Germany’s Beate Uhse acquired a Dutch chain of 44 “erotic discount centers,” plus a Dutch mail-order company that offers a full range of sex toys, videos and publications.

Sex shops: seedy, if not downright sinister; XXX signs plastered on blacked-out windows in shady neighborhoods; frequented mainly by men. When it comes to the flesh industry, Europe, for all its sophistication, wasn’t much different from the U.S. Then along came Ann Summers, a British chain of sex emporiums, and…