From street of pastries to (ahem) mall of pasties, with a detour into high-tech
Capital’s sex mall slow to attract business
“In some ways, the new Sex Capital in Mexico City´s Historic Center looks like any other modern shopping mall. Unlike most other shopping malls, however, it also has a table dance club, a gay discotheque, peep shows and an 18-and-over age limit. Its shops sell exclusively sex-themed products - marital aids, lingerie, condoms, adult videos and books - and the dining area features a stage where young men and women dance and strip down to their undies…
‘What we are seeing is a continuous process of openness for Mexico as a culture and as a society,’ said Rodolfo Hernández, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. ‘We see how Mexican society is facing secularization, and how people have a stronger sense of self-identity with which to decide the way they pursue satisfaction.’
Hernández points to 1994, the year of the North American Free Trade Agreement, as a watershed moment. As new products entered the liberalized Mexican market, he said, they brought with them new ways of thinking and new options for fulfilling consumer preferences…”
Sex Plaza In Mexico Gives New Meaning to Strip Mall
“The $12 million plaza was originally a high-tech mall full of computers and electronic devices. When that project failed, investors jumped at Kibrit’s idea of turning the building into a sex-oriented shopping center.
Opponents say the mall…will draw prostitution to the colonial street that is just around the corner from the majestic Palace of Fine Arts. ‘It can bring crime,’ said Erika Sarabia, assistant manager of the Krispy Kreme that opened next door a month ago. ‘We feel insecure because there will be a lot of people around here at night, and most of them will be men, or women who want them as clients.’
Across the street, managers at the Pasteleria Ideal worry that the sex plaza will frighten away longtime customers. For 77 years, the bakery has sold breads and wedding cakes to downtown patrons. ‘This is a place where families come,’ said sales manager Arturo Romo. ‘It is a long-standing tradition that parents and their children stop by on Saturday and Sunday. There were once so many bakeries on the downtown street named 16 de Septiembre that ‘it was known as the street of pastries,’ Romo said. ‘Now, they’ve put a mall over there with all those adult products and hung a 20-foot-long banner saying it is the world’s sex capital’.”
February 9th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
That last line is a kicker, but the story as a whole plays on some interesting tensions between contrasting ideas of what Mexico/Mexico City is about.
July 29th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Does anyone know any contact information for the museum? I’m headed down there to do research in a month and having trouble finding a phone number or an email. Any help much appreciated.