Page "Sex shop" Paragraph 12

In the United States, a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s ( based on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution ) generally legalized sex shops, while still allowing states and local jurisdictions to limit them through zoning.

Into the 1980s, nearly all American sex shops were oriented to an almost entirely male clientele.

Many included booths for viewing pornographic film loops ( later videos ), and nearly all were designed so that their customers could not be seen from the street: they lacked windows, and the doors often involved an L-shaped turn so that people on the street could not see in.

While that type of store continues to exist, since the end of the 1970s there has been an evolution in the industry.

Two new types of stores arose in that period, both of them often ( though not always, especially not in more socially conservative communities ) more open to the street and more welcoming to women than the older stores.