Taking a stroll through the extraordinary downtown Asheville should be a mind-opening, delightful experience. Recently my experience in a local Asheville store named The Loft, was mind opening but was not delightful. I am not above the eclectic behavior that Asheville displays every day. I enjoy and take great pride in her diversity. However, while visiting The Loft, I found myself very concerned with the liberties that the owner felt entitled enough to take on my parenting. As a parent of an 8 and 10 year old child, I feel it is at my discretion when I educate them on the matters of sex and the human anatomy. The owner of the two-floor shop invited my family including my children to visit the downstairs portion of her business. Had I been properly advised about the sexually explicit material that was being sold in that part of her store I would not have walked my children down. With complete disregard to my intense feelings on the matter, the owner proceeded to tell me that sex was a natural part of life and that I had absolutely no cause to be disturbed. I would like to take this moment to say that I have every right to be disturbed. I am raising my children in a day and age where “sexting” occurs over a cell phone, pornography is on the television, magazines, and internet and child slave trade is occurring daily. I have a hard enough job as a parent keeping my children safe from every angle; I do not appreciate a local store with home accents and eclectic knick-knacks to sell sexually explicit materials out in the open with no warning to parents.
