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Remember the days when video was the thing and there were no licenced sex shops? I recall going into these unlicenced places in Soho to buy a video. I did this quite often, the film would cost ?20.00 and would be a copy. You would get it home and discover that it was the wrong film and the deceitful liar who sat behind the counter in the sordid place you have bought it from had ripped you off. You would take the empty box from the shlef and he would give you anything, or if you asked at the counter if they had a certain film they would always said they did, another lie, and you'd get the tape home and be disappointed.

I compare entering one of those places as more or less stepping through the gates of hell. A dirty sordid entrance, dank dirty walls, a counter with some oddball who exists only in the margins of society, with a strange expression on his face, and no guilt what so ever about the fact he lies, tricks, and cons people on an hourly basis. I was brought-up to be honest, and would feel guiltly having someone over for ?1.00. These people lied and ripped people off every minute of the day and had no such feeling of guilt, it was all in a days work for them. A subtle admission that they had had bad parents and were brought-up in an immoral way. What sort of a person would be happy to convey that to people every hour of every day?

Of course these places only took cash, there would be some kingpin gangster miles away who got most of the money, and it would go to buying a mansion in Epping, Chigwell, Bickley or Chislehurst. These areas are full of criminals who have bought mansions for cash. The foot-soldiers who worked in these caverns would just be paid cash for their efforts and would retire to the 14th floor of a tower block where the guy would live in a room with a dirty matress, a TV on a box, surrounded by pizza boxes, porn films, and over-flowing ashtrays. I remember the look of some of these people. Many were heavily tattoo'ed, thug looking people. Other were these wirey-framed weirdo's with early-1980's permed hair, flared jeans, and trainers. Totally out of touch, weird looking people, and certainly part of a sub human culture.

The lieing and deceiving came easy to them. You would take the film back and tell them it is the wrong movie. The weirdo, pulling large clumps of hair from in front of his face so he could see you with his blood-shot eyes and strange pale-skinned pouting face, would say that you are lucky you're not being surcharged for the fact that he is now going to give you the actual film. He would look at you as if it's completely right that you were given the wrong film and that the normal cost of an exchange for another film, which is ?10.00, wont be charged this time. Readjusting his perm, he would hold this stare. You would be left thinking that this guy is genuinely fucked in the head. He really (and he is not messing around, he REALLY thinks this) feels that once the ?20.00 has been handed to them they are legitimate in ripping you off, and if you bring the film back and want to swap it for the one you should have got in the first place, then this should be viewed as a standard 'exchange' and ?10.00 would normally be charged.

He would say you are lucky for not being charged an extra ?10.00 to have the film you should have got in the first place. You would leave this hell hole and get home and find that this replacement film is the wrong one too. I went back to a place 3 times in one day once. Each time the leather-jacket clad, huge permed, weirdo with the pale face and strange pout, believed what he was doing was reasonable. It is an experience I will never forget - the surroundings and the people were literally a sub human culture of basically savages. I wonder where many of them are now, now that so much of Soho has been raided and closed down and in their place exists licenced sex shops. The huge permed, tattoo'ed weirdos are probably back in their grim tower blocks living in their bare rooms, on Benefits, or in prison. I would imagine the kingpin would have the mansion paid off by now.

Please list your own personal experiences of unlicenced Soho below...

What a terribly sad life experience Max, If you knew you were going to get ripped off, why did you bother?

Niavity. I know better now. I suppose you always hoped that you would get the right film, that humanity existed in these people. But your optimism was always misplaced.

I recall getting ripped off once back in those days (must've been mid '80s).

I bought three shrink-wrapped "genuine hardcore" mags for a tenner each (which was a *LOT* of money to an impoverished student back then) at one of those seedy, sordid dives that masqueraded as sex shops - only to get home and find that they were crappy back issues of some cheap UK contact mag that had been stapled inside Color Climax covers.

Lesson learned.

It seems though that was a common ploy back in those dim and distant, pre-internet, pre "R18 licensed sex shop" days, when genuine good-quality hardcore porn was almost impossible to find in the UK. A ploy that relied on the fleeced punter to be either too embarrassed or too scared to go back and complain.

- Eric

It's only really in the last few years that these places have been replaced by the licenced outlets. These rip-off joints, staffed by genuinely weird lowlife people, were very common until about 3 or 4 years ago. There are still one or two left in the area.

This is the criminal underworld, not just ordinary people trying to make a living. I rememer overhearing a chat once between two people outside one of these places and one asked where the other had spent his last spell in prison. The other guy said the name of the place he had done his last sentence. The period I am referring to is the last 1990's up until about 3 or 4 years ago. The references I make to large perms and pale-faced pouts shows how odd these semi-human people looked in an era where no one looked like that anymore.

If these people were genuinely trying to make a living they could have done it without lying and conning people all the time. The boxes on the shelves could actually have had that film on a rack behind the counter and you could have been given the real film when you took the box up (just like you did when buying a film at HMV or Virgin) but no, these people lied, deceived, tricked and had no conscience. You would always get the wrong movie.

When the head of Westminster Council's anti-sleaze unit announced he was going to start closing these places down, he was very nearly murdered. He was viciously attacked in the street with an iron-bar. He wasn't robbed, just attacked. He was in intensive care for weeks. Clearly a hit-man for the Soho crime gangs who had been hired to kill this man so they could keep earning their ill-gotten gains. Still sounds like ordinary people who were just trying to make a living? Hardly. Vile scum would be a better term.

My experience wasnt so bad,they always showed me the film before i left and the blokes working in the shops were fairly polite. They were filthy places though,usually stank of pee,but the choice of fil;ms was far wider back then

Fantastic post, Max. I experienced everything you did; gave them a box from the shelf and got the wrong film back; took it back and paid a ?10 exchange fee, the guy swearing it was right this time. I learned the hard way that this was standard practice in every porno store, regional and otherwise. I started copying them and taking the back in a kind of 'any porn is good' way, so porno's ended up costing me ?10 a shot, which was fine by me - when I understood I was never getting what was on the cover.

The magazine thing was pot luck; sometimes they were ok, sometimes they were junk, but you bought the sealed bag so you took the risk. They always seemed to be at least ten years old.