A personal 50 year timeline of the porn business.

[Paul Markham]

1965 or 1966 I first walked into a Soho Porn Shop. This one was close to PR Publications.



The porn on offer was dismal. B?W photos or textbooks made by a rudimentary printer containing a few pictures and bound by amateur methods. Was all there was. B/W porn movies were very rare and usually passed hands for huge prices or shown in dimly lit rooms financed by ticket sales. All that was legal were pictures of topless girls.

And it was so profitable the business was controlled by crime gangs. The shops were turning over $100,000s a year each.

$8 for a set of 5-10 porn pictures or $12 textbooks produced in places the police wouldn't find working 24/7 to keep up with demand.

It was a license to print money and content producers couldn't produce enough of it.

[davidclickpapa]

going way back..

[Paul Markham]

The problem was everything had to go through a processing lab. These were either legit and wouldn't touch porn with a barge pole, so unless there was a chance of finding a night watchman to undertake the work. The labs were very undercover and illegal. I never knew where they were and I doubt many did. Even with the police in the pay of the porn shop owners, there was always the fear of a police raiding and the shutting down of production.

This also applied to the studios. I worked, as a model, in some very grotty places or in the early morning in strip clubs that were set up as studios before they opened for business. Or the occasional flat rented for the day, the problem was moving in the lights and the bright lights showing through windows. We worked under Tungsten or daylight.

There were few professional models, the stigma attached to being a porn model was personal rather than Society condemning them. Society would never find out.

This was considered outrageous by many.



This to be the absolute limit of acceptability and only available in a few high street shops.



And this could, in theory, put people into prison, but usually ended with a fine.



Today no one bats an eyelid at this on our TVs.



Well not here in Europe. And it seems every US TV show has to have a sex scene in it, even if it has no point in the show. Tap in Online Porn into Google and all this come up.

Supplying the demand was the hardest part of the porn industry in the 1960s to mid-70s in most of the UK and many parts of Europe. Then like now, getting traffic was the easy part. The difference was then we sold 1-2. People browsing always ended up buying.

[MiamiBoyz]

Yes, those WERE the days...

[Penny24Seven]

and around 15 years ago you started losing your mind and going batshit crazy. Today we are here

[Mediamix]

Originally Posted by Brian837

and around 15 years ago you started losing your mind and going batshit crazy. Today we are here

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Brian837

and around 15 years ago you started losing your mind and going batshit crazy. Today we are here

What made you think it started only 15 years ago?

Yes, today I'm happily retired. Living out my life in a house I own, zero debts and saving more money than I spend. About to come into a $50,000 annuity around August. WTF will I do with it?

[Barry-xlovecam]

[Paul Markham]

In the late 60s, for me, the porn industry took off. Any guy who could keep an erection in front of a crowd and fuck whoever was put in front of them. Was gold dust. And paid anything from $80 to $160 a scene. Two scenes a day and the decision was, why work full time for $100 a week? The work was plentiful



And we got to fuck some great girls as well as some bloody awful ones.

It was in the late 60s I first picked up a camera and started my life behind the camera. All it took was the ability to light the set, no the right poses, frame, focus and click. Never understood why people think it was so hard.

And away I went.



I was paid $160 a day or more to do this. The average weekly wage for then was around $80 a week. No one cared about cost, whatever the cost profits were a 1,000% or more in a couple of months and the content kept producing more profit. the problems were finding new girls to model, it wasn't like we could put an advert in the paper.

We relied on a network of people, who were in touch with escorts, strippers, unemployed girls and the girls themselves to bring friends. It was impossible to fulfill the demand for new sets and films. The market was insatiable.

Then in the late 60s porn in Denmark while being illegal was being largely ignored by the police. So long as it was with bounds. And supply was ramped up. We got to see our first mass produced films, colour magazines shipped in from Europe by the lorry loads.

Comparing this to the introduction of HD, 3D, VR is like comparing a sardine to a whale. Men would travel 100s of miles to come to Central London to buy magazines.

[ITraffic]

how many bathrooms in those old porn shops? one? two? none?

how many porn mags could you fit into an orange basket back in those days as well?

thanks for the share old poster.

[SteveHardeman]

Actually, I'm interested in hearing more stories about the old days from a guy who lived it. Keep going, please.

[nikki99]

that store is still there and they still sell vintage magazines, is a classic

edit: crime gangs still controle some of the shops in the soho, I know this as a fact, we wanted to prosecute one of those guys was stealing my pictures and printing magazines and they told me if I do it I will end up in a crematory (alive)

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by SteveHardeman

Actually, I'm interested in hearing more stories about the old days from a guy who lived it. Keep going, please.

Trying to explain to how it worked then is easy. Customers came to us with very little prompting. We were selling a drug they demanded. Boys would jerk off for years to the underwear section of a Sears catalogue because no one would sell them porn. Once they looked old enough they would spend money to buy porn. No matter how soft, even topless was good enough. A magazine like Escort sold 100,000 a month in the UK only, Hustler close to a million in the US only. Doing no more than putting it on a shelf.

Marketing wasn't required. The consumer was hooked.

[adultforum]

Nice story. Keep going man, i love those old real stories.

[Paul Markham]

The late 60s, early 70s the business expanded with countries in Europe semi-legalizing by ignoring or legalising porn. The shops had a great source of supply, which allow them to dropped their troublesome production side. Why bother with horrible B/W pictures or films. When these were flooding in.




The niche porn then was gay or anal or teens level niches. Why bother to go for a micro niche when people were buying mainstream as fast as we could offer it? That above all was the big difference to today. Plus the money thrown at producers.

No one cared if a movie costs $10,000 to produce. The images shot went into a magazine which paid the cost. The film was all profit for the producer, the shops doubled or trebled the wholesale price.

To picture the scene, imagine no free online porn and only 10 companies per country in the business. I don't know exactly but I would guess at the late 60s early 70s it was 10 companies supplying most of Europes porn production and selling wholesale.

[Paul Markham]

No one cared if a villa cost $2,000s to hire for a week. My first Danish shoot was at a country estate. There were 10 extras booked for the whole week and spent most of our time lounging around in the mansion or sunbathing on the lawn. 8 girls, 4 male studs and a series of scenes of the girls being very eager to offer up their bodies. Two crews shooting one scene a day each for a 15-20-minute loop. Never saw the end film, I do know they shot and reshot everything.

I was paid $160 a fuck, doing 5 scenes I walked away with $800. And stayed working in Europe once a month or sometimes two. So I could bum around Europe on the proceeds.

Shooting on film is expensive and annoying when it has to be shot in three version. Soft, Medium and Hard. We tended to do things 3 times and often from different angles. This was essential because the softcore version made more money than the hardcore. A scene we watch today on HBO stretched out a bit longer, made more money than the hardcore version!!

So we did the intro boy meets girl only need one version of this. Then the girl goes for it, boy's are, no dick, limp dick, no penetration, full penetration. After a while, it becomes boring, even tedious. It's not like I needed the sex,it was all about the money and not working in a 9-5 job in a factory.

[SteveHardeman]

In the most non-gay way I can mean this, I want to see Paul Markham fucking in the 60's. Who's got video?

[adultchatpay]

I love the old porn, where they still have pubic hair.

[patadeperro]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Marketing wasn't required. The consumer was hooked.

This phrase is very important, because I don't think that many adult affiliates have learned marketing, that is why so many people complain about the industry without realize the market has evolved.

[Barry-xlovecam]

And now, users make their own porn on the Internet. There is no scarcity like there was years ago.

Amateur P2P live porn and P2P payments are today's trends.

Porn was under-the-table until Miller and other court decisions (in the USA). The porn shop with peep-show booths is gone -- along with is sleazy looks and sometimes sticky floors. There is more money in porn today but that money is in more hands.

Porn led the development of the internet until people figured out that they could make their own live porn -- the cam business started in 1996 and is being challenged today by P2P cam sex networking.

We cannot bring back the past. For what is is worth: The magazine pages stuck together anyway

[Penny24Seven]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

What made you think it started only 15 years ago?

Yes, today I'm happily retired. Living out my life in a house I own, zero debts and saving more money than I spend. About to come into a $50,000 annuity around August. WTF will I do with it?

LOL Paul you know I love busting you because you can take it and dish it out. I hope you know that. I will probably still do it in good fun.
We all know you have been around forever and it just goes with being the old man.

[CaptainHowdy]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Those were the days, Paulie ...

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by SteveHardeman

Actually, I'm interested in hearing more stories about the old days from a guy who lived it. Keep going, please.

Thank you. I will carry on trying to explain the huge difference between then and now.

[incredibleworkethic]

Thanks Paul. As a young man in his 20s still, I have missed out and I find this interesting.

[Paul Markham]

There is only one development that changed porn beyond all recognition in the last 50 years. The others are side issues.

That happened in retail. The cost of running a shop is huge. Rent, taxes, heating, lighting, insurance, staff, etc. Make it hard for a proliferation of retail outlets with a product with a limited market. One shop could satisfy the demand of many.

It was the retail end that made the money. A shop had to turn over a money to pay the costs and make a profit. Online pornographers keep replying to this with the handful of sites that make very good money. With porn shops, it was a case of them all making a good level.

Shops, wholesale, and publishers were only interested in stocking what sold in big numbers. It's the same today with supermarkets that won't have slow sellers on shelves that could accommodate faster sellers.

The exodus to video made a small change. With a video movie, we left the 20-minute loop behind, replacing it with a 90-minute movie. In a Larger Box. It didn't matter that anyone could now shoot on video because it only mattered if it was good enough to stack on a retail shelf, after it had stacked on a wholesalers shelf and packed into a box and mailed to the retail.

This is why solo girl, lesbian and all the smaller niches were hard to sell. Hardcore Boy girl outsold them every single time. If the customer wants Big Boob, Leg, Teen, MILF, Amateur, Professional, Gay, Gonzo, Transexual, etc. He wanted to see them fucking. And the shop owner needed them to be outselling others, their section of the store or they were dead in the water.

90% of those who got into membership pornsites, would never have been selling well enough. So the question isn't, was there more money in offline porn or online porn. There was a very good income to a fortune for those who made the grade and nothing for those who didn't. Except for mail order. I have personal knowledge of that.

[Coup]

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Brian837

LOL Paul you know I love busting you because you can take it and dish it out. I hope you know that. I will probably still do it in good fun.
We all know you have been around forever and it just goes with being the old man.

Keep it in good fun and I'm fine.

I'm far more relaxed these days, now I know my arch nemesis is unemployed living on benefits.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Coup

[Paul Markham]

Mail Order was a way to get into porn without going through the shops. Cutting out the middle man and the retail, the profits were very nice indeed.

In 1977, I went close to bankruptcy. Two factors really, conned out of a lot of money by a swindler and the effect of clothes coming in from Hong Kong cheaper than we could buy the cloth for. So I turned to a good way to make money PORN.

Not by shooting videos, the equipment was too expensive and few had a VCR. I shot coloured film for solo girl photographs and so long as I shot them harder than was on the top shelf. Men will jerk off to the hardest porn they can buy, if that's a Sears catalogue, that's good enough. I was going to open leg, pink and fingers.

To be honest I wasn't convinced it would work, but for the price of a few rolls of film, processing which was now done by big machines, the cost of an ad in a magazine and a P.O. Box. It was worth a try. The model was my wife.

The Ad was a few lines in a classified Ad section. Came out on Thursday, Monday I went to the P.O. Box and took out to letters with $8 total. We were already $200 out of pocket and this looked bad, very bad. Tuesday $50 and things looked better. By the end of the week, it was around $100 total. Not a life saver yet.

The second week we had taken $400 and people were writing in asking if we had more. I advertised for girls and produced another batch. End of the month we had done $1,000 and on our way back to repaying the debt we were in.

From 1977 to 1986 we produced photo sets of girls, solo and duo. Profit was over 50% and the content shot was ours to resell over and over again. All we needed was a new girl every two weeks to keep old customers buying.

We were producers and retailers, like many websites, and with my day job getting out of a hole.

[Paul Markham]

Back in the day when I was the one of only two doing pictures by mail order my taking were fine. Once the supply side doubled, my takings halved. It didn't matter if the total mail order sales grew, my takings dropped.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

[Paul Markham]

Other than selling mail order everyone had to go via a publisher and a retail outlet who were keen to maximise shelf space to profit. This weeded out a lot of people who just were not good enough to compete. Those who were and there are some here producing content who would have been good enough. Made good money through licensing content. We rarely sold it exclusive.

The major markets were US and EU, Japan, Australia were small markets but had to be sold to. Also, there was Second Rights, so after a set period, the producer could sell again in the same country. For video producers, there was a chance of Cable and Hotels, these were for the best quality producers, but worth a lot of money.

Even my amateur readers wives photos had 3 markets. Mail order, UK and US magazines. Shoot three sets on three different rolls of film and magazine sales paid the costs of the shoot and the first run of photos.

During the 80s, I started to shoot for magazines. UK sale $600 and US $2000 and Europe for $400 per set for 1-year publishing rights. And I could still sell them online in the 2000s and today. This was the norm, not the exception. These sales were for all content producers who made the grade. People like Suze Randall, Viv Thomas, and us, etc. Couldn't have survived on what the Internet paid for exclusive.

This applied also to companies like Hustler, Vivid, etc. They were told by the retail outlets that if their work started to appear on the Internet, the shops would sell less and less and then take them off the shelves. It wasn't that they didn't know how to go online, it was that they dare not.

Magazine shooters never had the same problem.

[ITraffic]

seriously just write a kindle ebook and sell it on amazon. why write here for people who don't give a fuck?

[SteveHardeman]

I give a fuck, Paul. Please continue.

[j3rkules]

Did you ever thought about writing a book?

[CaptainHowdy]

Originally Posted by Coup

...

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by ITraffic

seriously just write a kindle ebook and sell it on amazon. why write here for people who don't give a fuck?

Why bother to write a book?

[Paul Markham]

CI cannot emphasize enough on the importance of retaining rights to one's product. Today I made a sale on C4S, which is unusual but still a sale on something I don't work at. And last week a sale here.

Something that I work at for a few hours every week is here. Getting a sweet Paxum transfer every month.



If we had sold the rights to our content. None of this would be possible. Some of this content goes back 30 years.

[Paul Markham]

Looking at the page of my old content also raises another difference between then and now. The attitude towards the models and the attitude towards sex.

Models got far more respect than they do now. Maybe not from the actual content providers, most certainly a lot more than a lot of webmasters churn out.

And the attitude towards sex. Models tend to be "liberated girls" very few were in a tight relationship, most were randy and poor. some even fucked photographers to get more work. Not that is worked that way, she was either worth shooting or not. The only difference was a randy model who wants to have sex, looks sexier than those who don't and sell better.

The bottom line is no one cared so long as the girl was happy. We fucked, dated, went steady and married models. A lot of that started after a good shoot and two horny people getting it on.

Strange thing about now is all those who rely on girls to model, call them slags for doing so, then condemn us for having sex with them. I guess some of it is jealousy as they punch away on a keyboard on the Mum's basement or in their bedroom. In Mum's house.

Recently reminded of the trips to Portugal, Spain, Canary Islands. We often took a model/GF with us or even ended up with a model coming in our bedroom at night.

Loads of stories like that for an E-Book. If only I could be bothered.

[NatalieK]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

CI cannot emphasize enough on the importance of retaining rights to one's product. Today I made a sale on C4S, which is unusual but still a sale on something I don't work at. And last week a sale here.

I didn't realize you could have 2 c4s site, we have Gspot clips4sale films it only turns over a sale or 2 a week, maybe I'll start some more.


@ your thread, nice to hear how porn certainly was big money years ago. Personally hearing about the big money available, with my partners family business, a chain of video shops, the 'under the counter' porn movies like the DoublePenetration series, making twice the money as of a mainstream movie & at quarter the price to purchase. Boats, fast cars, villas abroad & 2 holidays a year was his childhood.

& still wanting it all now

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by GspotProductions

I didn't realize you could have 2 c4s site, we have Gspot clips4sale films it only turns over a sale or 2 a week, maybe I'll start some more.

I have a handful. I split them into different niches.

@ your thread, nice to hear how porn certainly was big money years ago. Personally hearing about the big money available, with my partners family business, a chain of video shops, the 'under the counter' porn movies like the DoublePenetration series, making twice the money as of a mainstream movie & at quarter the price to purchase. Boats, fast cars, villas abroad & 2 holidays a year was his childhood.

for those who were in it, there was great money and for a few a fortune that makes the big boys today look like minnows.

The reason was the lack of marketing required to get people to look at porn.

And the ease of putting up a site that offered people porn.

Even when legal a magazine owner had to get the magazine compiled, printed and delivered. That meant small niches like spanking were very expensive to get out to the public, they relied on word of mouth, a couple of shops and mail order.

The UK had 5 magazine publishers of any note. Between them, they sold 2 million magazines a month at $8 a piece. Imagine $16,000,000 in membership sales coming out of the UK every month.

Now use that math and project it around the world. Now add videos. Then divide it among the retail players. This is what made real porn barons.

[JFK]

Originally Posted by SteveHardeman

Actually, I'm interested in hearing more stories about the old days from a guy who lived it. Keep going, please.

Agreed !!!

Love this shot !

[NatalieK]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

for those who were in it, there was great money and for a few a fortune that makes the big boys today look like minnows.

The reason was the lack of marketing required to get people to look at porn.

And the ease of putting up a site that offered people porn.

Even when legal a magazine owner had to get the magazine compiled, printed and delivered. That meant small niches like spanking were very expensive to get out to the public, they relied on word of mouth, a couple of shops and mail order.

The UK had 5 magazine publishers of any note. Between them, they sold 2 million magazines a month at $8 a piece. Imagine $16,000,000 in membership sales coming out of the UK every month.

Now use that math and project it around the world. Now add videos. Then divide it among the retail players. This is what made real porn barons.

That's a huge amount of profits! Mega millions!

When my partner family had the video shops, most movies were in the region of £30 to £70 depending on the title, terminator, the £70 to purchase a copy, each shop would have 3 or 4 copies & rent out nightly for £1.50 a night.

The under the counter, hardcore porn, £10 to £20 to buy and rent out for 3.50 a night, also, you only need a few copies of each & pass them around the shops as they didn't go out of new like new mainstream titles, like they do now. Massive amounts of of profits.

We're lucky with little payout, me modelling, he editing & filming. We'd have appreciated the business back then like you did! We only got together in 98, strangely, when Model Centro started, now with my MC site, coincidence?

[rayadp05]

There were also a lot of hairy bushes back in the day too.

[L-Pink]

Good stuff Paul

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by JFK

Agreed !!!

Love this shot !

Spent hours searching via Googler for shots of me or girls I knew from before I was shooting. I think this was one of the girls. What I am sure about is the location, I do know that wall.

Worked in front of it a couple of times.

[billywatson]

Paul -- this is awesome! Love it...what part of the world do you call home now?

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by billywatson

Paul -- this is awesome! Love it...what part of the world do you call home now?

A small town outside Brno.

[Goethe]

Great read. Thanks. First pic reminds me of Our Friends in the North

[Paul Markham]

Back in the day, the most legal UK porn could show was pubic hair. This is Francoise Pascal, who by coincidence I had known during my time working as a trainee chef, she was a kitchen hand, which entailed clearing up after the mess the chefs and cooks made.

We went out a couple of times after work, cold fish and no chance of more than a kiss. So it was a shock to see her like this. These pictures were the first magazine pictures to come out which showed pubic hair. Previously is had been illegal porn or pictures airbrushed to remove any hint of a crack. All his girls had to be shaved first before he could photograph them. Guess who did the shaving?





So if a person had pictures like this for sale, it was an easy market to sell to.







Soft enough to not get raided by the police, or so I thought, hard enough to fly out the door. It was a thin line to tread and sometimes I erred on the side of caution. Still a set of 5 pictures like this would sell for £5 a set. Bigger sets sold for more.

All I had to do was find a constant stream of girls to keep customers coming back. Updates have always been important. Thankfully being able to offer girls £50 to £100 for a shoot. It was never a problem. One girl a week would be enough.

Model at £75 for a session
3 rolls of print film plus processing = £75 giving me 500 pictures

Total costs £150.

Sell the softer ones to magazines like Razzle for the Readers Wives section. For £100 and the profits were amazing.


My better end works, nice girl and very friendly.

I shot this amateur stuff from the 80s to 2008 and received the last payment for that work in 2010 from a magazine. Later Club International did the same Readers Wives Section doubling our payout for pictures we did on castings.

[CaptainHowdy]

Beautiful thread, Paul.