Tales of Soho walk ups and beyond - weird wonderful and bizarre!

[JohnWaynesJism]

Ok, inspired by the other `bizarre things that have happened during punts` thread, I have stolen that idea and thought there may be some interest in having one dedicated to the sin pits of Soho. Doesn`t have to be solely about walk ups, can include the good old days of peep shows, sex cinemas, sex shops, street girls etc. And not so good old days of the rip off scam clubs, I`m sure there are plenty of you with tales to tell.
 I was reminded about how Soho used to be a few weeks back, when I smiled at a fairly pretty young girl on Brewer St (nr the old Raymond Revue Bar) and she said "are you looking for business?" Wow that hasn`t happened for years! Almost brought a tear to this old punters eye! I was nearly tempted to take her up on it, to find out what this young scamps scam was.
 I remember going in to one of the many sex shops when it was all VHS videos, DVD not invented then, and I asked for a specific film. They used to have a TV and video player on the counter so you could check the films out, so I asked to take a look, and of course he said "sorry mate, the video isn`t working".
 Once home with the VHS in hand, I was looking forward to choking some chicken, and after pressing play what do I get? Coronation Street! Fast forward thinking maybe it would start a bit further on the tape, nope it was just all bollocks off the telly!
 So the next week I take the tape back to the shop, tell him what happened, he says "sorry mate I must have given you the wrong tape, here`s the right one, no charge".
 So back home again (I didn`t live in London, so it was a fair trek), and what do I get on the new tape? Yep, same old crap from the telly! Good old Soho! I do actually miss those times....

[westbay_abaco]

I remember paying 50p to see a "live nude girl".  one of those booths where a slider goes up when you put your money in.  Looked through and it was a very bored looking girl sitting on a stage with her legs firmly close.  I left before my time was up and other customers jumped in.  Cant see the attraction of looking at a girl looking really bored.

[westbay_abaco]

Also read somewhere about someone paying a tenner to see a "live sex show" and being led through a maze before reaching a door.  The woman tells him that the show is through the door. stepping through, he found himself in the back alley!!  He came to the front again to remonstrate but the bouncer told him to fuck off.  Dunno how true this is though.

[vt]

I must have been lucky when I hit Soho in the late 90s/early 2000s, got some good German hardcore porn on VHS, those glossy hardcore mags from Private and saw some nice EE bints in the Tisbury Court peepshow jiggling ther boobs and spreading their gashes for a £1 and smiling at me when I looked up at their faces! 

[LL]

I can remember taking trips to London and Soho specifically in my late teens, in order to scour the sex shops for filth worthy of my large underbed collection. Back then it was only licensed sex shops that could sell hardcore porn (and perhaps it still is - I have no idea). I would look for magazines rather than movies. Hustler XXX was £10 and this was good value for money at the time. It was larger than the Private hardcore mags (which I also liked) and had some super hot girls. There was also Barely Legal, featuring girls about the same age as myself at the time. Also £10. Actually I remember one time extending my porn mission to include Tottenham Court Road and Goodge Street, where there were a couple of sex shops. One of them sold the same magazine I'd seen in Soho - Barely Legal, with a white sticker on the front on which the shopkeeper had scrawled "Teen Anal". It was wrapped in cling film and displayed a price of £40! When I asked the shopkeeper why it cost 4x the price it was in Soho he said, "That's an original". I left. I didn't escape being ripped off on that same trip though. I went to a different shop where I was sold a CD rom with apparently 4,000 hardcore images on it. When I got him to view it, of course it contained nothing of the sort - a few trailers for porn movies and that was about all - £20 wasted.

I can remember walking down Rupert Street and being called over to a strip club by the receptionist, leaning out of the door. I was tempted to go inside when she told me about the place but didn't. That was actually lucky as years later I would find out it was one of the notorious clip-joints where tourists like me would be scammed, threatened and fleeced.

Another time in Soho as a teenager with friends, strolling down Walker's Court I remember seeing a beautiful young blonde girl in a fur coat. She was just stood in the street on her own. As we walked past I heard the croaky voice of an old maid call out from a nearby doorway, "Get your sex here, gentleman!". My mates and I thought that was the funniest thing ever. We would regularly quote it for years afterwards - as if it were a catchphrase from The Fast Show.

[JohnWaynesJism]

Thanks for the replies!  Keep `em coming!
 I`ve just remembered after seeing the search on here for the holy grail of the Japanese porn star type escort, that many years ago (probably mid 1990`s) I called a card in a phone box with a pic of a hot Jap bint on it. I was given the address of a flat in Brewer St Soho, in I went and there before me was the text book Japanese porn style model with huge tits on a tiny frame, she was exactly the type you see in the films and top quality.
 And do you know what? I walked. I didn`t quite have enough money and thought I`d see her another time. Not realising of course I`d never find her again, and I just missed out on the holy grail of all escorts! 
 I was fairly new to the London scene, and didn`t realise what a rarity I`d just encountered, I still regret that one to this day. 

[Mike Oxhard]

I also found those sex shops further up along Tottenham Court Road in the late '80s 

I remember those days before the shops could legally sell hardcore so all the magazines like Swedish Erotica were on sale but the copies had every point of penetration of every photo censored with a big black spot ruining it, for bj's as well as sex.

I miss the days when there were multiple peep shows. I remember them having a slightly larger hole in the wall that allowed you to slip the girl some money for a special show, like a fiver or tenner for a dildo show.

I also in those days discovered the Sunset Strip Club before it was taken over and done up by the current management, when it was a real shithole and the stage used to have a curtain open and close for each act  I also remember an equally amusingly bad strip club on Old Compton Street, but the name escapes me. I always look and wonder which premises it was these days, it was only a few doors down from the walk up that Paris worked in at number 4. They were funny old times, most of the girls stripping were either mingers or old ladies probably in their 50s, but every once in a while you'd get a half decent pretty one 

[smiths]

Soho is where I first started sleazing, peep shows, clip joints, sunset strip and softcore vids with hardcore covers.

I recall some guys in Sunset Strip having pack lunches with them so were in for a good few hours at least. Spunk covered tissues in peep shows and having to fight my way out of a clip joint. Far better and actual hardcore vids to be had in an illegal shop in Liverpool Street and then a number of others over London where you could view them first and swap them back, just the vid with a code number on it. I drove a good few miles after porn in those years.