Sex Plaza: Mexico City

One of the most stunning new attractions in Mexico City is the new sex plaza featuring over 80,000 square feet of sex toy stores, strip clubs and adult movie theaters. Owner Alberto Kibrit, a 24 year old entrepreneur, hopes it will help end taboos in Mexico by drawing in a wide variety of men and women. The stores, skylights, marble floors and beautiful decor make the sex plaza feel more like an upscale shopping mall. Over 100 shops line the well lit corridor and a sex museum which shows sexual practices throughout the world.

The many boutiques offer top line lingerie, exotic oils and a wide variety of playtime costumes. Exotic dancers perform in the food court - needless to say there are few complaints about waiting for food! And after your meal, they hand out condoms instead of mints.

Originally a high tech mall full of computers, cell phones, televisions and other electronic hardware, the plaza has succeded where others have failed.

"There are a lot of people who say, 'Thank you for permitting a plaza where we can buy sex toys.' They say it is not a sin, that there is nothing wrong with commercializing sex," he said. "They think that we are on the way to becoming part of the First World, and that we ought to be mature citizens and accept this kind of plaza."

"The good thing about this industry is that sex is for everyone, whether you're rich or poor, fat or skinny, young or old," he said. "And sex is for every day, it's not just for special occasions."

There aren't any official numbers on Mexico's sex industry, but Kibrit estimates Mexicans spend $1 billion a year in adult-movie theaters and sex shops and on telephone hotlines and erotic cable programming.

In sex shops alone, Kibrit said sales surged 10 percent in the past year. His survey found only 60 sex shops in a country with enough demand to support 600.

"The mentality has changed a lot in Mexico. It is opening, opening, opening," said Sadovich, 41, who owns Sexy Burger restaurant and an underwear shop in the sex plaza. "Young people are changing the way we think. Sex, love and rock and roll are overtaking Mexico."