From famous national chains like Romantix and Adam & Eve to lower-profile gems like the Vault, local sex shops offer so much more than lube, dildos and lingerie — although they'll never run out of those. Classes, community gatherings and even historical exhibits are likely to be on display alongside the kink-conducive merchandise. If sex positivity in any form is your jam, there's at least one local shop that might be your boudoir-away-from-boudoir.
Here are our ten favorites:
Adam & Eve
1331 East Colfax Avenue
denver.adamevestores.com
Of Denver's two Adam & Eve franchises, this location is situated right where the action is — on Denver's most notorious artery, East Colfax Avenue. But the humble shop belies the fact that it's connected to the largest online retailer of sex supplies in the country; cozy and inviting, it's able to function as a spectacularly appointed toy box as well as a neighborhood shop with a local vibe.
Awakening Boutique
38 Broadway
awakeningboutique.com
Since flinging open its doors to sex enthusiasts in 2018, Awakening Boutique has flourished — and it's easy to see why. This perennial winner of WestwordBest of Denver is woman-owned, queer-positive and carefully curated to entice newcomers and surprise old hands at the same time. Awakening has that perfect sex-shop chemistry: It's a place to shop as well as a beckoning portal into another, very sensuous world.
(dis)obedience
3605 West Colfax Avenue
disobediencedenver.com
After three years as an online shop, (dis)obedience opened a brick-and-mortar — or is that a kink-and-mortar? — storefront last year. It's a sex-lovers' paradise: queer-owned, inclusive, playfully erotic and brimming with gender-neutral toys. Owners Matt Stubbe and Cyn Mendez even host their own podcast, (dis)obedient ones, to help flesh out the stories behind their store's well-stocked shelves.
Fascinations
4111 East Virginia Avenue
fascinations.net
For many in Denver, "sex shop" is synonymous with Fascinations. The largest of the four Denver outlets in the two-state chain, a freestanding, two-story fortress at the edge of Glendale — is like a Costco for sex toys. But Fascinations also offers events and workshops alongside its supermarket-sized assortment of lube, dildos, restraints, books and sundry unmentionables.
The Museum of Sex Gift Shop in the Sexploratorium
1800 South Broadway
sexploratoriumdenver.com
Fawn and Casey O'Brietzman opened the Sexploratorium in 2023 as a space for sex education and social events. A year later, they opened a wing of the Sexploratorium called the Museum of Sex — and within that museum is a modest gift shop that carries a very small but fun mix of novelties such as vibrator earrings, body-positive books and other playfully sexy tidbits. You might never know how cute a crocheted penis or boob pillow can be until you stop in.
Needz
901 East Colfax Avenue
denverneedz.com
Needz bills itself as "an erotic haberdashery," and that just about nails it. With a focus on men's clothing, from the skimpy the almost nonexistent, the store indulges the more sartorial — and rugged — end of erotic merchandise. The shop is also the home of CJ's Leather, where veteran tailor Carlos Larranaga crafts the finest chaps, codpieces, paddles and harnesses that any leather daddy (or those who love them) could desire.
Six metro locations
pleasuresdudes.com
For longtime Denverites, Pleasures takes up a strange little place in your brain, with mostly warped memories of watching the sex-shop chain's bizarre TV commercials while trying to sober up in the middle of the night. The self-styled Pleasures Dudes are the stars of those surreal, low-budget ads, and their sleazy weirdness is enough to make you forget that they're even trying to sell you something, let alone sex toys. That said, no local sex-shop tour would be complete without at least one visit to these dubiously iconic shops.
Romantix
633 East Colfax Avenue
romantix.com
Although it's a large national chain with four stores in Denver, Romantix deserves to be singled out for its Capitol Hill location. Sitting at the corner of Colfax and Washington, this shop is the retail epicenter of kink, fetish and all things lubricated in a neighborhood that has never shied away from the libertine side of life. Being part of a chain, the store has a pretty predictable selection of sex toys, books and wearables. Sometimes, though, standard is all you need.
1111 Broadway
vanillakinkdenver.com
Kink has come a long way since the old days when the scene was stereotyped as nothing but whips and ball gags. Granted, there's nothing wrong with those reliable standbys — but Vanilla Kink seeks to expand the kink vocabulary. Progressive and immaculately laid out, the boutique gives kink a shame-free glow up. One of the store's specialties is rubber, so if you've been craving a little skintight squeak in the bedroom (or your car or a club or wherever), here you go.
The Vault in the Spicy Librarian
3040 Blake Street
spicylibrarian.com
Sex shops are no longer furtive hideaways for illicit contraband, and that's a good thing. But surreptitiousness can be fun in and of itself, hence the Vault. The shop-within-a-shop lies hidden behind a bookshelf within Denver's new romance bookstore, the Spicy Librarian, owned by bookseller Sydney Ivey. It's a discreet little speakeasy of a spot with a tasteful yet tantalizing array of sensual goods — the perfect complement to one of the Spicy Librarian's thousands of romantic and erotic novels.
