The first time I ever saw the Janus shop in London I was in my late teens and visiting a theatre with my parents so although spotting it's location was quite exciting in itself, I didn't have to make the decision about whether or not I felt bold enough to enter.
By that time it was already past the era when such shops were allowed to display merchandise in their windows so it was with the famous black facade.
The next time I managed to arrange a trip to London by myself I headed straight over although I think I walked past on the opposite side of the road several times trying to catch a glimpse of someone else either entering or leaving - probably to reassure myself that they looked vaguely normal.
Eventually I did get the courage to go in and was instantly enthralled. Once inside it was a very relaxing place to be and I found you were free to spend however long you wanted browsing through the huge collection of Janus magazines and other spanking related materials. There was always a small selection of canes, tawses and paddles on display as well as VHS tapes and a few books. Books and some of the older materials tended to be sealed-up but the main stock of Janus, Roué, Phoenix, Blushes, Fessée, Cul d'Or etc etc magazines were there for you to browse from cover to cover for as long as you could wish.
I remember on one visit there was the sound outside of a passing police car siren and I momentarily wondered what would happen if the shop was raided by the police when I was there, but the member of staff on duty never showed any flicker of reaction - it probably happened dozens of times each day in that area.
The staff on the cash desk by the door always seemed friendly enough and the fact that there was no pressure to make a purchase even if you'd been there for ages was really good. However, dialogue with the staff tended to be very short and to the point. Just before the ban on CP videos came in I purchased a copy of The Disciplinarian from them and enquired what they'd be doing with leftover stock (hoping there might be a last-minute sale) and was just told they would be sent to alternative outlets. When the short lived Fessée magazine ceased I asked why and was told they had found more lucrative business activities.
I visited many times over the years and must have, cumulatively, spent many hours and and many hundreds of pounds there. I never saw it "busy" - occasionally you were the only customer in the store for a while but usually there were three or four people at a time - I never saw or experienced any conversation between customers which seems odd now - clearly anyone in there for more than a minute shared similar interests but it just didn't seem to be the thing to do. I did occasionally see female customers in other sex shops in Soho but never in Janus - regulars will, however, probably remember the elderly and very wheezy lady who appeared every so often from the back of the shop and make her way down to the cash desk before returning to her secret life behind the scenes.
Evidently the former spanking model Rosaleen Young has visited the shop - probably in it's later years - but it's far from clear whether the shop was open to customers at the time. Also the Janus models Nicola and Priscilla (Janus 23 and 46) did an interview in Janus 48 where they expressed the intention to visit the shop sometime.
It is self-evident that the era of magazine porn is largely over and the rationale for such shops has gone with it. I can't help thinking that today, if there was some sort of CP themed cafe, it would be much more friendly, there would be as many females as males using it, and there would be lots of dialogue between visitors even if they were meeting for the first time. The days of it all seeming a bit seedy and risky are well and truly over.
8 comments:
The first spanking magazines I bought were from a shop called 'Sven Adult Books' in a rather run-down area of Newcastle. It too had blacked-out windows. I walked in one Friday afternoon curious to know (honestly) what a 'Sex Shop' was actually like.
After looking at the videos lined along the walls I spotted a magazine called 'Swish!' and had a quick look. It was a spanking magazine (of course) and since I had had a fascination with spanking for as long I could remember I decided to buy it. When I took it to the counter, the assistant pointed out another magazine 'Kane', which he said I might also like to try.
Unlike 'Swish!', 'Kane' was in a cellophane cover and he charged me ten quid for it. He put both magazines in the regulation 'brown paper cover' and I took both home. It was only when I opened the 'Kane' package that I noticed that the bottom right-hand corner had been cut out and I discovered why on opening the magazine: I'd been overcharged! But it wasn't a lot of money I had lost, and I wasn't that bothered. I was more interested in the content than in the price!
On reading the two magazines, I must say I wasn't at all impressed with 'Swish!' The photography was OK, but the story-lines were very weak . By contrast, I liked everything about 'Kane': strong story lines; some interesting 'Readers' Letters'; interesting 'historical' snippets; and superb photography and art work. Two stories in that issue 'The Dull Lecture' and 'Toni Takes Six' were especially 'enjoyable'.
I bought a few more issues of Kane, but I found as time wore on the the quality gradually declined. There were fewer and fewer stories and the 'Readers' Letters' became increasingly 'fantastic' (in the literal sense of that word).
I threw out my copy of 'Swish!' but I still have the issues of 'Kane' safely stowed away in a secret place. I still read them when I get the chance, especially the two stories I mentioned earlier, which are two of the best (is that a pun?) I have ever read.
As you say, the age of the physical spanking magazine is all but over, although an issue of 'Get Spanked' comes out occasionally with superb photography and interviews with spanking models.
As with so many other things in life, 'the Net' has taken over, although some platforms are starting to disallow 'sensitive' content. Over the years I have been collecting pictures of women being spanked as well as pictures of women's bottoms without any spanking element. (I've never been quite sure whether it was my interest in spanking that piqued my interested in female bottoms, or the other way round).
I now have thousands on a separate drive, which I am gradually indexing. Whenever I get the chance, (less often now that my wife has retired), I go into that archive and turn on the 'Slide Show' feature and spend five or ten minutes or so 'watching all the peaches'. as the Stranglers once sang: a very pleasant pastime!
I'm sorry If I've bored anybody!
A truly fantastic post, James...fabulous. Thank You. And so nostalgic already. Oh my !
Targetarear provides an interesting insight - I like factual accounts, not fantasy-based stories. And I also liked "Readers Letters" in the mags, and to hear real-life experiences. At age 60, corporal punishment was real and normal for me as a child and then as a strict, loving mother to my two daughters. It was a normal fact of life. Just embedded in social family values & mores in the Southern USA !
Where to start James ? Your content and context is excellent here. And you Blog is always thought provoking - suggesting a reflective narrative/scenario. A hindsight experience ? I so love that.
I first saw these magazines in sunny Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1970s. I was a student and was mesmerised to see spanking magazines in stores. It was compelling. I was a rebellious punky-princess-brat who had escaped a strict, religious upbringing. My 1960s childhood involved attending Church, Bile Classes and bare bottom whoopings !! So far so normal. Oh my !!
When naughty, my sister and me gotten spanked with the cane by mother in the living room -our 1950s canary yellow dresses hoisted and our 1950s white cotton panties pulled down. Those "switchings" stung like crazy Hell on a bare botty for sure. That was the punishment. No compromises from mother ! It was harsh but also fair. And harmless too already. And in accordance with Christian family values & Church advocacy. Oh my !!
Janus for me was pioneering with realistic CP scenes, both for Schoolgirls and daughters at home. I found the bare bottom caning photos so compelling - that was my exact childhood experience at home. I especially liked the School Lesson & The Riding Lesson from 1979 - realistic father/daughter spanking, that we all gotten at home. Not pure fantasy stories. Such CP was normal in Georgia. Bare bottom spankings gotten given to my friends in my princess gang by their parents as routine family life. We girls compared notes at those 1960s moms' coffee mornings and Church !
Later, 1980s, hubby and me gotten blessed with two wonderful daughters. I raised them with strict, conservative, Southern family values - yes, they gotten their bare backsides tanned with the same flexible, thin switch (rattan cane) when they were bad. Exactly like I gotten in the living room ! I did not tolerate PC or wishy-washy nonsense on home discipline. Out came the cane, down came their panties. Job done & problem solved. Mom's whoopings sure did me good as a lil' princess-brat of a child. That is good, normal parenting in my view. Thank The Lord ! My girls are pro-spanking & thank me for my loving, stern maternal methods. Spanking with love for sure as it gotten phrased.
Ironically, Janus gotten launched in he 1970s, when CP was abolished in UK schools.
In the South, we have less PC on CP. Rosaleen Young herself gotten her bare botty soundly spanked in the normal way when she was growing up at home - wasn't she just the great, naughty lil' girl next door ? I also recall that her "partner in crime" Miss Elizabeth Simpson also felt the well-deserved sting of her father's hard, flexible, rubber-soled plimsoll across her bare hiney when she was naughty, growing up. I so like the citations of these folk in our Industry, James. Often the iconic Janus Letters covered these memories for readers. In the early 80s I gotten to love the Nu West publications of Debbie and her mother, Margot. It was her actual, real-life mother already...just re-enacting the necessary, normal bare botty mother/daughter spankings of yore at home
I did once visit that awesome Janus shop in London - an essential part of a UK tour. Oh my ! I love your photos James - very nostalgic. Spanking images meant something different to me at different times - first as a student (post my strict Christian childhood) and then as a strict, loving, traditional Southern mother.
So much to say on your wonderful post here - and your Blog in general.
Regards
Brenda xx
Targetarear - we share a common stomping ground in Newcastle although I never ventured into Sven. Just opposite Central Station up the steep and winding Pink Road was a small news kiosk that I often bought new issues of Janus from. Later on a larger shop opened right opposite the station with a sizeable supply of top-shelf magazines but it wasn't a sex shop as such and therefore I always thought there was a high risk of being seen there through the large windows by those rushing to and from the station. Later on I discovered a newsagent/corner store in North Shields that was quite good for our kind of specialist literature - discovered Strictly Uniforms through that one.
I've never thought much of general "sex shops" when I've ventured in although there were some half-decent ones in Soho. On one occasion I checked out a general one in Darlington - friendly greeting when I walked in, headed straight for the part that interested me, and the guy at the till made some comment about "Ah, a spanko." - he looked less happy when I left after a few minutes as I already had every CP magazine he had to offer. Also once in a non-specialist adult store in London I spotted a glass topped display case with some leather products including a reasonably priced tawse. When I asked the guy to let me me buy said tawse he didn't have the first idea what it was (had to point to it) or what it was for.
Oops - should be Pink Lane
I remember Soho in the 1960s where there were dozens of shops carrying 'Fladge' mags and nothing else. "Stronger material" was through a curtain.
Old Tom
A nice pose from Rosaleen Young with her short skirt and bare legs. Apparently she was proud of her legs, which are pretty long for her height and beautifully toned.
Wonderful to read the detailed post James thanks for setting out the delights of the shop...You are lucky to have been able to visit the Janus shop...I never got chance as my interest in matters spanking related peaked after the closure of the Janus store...I would definitely have visited it given a chance. The magazines are truly a delight to look though...I think its the poses and appearance of the girls on display so much better than the fare offered at most of todays modern "posed" caning and discipline sites...have to agree too that UG was a great magazine too. I have a large collection of images from the old spanking mags. Would love to chat to you so do get in touch - loved the reply from Targetatrear and would like to hear from him too.. so let me know if you wish to correspond .
I was fairly regular to the Janus shop and it was great that you could actually look through the magazines (unlike most other Soho shops). I actually hid my interests from my girlfriend, however she eventually found my magazines. She was upset at first then intrigued (though never became a proper participant sadly). I saw one or two women in at Janus shop but it was a rarity. Whilst my girlfriend was at university in London I took her to the shop, I was engrossed in the magazine's, she was ambling about. I suddenly felt a tug at my arm from her as she whispered in a panic "we've got to go". As we got out she told me she had been approached by a customer who asked her "can I help you miss?". Certainly made me laugh, though my dirty mind wondered if he was after F/m or M/f from her. As she was in her early 20s, she did look very spankable, sort of Lucy Bailey (hair and figure) but a lot more innocent.
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