Quote:
Originally Posted by helterskelter808
Aside from this, Paul's from a country where 'real' porn was not even legal till about a decade ago. The magazines he's talking about were very soft core.
And while there were probably many smelly, sticky sex shops in London selling nasty shit under the counter, the situation in the UK was probably worse than the US. No adult bookstores of any kind outside of cities, and even in cities they sold hardcore porn with all the porn censored or cut. 
I believe some guy in the UK actually took a sex shop to court over false advertising. They scammed customers by promising hardcore porn, presumably on the basis that people would be too ashamed to complain about being ripped off.
The only way people saw real porn was though Nth generation copies from friends - free 'pirated' porn - because it was not legal in the UK to show even a hard on or any kind of penetration, let alone anything more.
To exploit this ban, companies like Your Choice appeared; based in Holland but (illegally) duplicating and mailing porn from within the UK to avoid the British customs. AFAIK Your Choice licensed the porn they sold, but it's extremely unlikely that all the copycat rivals did. More porn piracy. All before the internet. |
So the UK population jerked off to copies of Escort, Fiesta and the other mags. Or phone sex, or cable TV. Or soft core videos. They didn't not buy to not jerk off to porn of any kind.
And they bought my videos.
In fact mail order was a huge market in those days. Magazines were selling a huge amount via mail order to people who ordered a years supply. Probably to places where getting it from a shop was hard.
No friends didn't pass around copies of hardcore porn. Men didn't go to the local bar and start exchanging copies of Ass Banging Mums with their mates.
Yes there were a few places in the Bible belt that found it hard to sell a copy of Playboy or the softer version of Penthouse. Yet balance that with the World wide access to softcore magazines and places where hardcore was legal. Only problem was they weren't giving away free leaflets to jerk of to so you had to buy something. And it didn't last very long, so every month a new magazine or a new DVD came out. Today for $30 people who do pay can download a years supply of porn.
We can all guess at the real ratios of surfers to buyers. Still in the great days they were rarely better than 1-50 of clicks over all the methods. Yet everyone can tell stories of the BW bill of any gallery on The Hun. It was freeloaders not buying.
At 1-50 overall buying. Access to porn online would of had to be 50 times more than it was, then how many downloaded and didn't buy for months?
Too many only see see one side. Their income. Which is right, still be aware of the flip side.