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December 2004: PAUL SMITH’S DEVIANT’S DIARY - Failing to show respect, or respect the show.
Firstly, this is a personal account and may not represent the opinions or experiences of the editor or publishers of ETO. Already you’re interested. Already you know praise is not about to be heaped. According to their web site, the 2004 Erotica show was the 8th to be held in London. I’ve been to the last three, and this year, despite the best efforts of Chiltern Rail to do to my plans what the inhabitants of Sodom used to do to each other, I was there on Friday from about 1.30 ‘til almost 8. I’ll not pull my punches; it seemed a bit quiet. Last year I had to beat my way through the R18 Video Village with a 36” long double-ended dildo while claming to have leprosy. This year, I could have stretched out and had a picnic while catching a previewed movie. Perhaps it’s because it was Friday and the last time I was here on the Sunday. Perhaps the decision to move the area to the gallery level to alleviate the crush had done just what it was meant to. Perhaps.
It’s billed as the World’s Largest Lifestyle Show and touted as the flagship event of the UK’s adult entertainment industry. It’s your Great Exhibition, held in London’s modern(ish) Crystal Palace - Olympia. With this in mind, is it honestly all it could be? I even felt the stage show lacked some of the zip and sparkle of previous years. One of the backing tracks used was by Sir Cliff Richard. Even when balanced against a great tune or two from the Kill Bill soundtrack, something is still amiss. Despite initial appearances, there were some high-points from my visit. They included:
In the expanded trade area I found some new gizmos that promise to add variety to their lucky owners bedroom antics on the long winter nights ahead. Sintillation should be applauded for showing off both ‘the incredible Dildo-Cam’ - which I found most credible, if a little niche, and the Perpetual Penis f’ing machine. First first, the dildo-cam is, as the name suggests, a colour video camera suitable for inserting into the hole of your choice. Twin LED lights and adjustable focal length lens are housed at the end of a waterproof vibratorish unit, with leads suitable for hooking it up to a TV, VCR, DVD recorder or video-in equipped PC hanging out the back. The number of speculums I saw at the show for around £20-£30 tells me that things gynaecological have a market and medical fetishists (to say nothing of drain-blockage engineers) will be beating a path to their door, even at a £199 retail price point. The Perpetual Penis costs twice as much, but has the potential to be lots more fun. In vanilla mode it’s a lockable vanity case, but two minutes and a 240v three-pin socket later it’s an enthusiastic (if uncommunicative) lover who’ll never shoot his load and fall asleep before you’ve climbed to the snowy summit of the beautiful and mysterious mount multiple-orgasm. Like fucking machines costing three times as much or more, it’s fully and infinitely adjustable both for depth of trust and speed of sinusoidal motion (my physics teacher would be so proud of me) or, as a person who didn’t pay attention at school might say, fuck-rate. It seemed very solidly built and has a 12 month electrical / 3 year mechanical warrantee. So, it should be a lot more reliable than your average bloke and since it’s so easy to disguise as something mundane, it shouldn’t run off with your best mate or sister when your back is turned.
After embarrassing myself by commenting on his lack of DVDs on shelves, I chatted to a chap on the Red Displays stand I learned they supply some well know names in the industry with very attractive shop fitting units. One with built-in lighting hood that was heavily featured was £650 (not sure if that was inc. or ex. VAT. Contact info@reddisplays.com to get the info I failed to) and would lift the look of any store. To me, the same product at the same price, displayed well in one shop will look inexpensive, whereas if it’s in an ugly environment it will look pricey. Investment (and that’s what it is) on presentation of his or her wares is something every retailer needs to think about.
A nice man on the Doll Theatre stand gave me a copy of Dr Loo and the filthy fucking Phaleks after I begged him and threatened his family. One thing that delights me is the porn industries ability to subvert mainstream media and this is a prime example. I’m a product of the Tom Baker years and to see my childhood hero sent up like this is actually a whole lot more fun than it has any right to be. Usually I don’t see the point of having a storyline in a porn movie but I’m happy to accept a theme like this one, simply because it’s not trying to be something it isn’t and it’s not taking itself too seriously. Taking this further, a blooper reel is also included.
Later, out on the main floor, which appeared less populated by stands than before too, I went shopping. At this point I should grab my copy of the excellent ‘Sexual Chemistry’ edition of the Erotica magazine and show guide and compare the floor plan from show guides of previous years. But this isn’t about whether there actually were more stands or not - There seemed fewer to me and that’s that. Be assured, this isn’t a balanced piece of journalism. It’s my recollections of the event and nothing more.
I take a curious pride in being happy to talk to anyone. Be they a tattooed skinhead with coke cans through his earlobes who’s built not like a brick outhouse, but the bungalow it’s next to, or a girl so beautiful that grown men are all around, weeping at the inadequacy of their sex. However, faced with a little white-haired old lady who’s perhaps ambled into Erotica by accident while shopping for cat food, I go to pieces. I wanted to ask her if she’d been before, and if there was anything special in her white bag (It wasn’t a colostomy; I checked it had the Erotica logo on the side first) but I just couldn’t. I didn’t feel we had a shared frame of reference that I could use as a conversational springboard. I have no idea how it felt to hear that Mafeking had been relived. Or what seeing the first balloon flight from British soil might have been like. Ok, so perhaps she wasn’t that old, but if she was a day under ninety I’m a grapefruit. It’ll be 2061 before I’m a nonagenarian, and although I’m not looking forward to it, I like the alternative even less. While I can take the piss rather than smell of it, I did suddenly feel humbled. So, God bless her and also the many wheelchair users I saw running over people’s toes. I don’t think it does any harm to be reminded that sex is not the preserve of the young, slim, beautiful or fully operational.
One thing that struck me is the curious similarity of the cover of Cum Swapping Sluts #5 has to the picture of Renée Zellweger used to promote the new Bridget Jones movie. You know the one - The one where she looks like a slightly stunned sex doll. It’s uncanny. Except for the tongue stud and a gentle drizzle of text, the two images are almost identical. And of course, Bridget Jones’ initials are BJ, adding another tenuous layer of coincidence - or are there strange, unseen forces at work? I blame the Laid Lines.
Away from the predictable face of Erotica, with its racks of PVC uniforms, walls of £20 each/£35 for 2/£50 for 3 DVDs and knobbly marital aids, several stands engaged me. One was the Fine Arts Collection from Wohnkultur GmbH, which no visitor could miss. Well over five tonnes of bronze isn’t easy to walk past and not notice. I accept not everyone has £13, 930 (or the £8,358 show deal) to spend on a 160Kg Rudolfo Bucacio bronze, but if you want a copy of his ‘Techno Lover’ sculpture, as seen in several public and private collections of erotic art, it seems a bargain. A full life-sized Bunny Waitress (£5,586/£3,351) by Don Alberto Carlos (a name not to conjure with unless you want to sleep with da fishes) is perhaps more accessible to anyone who has a few spare bob but not a 60ft long lounge with views of the Italian Alps to display a piece in. Many of the works had optional fig leaves that could be slipped into place for when your parents are popping by to see the new Ferrari/Titian/baby. A thoughtful touch.
On a much smaller scale, but displaying no less artistry, was the small Ton and Tom stand. Here silver and gold cufflinks on a sexual theme were displayed, along with pendants and other jewellery. If you want anal beads, butt-pugs or dildos at your wrist, this (or their .com) was the place to visit. Again, not cheap, but if everything in life was about price we’d all be driving Peroduas. A quick look out of my bedroom window tells me we’re not.
Solo Sex Machines are based in Hinckley, Leicestershire and they‘ve taken their own approach on what’s a girl’s best friend. It turns out to be a pony. Imagine a rocking horse that thrusts a dildo up and down with every back and forth swing as you ride it and you have the right idea. A little over a grand, but the options list is interesting. They’ll build you one in carbon fibre if you ask them to. They also do a duo version of the ‘Wild Rider’ for those who like to share and the vac-u-lock system used means a wide choice of penetration sensations are available. They do a more traditional sit-on vibe-box too. The Solo Rider will buzz at 0-5000vps, which should be enough to check your fillings are in nice and tight. With this in mind the wording on the back of their catalogue made me chuckle: ‘The items offered for sale on and through this literature are sold as novelties and collector’s items. DV Days - trading as Solo Sex Machines - makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the fitness of any product to perform any task. The buyer assumes all risk of use of any of our products. Safety is the user’s responsibility’. Fills you with confidence, doesn’t it? I suppose such sweeping terms of sale is a reflection of our increasingly litigious culture and they’re only covering themselves, but is it legal to make no guarantee of the fitness of a product to do the job of joy it’s advertised to do?
I was pleased to see companies like Dare2Travel selling holidays for broadminded hedonists. How long will it be before some enterprising individual comes up with their take on the ‘experience’ concept? Red Letter Days, to take a well know name from the High Street, provide exciting adventures in several price ranges. You buy a gift voucher for a work colleague or loved one and they get to pick what they go and do. Power boating, carting and a day at a health spa are all popular choices. It doesn’t take a genius to work out where I’m going with this. What might a punter pay to see a porn film being shot? How much would it cost a production company to make his or her dream come true? Entrance to a lap-dancing club. A hamper of top toys…
Back to petulant griping. What’s the point of labelling a product like a pair of tights or latex dress as ‘one size fits most’? To me that says there’s a good chance it’s not going to fit you. Perhaps not 50/50, but certainly if you’re a bit taller, shorter, fatter or thinner than average then you might not find a pair of tights in the packaging at all, but rather disappointment in nylon form. I accept you can’t cater for everyone with a single sized clothing product unless it’s the stretchiest damn thing you’ve seen, but a guide to the likely range it’ll fit would be nice, wouldn’t it? The tights and dress weren’t for me, by the way. Let me make that quite clear.
On a different slant, why have a well-publicised camera ban if you let every cardiganed goon with a camcorder film the entire stage show unchallenged? Not being a member of security myself I felt tempted, but not compelled, to ‘have a word’. And he was only one of many many people I saw brandishing camera phones, disposable funcams and digitals. Indeed, there was many more budding Lord Litchfields than there were obvious security bods. Perhaps they were there in hundreds, but if so the subtlety of their dress and actions was too effective for me to detect them. Perhaps.
To have me leave an event like this feeling let down is as rare as meeting a farmer with nothing to moan about, so you know something, somewhere, has gone wrong. Had I paid the £16 entrance for the Friday I would have come away disappointed. Perhaps even cross. Actually, scrap that ‘Perhaps’.
Paul Smith is still free to a good home. Kinky Job offers to info@snapsandbytes.co.uk please.
2238 words on Erotica 2004 Dale.
Paul.