markets, it opened the shops aimed at women earlier this year.
"The shop had just opened and the handcuffs were all gone the first day," said Tschernookoff.
The five new shops report some 90 percent of customers have been women.
"This just goes to show that these days women know what they want and they're not shy about getting it," Tschernookoff said.
