Any dopers ever work in an adult bookstore? What was your attitude about it? Were you turned on or thoroughly disgusted? Or didn’t it matter, “a jobs a job”.
When I was 19, I was in the Reserves. Rather than take a machine gunner’s course, followed by Comms, I took a job for two months in a Triple X movie shack that sold cheap cigarettes and magazines, as well as renting movies.
Nothing particularly bothered me about the job - not renting porn, not meeting the people who rent it. I was always a little confused by the business model, because 80% of the daily revenue came from the cigarettes, making the movies more of a pain in the ass than they were worth.
Like working at KFC and never eating fried chicken again, porn became immensely boring to me. I was never particularly interested in it before, but after working there, anything stronger than the cover of a Playboy was a turn-off. Admittedly, I was in art school at the time, and had already done two semesters of figure drawing, so nudity in general was dull to me.
There were a few rewards: calling prominent citizens to ask about overdue movies (“Hi, Mr. local news anchor. You rented ‘In and Out of Africa’, and it’s late”). The clientelle wasn’t particularly gross or nice, and some of the regulars (like Danny, a 70 year old man who stopped by daily to buy a cigar) were fun to talk to.
The whole experience was grotty enough that, when I went back to university in the Fall (and went on second weekend rotations with the reserves), I quit despite a $0.50/hour raise that was offered. It wasn’t the porn - it was the whole package. It was a cheap little house in a bad part of town. I was only earning a dollar above minimum wage. People would occasionally phone, looking for phone sex; I never figured out why they thought I’d be interested (I was laughing about it one night, and a patron asked; I told him about the callers, and half an hour later, received another call: “Um, I, uh, was told that, uh, you like to have phone sex. Have you ever, uh, tried it with, um, a man?”). Overall, it was just kind of low.
I never worked in an adult bookstore as such, but like the previous poster, I did work with the videos. More precisely, my last year-and-a-half in college, I worked in a video store that did the majority of its business in pornography.
It was a bit odd in the beginning, but after the first couple of days of seeing close-ups of sex organs, naked bodies, etc. it really is desensitizing, though as I recall most of my co-workers did take advantage of the free rental policy. I dunno. The movies that I had to review for defective tape refunds seemed pretty passionless and boring, but maybe that’s a female thing.
The experience wasn’t a bad one; in fact, I count it as the most fun I’ve ever had at a job (though maybe my view would be different if we hadn’t also done a substantial business in regular films). Of course, you’d get the occasional jerks who’d return ‘greasy’ films, but by and large the clientle ran the gamut from indifferent to really nice (my favorite was the guy who put down a stack of six homosexual porn films and jokingly insisted they were for his mother).
So, in answer to the basic question, I can’t speak to bookstores, but working in a place that dealt in videos (much more visually accessible than the books, I’d think), I’d say my reaction fell into the “a job’s a job” category.
“Survey-style” questions such as this are best addressed in In My Humble Opinion.
I’ll move the thread there now.
Closest I can think of is that my best friend is working at a Multimags where they sell porn magazines.
I worked for a time in a porn store where they sold films, rented films, sold magazines, toys, oils, some clothing and condoms of all types and styles. They also had a couple of tiny ‘booths’ where for a fee you could watch a flick in privacy, in the back section.
Aside from the booths, I liked it. I thought it was fun, the occasional sleaze and obvious pervert notwithstanding. I had to keep an eye out for the younger set, mainly the guys, because they’d come in all wide eyed, try to act cool and then try to steal some of the wrapped porn mags or dildos because they were not 18 years old. For some books, you needed to be 21.
Luckily, we kept a very low stock of rental films so I did not often have to fuss with them. We did a pretty good business in selling gay films and, I have to say that I got real tired of seeing full color magazine and film covers showing two or more guys doing it to each other.
I disliked going into the private booths too. They were painted flat black inside, with a chair or two, a trash can and situated near the johns. Often they kind of smelled – if you get my drift. I used rubber gloves when dumping the trash cans. I had to spray the seats and door knobs down with a scented disinfectant. Sometimes I had to clean ‘things’ off of the TV screen.
I used to love it when young couples decided to view a film back there – most did more than view. You could always tell by looking at them before they went in. Technically, I was supposed to not allow that but a walk back there and I could hear assorted interesting grunts and little moans and I just left them alone.
Besides, they left less of a mess than single guys.
I liked it when a couple would come in, she looking slightly embarrassed and he trying to look all knowing and after walking all over the store, especially past the big central display of assorted latex dildos, they’d pick up a few small, cheap things, whisper to each other, she would look excited and embarrassed and he would go over to the display. He’d pick out either a small or a huge dildo while she hung back, pay for everything and they would hurriedly leave.
Some of the women who came in alone bough dildos, films, scented oils and I noticed that if they sported tattoos, most bought ‘kinky’ things. Like nipple rings, spiked collars, nipple caps, whips, those battery operated dildos with knobs, ridges and probes and flavored lotions.
I sold a lot of colored condoms and condoms which glowed in the dark – though I had to warn buyers that the latter was not considered as protection against STDs.
I once sold a novelty dildo that was as big as a deli salami log and cost $60. When I started to ask the guy why, he interrupted me and said ‘don’t ask, but yeah, it probably would fit.’ He didn’t sound real happy.
I got some complaints from lesbians because I did not stock enough lesbian films, so I told my boss and he ordered more.
Now and then some prude would reluctantly wander in, stroll around looking at everything with a tight, poker face, and on the way out, ask me if I was Christian. When I would say yes, he or she would seem shocked. One asked me how I could justify working in such a ‘smut’ place and I just replied that I liked porn. My boss used to get a lot of complaining letters from the religious right. He tossed them.
We used to have a selection of ‘pocket pleasers’ which were cute little dildos in cases that looked like compacts. Some were battery operated, some were latex, some were in cool colors and others all bumpy. You would be somewhat astonished at how many women bought those things and how many guys bought them for their girls.
We kept a display of samplers out for sexy perfumes and most of the women who came in just had to try them. Some days, the place smelled like a French house of ill repute. I loved it.
We sold rubbers at a discount and I used to get a kick out of the girls who came in and would buy something like 200, heavy duty, spermicidal basic condoms. Working chicks, mostly, and, back then, mostly pretty cute. Guys who came in to buy 100 colored, spermicide coated ones either grinned with embarassement or tried to look like studs.
One tranvestite who came in to buy a bunch told me proudly that she/he had a fine ass. I guess I believed he/her. I must say that they way he/she was made up, he/she looked good!
Well, enough for now. This is getting long.
Did he, by chance, have a British accent?
No ten inpunded, I assume?
No, more like no 24 impunded. 
I met a girl once whom it probably would have fit. I know I certainly didn’t.
We kept those things in a predominate display and hey are kind of heavy. They came in colors ranging from pink, to black, to milk white, to bright yellow. Mostly men bought them for parties or pranks, but now and then, … well, I don’t know.
You kind of develop a sense for the clients when they come in. I kept a close watch on anyone who looked under 21, was dressed in baggy clothing and who swaggered with that damn ‘gangsta’ limp. They usually were not there to buy anything, but they would steal.
I kept a gun under the counter. (A beautiful .9mm semi auto.) Sometimes the little bastards would try to hold us up. It never happened to me, but it happened twice to my boss.
There were the long, lean, skinny guys who came in with that look in their eyes and they bought things that cause pain and films – both gay and regular – dealing with pain. You did not want to touch their hands.
Mostly the clients were ordinary men and women. Mainly men. They bought a selection that ranged mainly in the straight with some mild experimentation – like electric dildos, butt plugs, rubber vaginas, blow up dolls and accessories, strap-ons, regular magazines, some oils and lotions and candy panties. (Not too many bought the candy panties more than once. They start to melt in a ‘certain’ area when worn by an excited woman. Messy.)
The kinks came in with shaved heads, lots of body art and piercings, strange clothing and were frequently accompanied by their women – who could often be weirdly beautiful! I mean built! Push-up bras, tight! vynal or leather shorts or pants, boots with spiked heels, low cut blouses and hot jackets. Topped off by like 67 earrings in their ears, colored and teased hair, and a gold pin in their lip. I loved it when the colored contacts hit the streets because one of these hot beauties would walk in with impossible blue eyes, or brilliant red, silver rimmed or even gold.
The guys, well, they always seemed too lean, acted like they were looking for trouble and I got real damn tired of gang and biker tattoos.
When the Goth movement started, we had to start carrying fake blood, fake fangs, some gothic costumes -one color, black - and increased our stock of mild bondage flicks. (Mainly dress-up in black leather, a little handcuffing, some slapping, some mild whipping and lots of posturing and ordering about followed by captive sex.)
Most of the ‘Vampyer’ men and women who dropped in looked either too plump (not fat, but that spoiled plump look), too crazy, too into their gig, and acted too superior.
Well, 'nuff for now.
Very interesting stuff, Prism02!
I once rented a porn tape from the “adult room” at a regular videostore when I was home alone for a weekend. The clerk had some kind of technical difficulty at the checkout desk and said in a LOUD voice, “did you get this tape out of the adults only room, ma’m?” Jeez, say it louder, pal! To make matters worse, the tape just snapped in my VCR, and I took it back prepared to hand over my grocery money for the week. But the store was cool, they took it and said don’t worry about it.
I would like to visit our city’s X-rated bookshop just out of curiosity, but I just can’t go in alone and can’t get anyone to go with me!
Yeah. I saw a lot of couples come in that way – mainly the guy escorting the girl and she was trying not to look too eager. Some people acted like touching the goods might get them a disease but we kept the store clean. I burned cones and sticks of mood incense and when the women tried the perfume samplers, the place smelled exciting.
I was supposed to stop men from, well, ‘doing things’ in the booths but I didn’t want to barge in on some guy with his thing in his hand. Besides, it did not happen too much. At least most guys were clean and dropped their tissues in the garbage can.
Now and then undercover cops would come in and try to get us to produce supposedly hidden ‘chicken and kiddy’ films or magazines or give them leads were they could buy some. We did not have any nor did we have any leads.
We did not deal in that stuff.
You know, though, considering the big problem with child molestation and kiddy porn, we did sell a lot of ‘babydoll’ films, magazines and clothing. (That’s where the adult actress dresses up and acts like a schoolgirl, complete with pigtails. We also sold babydoll nighties, panties and wigs.)
I did find it somewhat amusing when older women came in from time to time and bought films with some of the youngest male actors in them that we had. (Women in their 40s and such.)
It was even more fun when some woman dressed like she was 20 came in with a guy in his 20s, she obviously had been there before and he had not, and they would buy assorted dildos and jellies and when they got to the counter, I’d notice that she was not 20. She would look good, but she’d be in her 40’s. Sometimes, to keep up with the game, I’d card her like I thought she was under age and that would please the heck out of her.
A whole sub-group of friends I used to have all ended up getting jobs either working either behind the counter at this one particular adult video shop, or at the related pay-per-view movie sales department which was located in the same building.
My sister was dating one of the guys, who answered the phones when people called up to order pay-per-view porno movies. What they offered was pretty mainstream, and he used to say lots of people would call asking for weird stuff they didn’t have, like stuff with animals. He mentioned once that most who requested animals had strong Southern accents, so one day my sister calls up the 800 number and goes, “Do you have dog fckin’ I’m just dyin’ to see some dog fckin’” in this really thick, girly Southern accent. He was still sitting there stunned (apparently no one had ever put it so bluntly) when my sister finally admitted it was her.
We still laugh about it to this day.
I forgot about those films. We used to get some requests for them, especially one where a guy is ‘*******’ a chicken, but we did not carry any. I have no doubt that my boss would have but we had to be careful to stay within both the federal and local laws. As it was, we sort of stayed right on the line.
City councils have a way of suddenly deciding that while the video store down the street can sell porn movies in their back room, your porn store violates the pornographic laws by selling dildos. You don’t even want to get the religious minority involved because even if the Mayor himself comes in and buys strap-on’s and love lotion, he’ll side with them in shutting you down.
Under cover people kept checking us for kiddy porn and we decided not to carry an assortment of pipes used for smoking tobacco or herbs because then they would accuse us of promoting drug paraphernalia.
We carried black lights, fluorescent body paints, fluorescent underwear, dildos, naughty pillow cases, make-up -(that sold very well-, and fluorescent fingernail kits. The makeup and the dildos sold very well.
We carried those rubber Penis rings, but they did not sell very well. Now slide on attachments for the male member sold pretty good. (I have to be so darn careful here about describing things or I’ll get into trouble.)
Ben-wa balls sold pretty well, along with the battery operated version. 
Now and then things got interesting in the darker corners of the parking lot at night. I had to chase away guys who were whacking off in their cars, had a couple of tanked up men who solicited any woman who walked out of the place and I had to get rid of them. I caught couples doing ‘it’ and had to chase them off. (Both types of couples).
Several times I had some hookers taking up stations around the place at night. I didn’t always chase them off, unless too many of them started showing up. Now, I did have problems with the transvestite hooker mainly because (A) he was obviously an ugly guy, (B) he was pushy, (C) he annoyed my customers and (D) he got belligerent with me.
I had the cops haul him off. A week later he showed up all drugged up at closing, wanting to beat my ass so I threatened to shoot him in the leg and he left.
I liked the business. It was fun.
I got real steamed up not too long ago when I heard of a MEGAPORN store going in out in the western side of a local city. There isn’t much business out there, except for these small places mainly run out of converted storage buildings and small strip plaza-like things. Suddenly all of the moralists and religious nuts started complaining about it and petitioning to have the place stopped. I don’t know if they did or not. (You know how news works – hey tell you of the big story and then drop the rest.)
We are not allowed to have a porn only store here – though video shops may rent tapes and some small shops are allowed to have ‘back rooms’ with some porn goodies. No topless bars allowed at all.
I like porn. I figure that 75% of the men like some form of porn, though the 25% of that 75% who claim they don’t are liars. They just feel guilty about it or are politicians.
Did I mention some of the costumes we carried?
Mainly, of course, for the women. We carried a satin-like nurses outfit. (Like you see in those sexy TV shows.) Complete with toy stethoscope. It came in large, medium and small. It was made mainly out of that iridescent white polyester material and not made to last. We sold quite a few of those at $30 a pop. (Next to it, of course, we had a selection of white, brief panties of various sorts.)
Then there was the infamous ‘Baby-doll’ outfit in the same sizes. That consisted only of the top, came in scarlet, jet black, pure white, pink, green and blue. We carried matching panties. Pink and Black sold very well. (So did he pigtail, cheap wigs we kept near it.) $30. (It had less material in it than the nurses outfit and was transparent.)
Side note: A whole bunch of young women bought those. So did a whole bunch of young female hookers. So did some young homosexuals. A couple of dancers not only bought some, but spangled panties to go with them (panties with sequins or extra shimmer added) and black light makeup. They wore them with bunny slippers or gogo boots in their act under a blacklight spot. (YESSSSSS! YESSSS!)
We carried a Vynal bondage outfit – the ‘leather’ bra, studded ‘leather’ collar, ‘leather’ stocking harness, ‘leather’ whip, old style nazi/biker hat and mask. The bra was open in the cups to expose nipples. It was all plastic and sold for $50.
For the men, we sold an assortment of polyester, ‘shimmer’ skivvies. (Briefs. I used to call them grape smugglers.) Plus shimmer boxers – many of them designed to tear away. G-strings in several colors. Tank tops, polyester, shimmer, various colors.
We sold plastic ‘construction hard hats’, black masks like Zorro wears, tear away ‘leather’ pants, bondage harnesses, leather, studded wristlets, full head zipper masks, black, Vynal ‘biker’ jackets, plastic police helmets, plastic police night sticks, shiny, blank police badges and handcuffs. Toy ‘police’ guns also. That outfit cost (the cop one) something like $100 to assemble and we sold quite a few.
Ah, yes. The games they like to play.
We sold a bunch of mood lighting also. Little lights that had low wattage colored bulbs in them in colored holders, optical lights which flickered to music, other lights which used color wheels to change the color of the room and optical fiber rainbow lamps. I liked those.
Hmm. Lots of viewers but no posters.
Cowards.
Now and then we used to get men and women trying to return dildos – which we would not take back even if they assured us they had never been used. How could we be sure? None came in blister packs then.
I did somewhat have to keep myself under control when these men with huge pot stomachs from years of beer guzzling would buy a set of those bikini briefs (grape smugglers). Now, these men are the type you see wearing tight jeans that sit on their hips, far below the navel, because their stomach pokes about 8 inches out above them like an overhanging shelf. I tried real hard not to imagine what they would look like wearing the red, blue or black grape smugglers designed for athletic young men.
We had some bushes and stuff around the building and no other businesses real close. One night, after locking up, I went to my car and heard something around the corner of the building in the plants. So, I went and had a peek. One of the local hookers was servicing a customer there and from the looks of it, was getting one heck of a ride. I left them alone, not being like the cops and others who just have to interrupt them in the process. Besides, I’m all for legalized prostitution.
I never worked in a porn shop, but I did work for Spencer Gifts about 20 years ago, when they sold vibrators.
Spencer had a very liberal return policy. Once, a woman was hanging nervously around the register while I was there. When I left, she went up to one of the clerks to return a vibrator. (The clerk was female, but quite underage.)
I returned as they were writing up the refund, and, since there was a line, started to write it up before I realized what she was returning. She got a tad embarassed. :eek: (Of course, as far as anyone in the store was concerned, the item was no different from anything else we sold – just merchandise.)
When I asked her why she was returning it, she mumbled it didn’t work and I refunded her money. Later I tested it; it did operate but, of course, I had no way of knowing if it worked. 
I still sent it back as defective, though.
Prism, don’t leave anything out, 'mkay?
Cool thread. I’d work in a porn store - I love Good Vibrations in San Francisco - in a second.
Wouldn’t think of it, Mag.
We used to sell these cute novelty lighters that I’ve not seen in some time. I still have a broken one. It looks like a regular lighter, black, opaque and cheap. Flick the wheel and out pops a tiny penis! I loved it! I used to pull the gag on some of the women standing by the counter getting ready to light a smoke and they loved it too.
We had a small selection of these heavy porn books, story type, with no pictures and they did not sell well at all. So we replaced them with these little folder-like things, usually 10 pages or less, about 5 inches by 3 inches wide, with a cartoon on each page. They contained a short story which always ended by several pages of f*****g. They had something like them in the 40s called ‘dirty little comics’. They sold well.
I used to work for a european company-so I went over there a lot (Holland and germany mainly). What always amazed me was how many sex shops they had over there-and they were in nice neighborhoods, usually adjacent to a pharmacy or some other establishment. Shows you what prudes were are in the USA-this stuff never killed anyone (unlike cigarettes and liquor)!
Well, many people are reading but few are posting. Well, I’ll drone on some more.
I like smut. I like porn. I like sex. Repressive moralistic groups irritate me and two faced politicos burn me up. We used to have several of the local big city counsel members drop by on late nights, in very casual clothing and buy things, which they paid for in cash only. Yet each time there was some religious rant to get rid of us, those same people turned against us. The City attorney showed up once, with a two day growth of beard (like that would disguise him), with a very, very young girl not his wife and bought a dildo with attachments and love lotion.
We kept the tapes on those nights, from our surveillance cameras. Maybe that was why we never got shut down. One of the local girls came in with this old guy, rented a hot tape and they went into a booth. (Not that this was uncommon. I didn’t give a hoot.) I got ready. From a first aid box I kept handy I pulled out an ammonia capsule and a little single shot bottle of JD. 30 minutes later, she came out, looking bored, gave me a 10, grabbed the capsule and the shot and went back in. Sometimes, the girls kind of over taxed the older men and they’d pass out after blowing their rusty wad. Ammonia to bring them around, a shot of whiskey to give them their sea legs back. A few more minutes later and they left, with the old guy looking a bit wobbly and leaning on her a bit, but much more relaxed and happy. Luckily, none of them ever had a heart attack.
Heck man, I seen the old ladies some of these guys lived with, all baggy and draggy, looking like sunken prunes and about as sexually attractive as dirt. If the old guys could still get it up with a young hooker and feel like a stud again, more power to them. It’s a wise hooker who cultivates such clients because often they pay a lot just to be fawned over by someone 25 years old and dressed up hot who is willing to not only screw them but treat them like they really want it.
Now and then some cop would come in with a tape or book he snatched from some kid, demanding to know how the little b*****d got it. So, we’d zap the bar codes on the inventory stickers, run the sales date in our computer, find the day and hour it was sold, then locate the video tapes and turn them over to the officer. (I hope things go to small, CD sized video disks soon. We had major amounts of video tapes catalogued and they took up room.) He’d run it, find out that someone else bought the book and sullenly return our tapes to us as if pissed because he could not get us for breaking the law.
I suppose we sold to some minors, but not if we suspected and we had a camera in the roof, pointed right down on the check out site. Close zoom to catch it if they showed us fake ID while a camera behind us would catch them front wise. (My boss was good. He invested in an excellent system. None of those blurry, cheap, black and white convenience store taped records. A tape was not reused until we had a whole year recorded. Then we started with the first one and at the end of that year, they were pitched or stored somewhere.)
Kids were always trying to pass themselves off as adults. Sometimes it was very hard to tell, but their mannerisms usually gave them away.