- Title: UNITED KINGDOM: EROTICA EXHIBITION ATTRACTS CROWDS TO LONDON' S OLYMPIA CENTRE
- Date: 26th November 1999
- Summary: VARIOUS SEX TOYS VARIOUS SEX VIDEOS VARIOUS VIBRATORS VARIOUS MAGAZINES
- Embargoed: 11th December 1999 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Business,Entertainment,General
- Reuters ID: LVAPWV6MVZC8I32MI23BIWZL6EM
- Story Text: Sexy floor shows and squirt on latex is tempting the British to discard their sexual inhibitions and take an interest in the erotic.Flouting the national sterotype of sexual repression Britons have been letting it all hang out -- literally.
Semi-clad dancers in raunchy PVC and fantasy rubber G-strings have been strutting their stuff at London's Erotica exhibition in Olympia.The Fetish Dance ranges from the bizarre to the banal, plastic ballerinas, sword swallowers, and even a naked Elvis grinding, dipping and hip-flexing in time to the pounding beat.
This may not be explicit compared to many sex performances, but to Erotica Exhibition organiser Savvas Christodoulou, this show gives the best of British theatre a run for its money.
Savvas Christodoulou "Some of the European organisers refer to the Erotica show in England as the Rolls Royce of Europe because we've been forced by the local authorities to have higher standards and I think it has worked to our advantage.It hasn't worked against us in connection to the stage shows.It's as good a stage show as any you would see in West End theatre, probably better than most."
Backstage, the dancers are limbering up for their next performance and sprinkling talcum powder on their rubber outfits for easy entry.Elenor, Joseph and Gro from Fetish Dance have no inhibitions about performing erotic moves in broad daylight.
Elenor says: "I think it's great to be able to do it daytime, because everybody is looking for a way to express themselves.It's supposed to be really taboo.The amount of people out there, who like their women in their little dresses and their high heels, that they could never wear in the day, just on a specific festish evening and they could come here and wear it in the day."
The dress code here is as little as possible.PVC Basques, stockings suspenders and rubber shorts are de rigeur -- and that's not only the women.What's more people are coming in droves to attend.As many as 50,000 visitors were expected during the three day exhibition last November and an entry fee of as much as eighteen sterling pounds did not deter people from queuing down the street.Christodoulou says this erotic attraction is proof that the British sex industry is finally opening up.
He says "People are curious, they want to see what do you do with this or how does this contraption work or what's that piece of furniture for.People want to know, for too long they've been starved of books, TV, of ideas in this country, because it's not the same in Holland, or in Belgium or in Germany.They want to know what goes on, you saw the queue at the opening and the queue was probably half a mile long and these were all people who want to pay their money to come in because of curiousity and to have fun really".
A sexual awakening it may be for the British, but still few wish to talk about it.Some waiting visitors fled from television crews.
Those who did talk had very little to say.
One man said he took the day off work to come to the exhibition -- but he neglected to tell his boss why.Despite a reticence to speak though, it does seem that times are changing and the days of saying 'no sex please, we're British' have come and gone.
The London show may have only run for three days, but sex on the web is big business.
One visitor says: "It's more acceptable to people with the internet and things like that and people these days are more liberal".
The internet has certainly meant that people no longer need to visit seedy backstreet shops to find the more unusual items on sale.But not even vetting by the vice squad and local authorities has deterred the crowds from the Olympia show.The lure of every conceivable sex aid on sale under one roof, it seems was too tempting to resist.
Lashings of whips in a rainbow assortment of colours, exotic feathered underwear, S&M teddies, butt plugs and the household favourite, vibrators were some of the hotter items on sale.70-year-old men may have been eying up the bondage racks, but exhibition organisers said that most shoppers were young couples.
Sexy swing chairs and rocking beds drew a crowd in the fantasy furniture section, but so too did the porno mags and videos.
Mike Roberts, one of more than 100 Stall holders says raunchy sex aids are more popular and more acceptable than ever.He says: "people like ourselves in the industry are pushing it forward as a legitimate industry and people at last are realising that we all have sex, either on our own or with a partner and we are learning to ignore, as public, to ignore the media where all the victorian attitudes still prevail."
Fetish dancer Jospeph says after decades Britain's sex industry has dispelled its repressed image and is now on a par with the sexual explicitness synonymous with its European neighbours.
Joseph says: "It's a lot of fun, isn't it? It is moving towards how it has always been in the rest of Europe and Britain is coming out of the closet and is showing the rest of Europe its designer briefs.Finally".
The throng of interested onlookers suggests that the old addage is out of date, perhaps it's more appropriate to say: 'MORE sex please...we're British'. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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