Londoners Magazine

Thought sex shops were staffed by porn stars and frequented by the paper bag brigade? Kate Livesey says think again.

A friend and I nervously enter Lovecraft. It’s a sex-shop on Cranbourn Street, which has been selling adult magazines, books, toys, DVDs and lingerie for over 20 years.

I’m horrified as I walk in. It’s so sterile. The lighting is bright and there are rows of neatly organised porn mags and DVDs. Where is the dim red glow? Where is the porn groove music?

I was expecting a woman in latex behind the till. Instead there are two pudgy middle aged men; one is wearing a blazer. Sex, I thought, was supposed to be naughty, dirty and talked about in whispers.

But because it has become so widely accepted, it no longer has the same illicit edge. Sadly, without that air of wrongness, sex has become a bit boring, really. A bit been there-done-that.

That is, unless, you can’t get it. And just when I begin to feel let down by the prim and proper porn shop, I see him.

He is tall, overweight and spotty. His dark rimmed glasses keep slipping off his sweaty, oily nose. His long uncombed hair is tied into a ponytail. With one look you know this man has spent many a weekend playing “Dungeons and Dragons”. This 20-something guy is a virgin. Poor thing; he looks so overwhelmed. His hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his baggy windbreaker. He goes to the door, huffing, and leaves with nothing.

A woman in a red coat is making a purchase. I wonder where she came from; I didn’t see her walk in. Then, with a slam, a man walks through a swinging door at the back. There’s a back entrance. In the next 10 minutes I notice more men prefer to come in the back entrance than the front; read into that what you will.

My friend marvels at the rubber goods lining the wall. She comes running over, giggling. “Look, it’s a flat-packed vagina!” It’s modelled after one of the industry’s leading porn stars, according to the packaging. And it vibrates.

We are about to leave when I notice something strange; even stranger than the Incest is Best magazine on the front counter. A bald diminutive man is arranging and rearranging the DVDs. He looks like he could be an accountant. I see some of the titles he holds in his hand; Beaver Hunt, RearEnders, 40 and Very, Very Naughty.

Laughing, we run out of the shop. Lovecraft is more clinical than glamorous but its customers inject the place with a sense of fetish. By being unsexy, they made the place feel dirty and wrong, and very sexy indeed.

Lovecraft Sex Shop
46 Cranbourn Street
Covent Garden
WC2H