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Monday, October 24, 2011

-6

i remember porn shops.
the reason i wanted to go into the west end may have been to go and buy comics from ‘dark they were and golden eyed’ but it didn’t take me long to discover the porn shops that were close by.
now this was when old compton street wasn’t full of bars and eateries, when it seemed that every shop sold porn.
at first i resisted the urge to go into the shops. i would just go along old compton street and window shop. the windows would be full of magazines promising untold delights (or at least naughty titillation). the windows of old compton street even became a tourist attraction for several of the teenagers from northolt high we would go there either to buy comics from ‘dark they were’ or to buy albums from our price records; maybe we would have been going into foyles, with its archaic system of buying and paying for books. once we had done our business we would wander along to the street of dirty dreams and peer in each and every window to look at the range of magazines that were on display.
some we would find funny (the one that sticks in my mind is the one of the two naked couples on the cover. the two women kneeling down, the two men standing behind them their cock and balls resting on the girls heads, even in my teenage years that was pretty much a what the fuck image), some would be phwoartastic and a few would make you go ‘noooooo’. (remember this was long before the days of political correctness and long before the clean up soho campaign was even a twinkle in someone’s eye).
it wasn’t long before i decided that i had to go inside these aladdin’s caves of porn and sample the wonders inside.
it was a sunday. it was a porn store in walker’s court.
i went passed the shop a couple of times. should i go in? should i stay go home?
in.
i was nervous when i walked in. would they kick me out? would they know me? would they know it was my first time? lots of thoughts ran through my mind.
and then i was confronted with all the magazines. what a choice. all manner of sexual acts. some in colour. some in black and white (must be art). i browsed. i flicked. i read. i looked. i thumbed.
and i bought.
just as i was about to leave i felt a hand on my bum. i turned and looked and there was a little middle aged man who then winked at me. i kept my composure and left the shop and walked to the next corner, turned into and ran for dear life.
when i got home i was as nervous as anything in case my mum knew i had a porn magazine in my bag. she didn’t. that was the first of my stash.
by the time the year was out i had visited all the porn shops in soho.
i still make the occasional trip to the few remaining soho porn shops – but the excitement and thrill of it has all gone.
i guess now i am too old for it.

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