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MINNEAPOLIS - By the look of things at Smitten Kitten in south Minneapolis, the road to women's sexual satisfaction has never been more inviting.

Customers who enter the well-lit, airy shop with classic furnishings will find a lovely spread of tea and cookies at the back. But who has time to eat when autographed copies of Ducky DooLittle's "Sex With the Lights On," are stacked at the front door?

The shop, billed as "a truly feminist sex toy store," is owned by three smart women in their 20s, two with women's studies degrees, all with healthy sexual attitudes and exacting standards for their product lines. Some adult toys boast "superior German engineering." Hand-made leather floggers are priced up to $300.

But while Smitten Kitten is certainly a cut above the seedy standard, it is no longer cutting-edge. "Sex and the City" got women talking, and home parties got them spending -- on vibrators, massage oils and more. Sales at Pure Romance parties, for example, topped $30 million in 2004. Even Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Target and CVC have quietly joined the revolution, stocking feather ticklers, edible body paints and vibrating rings in the "planning and protection" or "feminine hygiene" aisle.

Sex therapists, sexuality educators and vendors of sexual enhancement products see many reasons why many women still can't get satisfaction. Exhaustion. Lowered libido due to medications or menopause. Differing sexual needs among couples, straight or gay, which can cause deep divides inside and outside the bedroom. Lack of a partner because of divorce. Boredom among long-marrieds. Embarrassment or fear of trying new things.

Write this down and today's newspaper will be worth the price of admission: Most men need 4 minutes to reach nirvana before falling into deep REM sleep. Most women? About 20 minutes to even get started.

"There are two polar extremes," says Bean Robinson, associate director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota and a licensed family and marriage therapist. "There are women who have strong sexual desire, act on that desire and are freed from the double standard, and then there's the flip side: women who are too tired, too busy and wouldn't care if they never had sex again."

The clinic sees about 1,000 clients a month for a variety of issues, including sexual dysfunction and sexual pain. But the biggest problem among women, and a growing number of men, Robinson said, is low libido. She points to a JAMA study from 1999 in which 42 percent of women reported low desire, arousal problems or pain.

Less scientific, but worth considering, is a recent poll of 6,800 men on MensHealth.com in which 41 percent (the highest number in the survey) said they wish they could change their female partners' lack of sex drive.

Missy Pederson sees it, too. Pederson, 27, was the first statewide rep for Athena's Home Novelties, seller of "toys, aromatherapy, books, videos, bondage in a home-party setting."

For Pederson, the challenge is less about product comfort and more about psychological comfort. The first thing out of many women's mouths at her home parties is, "Am I normal?" But what, Pederson asks, is normal? "('Sex and the City' character) Carrie Bradshaw? Our mothers? Married women like myself who say, 'Oh, my God, it's been three weeks since we've had sex and I'm the sex lady?' Everybody wants orgasms, they want dialogue, and they want to feel validated."

Pederson is encouraged by the growing number of women who seem willing to start that dialogue, with their health care providers, girlfriends or significant others.

It's clear, though, that a woman's age plays a big role in how she views her sexuality. Spend an hour with Pritchett and fellow Smitten Kitten owner Jessica Giordani, 26, (the third owner is Jessie Jacobson, 27, who studied aviation), and you realize just how unhip you are.

They talk about sex toys with ease, and believe that everyone, if given the right information and confidence, can experience their pleasure potential.

Still, they're delighted to take curious and often timid customers -- female, male and transgendered -- on tours of the store, helping them find what they need without shame or guilt.

"People come in guarded and tense and, by the end, shoulders come down and they see the tea and cookies," Pritchett says. "We're just normal people."

But if it's true than most women in their 20s just want to have fun, many change dramatically in their 30s when faced with an unexpectedly effective form of birth control: kids. It may take years for new moms to feel sensual again. Or awake again.

By the time the kids are big enough to have play dates (hurry, honey, quick!), a good number of women find themselves divorced. Or dealing with mega-hormonal shifts. Or, if single, maybe they're just pickier about who they choose to have sex with.

Playwright Julie Marie Myatt spent three years in Minneapolis on a Jerome Fellowship and wrote "The Sex Habits of American Women," which was presented at the Guthrie Lab in 2004. She now lives in Los Angeles, "where, kind of like my play, there's the public version and the private version [of women's sexuality]. It's so hard to know what's going on."

Growing up in the 1980s, "smack in the middle of AIDS," Myatt said, she had little guilt about exploring her sexuality -- just plenty of caution. Now 39, she sees a big shift among her single female friends. "We have a lot more options. We talk about sex now. But people are getting pickier. While many people I know would like to be more free and more sexually active, they're probably less right now."

"Women from 50 to 60," says sexuality educator Candy Hadsall, without hesitation, who also owns Ms. LaVie's School of Loving Arts in Minneapolis. Free from child-rearing responsibilities, tired of beating themselves up over cellulite, confident and curious, these women, Hadsall says, "push the envelope sexually more than younger people."

Marilyn Thorne, 83, is surprised by all of it. The independent travel agent remembers her now-deceased husband once bringing home sex toys from a trip to Asia. "I said, 'How dare you?' I was insulted," Thorne said. There were no sex therapists then and she certainly wasn't going to talk to friends. Sex was simply "a duty, a responsibility," she says.

If sexuality experts are right, more women than want to admit it still share a little of that sentiment. But, unlike Thorne's day, woman now have plenty of places to turn. A good place to start is one's health care provider, who can rule out medical conditions that might be causing plummeting libido and other sexual problems. Most women, though, probably just need a green light.

Terre Thomas, 47, owner of the eclectic gift shop Fairy Godmother in Minneapolis, sponsors an occasional "Restore the Tingle" workshop, where women are encouraged to ask everything they want to know about sex, anonymously. Common questions, she said, include, "Why am I slower to be aroused at certain times?" And, "Should I be OK with only having one orgasm?"

Clearly, it's never too late to learn new tricks. Thorne was recently with friends, also in their 80s, when one began to complain about her husband's technique. Thorne piped up: "For goodness sakes! Go buy yourself a vibrator."

_The "Better Sex Video Series" features 12 real couples who volunteered to "make love in front of our camera." Not to be confused with pornography, says Mark Schoen, director of sex education at the Sinclair Institute, which produced the series.

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