I live in a beach community that has been renovating the downtown beach area. They've built a new hotel and another is on the way. Several restaurants are now operating and a new surf museum is being built. The shut down a pretty lousy strip club and now they are pressing the porn shop owner to sell so they can renovate the whole strip mall.

A few years ago I would have been upset about it and complained about religious nut jobs getting in the way of harmless entertainment. Now I'm wondering if they are even necessary. With the internet and "Netflix" like mail order services, why bother with a porn shop? I can see a newer Hustler store making sense. But the old school seedy porn shop with a bunch of jerk off booths in the back seem outdated.

your right it is outdated a lot of them have gotten shutdown I know two of them that got shutdown in pomona by where I use to live.
They get shutdown for 1 or 2 reasons one way is that a new school,church ect. has been built within less then a 1000 feet from the shop its the law so the gov makes them close down.
And 2 its been said here on xpt many times before with so much on the internet to do(downloads,vod,freesites,online stores,ect.) who in the hell would buy porn from a randown adult bookstore/25cent arcade where fags meet up to teabag after work or getting away from there familys as for the downlow guys.So to say they out lived their usefulness yes kind of they slowly dying off they are now becoming like the drive-in theater of the industry.

I don't know. There is a fairly large sex shop right up the street from me that seems to do well. They concentrate almost entirely on toys and things vs DVDs. Its very clean and modern on the inside. I think thats the key...making average soccer mom and dad feel safe as they buy something that will probably get used on him.

here in WI there were two along the interstate close to the state line.......there was nothing around them.....some of the land surrounding them was sold to Abbott Labs (lots of pressure) and a few frontage road widening projects (proposed still not materialized) and those shops closed......politically they had become a problem due to the rest area that was close by. The combo of porn shops, rest areas and truckers created all types of problems that seemed to have migrated out of the porn parking lots and into the rest areas...

so low and behold they are no more....

In NYC, I don't know how the shops that sell only dvds (meaning no peep or loop booths) survive. Their prices are outrageous. I've seen Evil Angel product in some of them for 40-50 bucks a pop. Particularly the she-male titles, which I'm told they can never keep in stock.

I've noticed that small porn shops in New Jersey ALWAYS have full parking lots, especially on weekends. It's beyond me, since there's little or no chance that anything truly "interesting" is happening there. I have to assume, though, that some have taken the place of Route 80 rest stops as gay pick-up joints.

The only reason I can see for buying in a brick and mortar would be to keep it from the wife. I see no other advantage. In Tampa they charge on average $45 for a DVD.

porn shops are better for buying toys than the internet.......I am a visual person and would rather see how big the dildo is and hold it in my hand than wait for a delivery......

nothing like running home and trying out your new purchase from the porn store....much more exciting than ordering it online

Fuck yeah they're done. But fuck'em because they always charged through the nose for product. Although it was always fun to hang out and watch what section people meandered over to. The one by my house was a super-dirty old one with blow up dolls and magazines. Good times...

All I can say is, help keep porn shops alive and thriving because they're beacons of free speech imo.

I haven't walked into a porn shop in years. No need. Besides, I hated how they always smelled like Pine-Sol. And we all know why that is...

Add the fact that they charge 40 to 50 fucking bucks for DVD's?? Geez. No way. Why would someone do that?

Well, maybe to pay in cash so the wifey doesn't find out..I just love answering my own questions.

In the last year, half of the stuff that's come through my post production house for editing and DVD authoring had been T-girl stuff.
Not my personal cup-o-tea but it helps pay the bills (I usually hand it off to one of my contract editors to work on).

I can only assume that a large population of closet homos exist that feel they can deny their predilections as long as there are tits involved.

A boat load of this crap comes from Brazil and Thailand, but I've noticed an increasing trend of American Trannies as well.

oh well. Whatever floats your boat. As long as I can keep filming young and/or beautiful girls taking dick (you know, girls without a "Y" chromosome), then who am I to complain what others want to pay for.

There's a multitude of reasons for porn stores to stay around.

A. You can buy porn with cold hard cash. That's important to a lot of people.

B. People like the tactile experience of shopping. Almost everything can be purchased online these days, but isn't always. I own probably close to 1000 Hollyood DVDs, and I love going to a movie store and shopping for them as opposed to buying online.

C. Toys as stated above are much better purchased in person.

D. There's something people like about being surrounded by porn in a porn shop, it gets your pulse going knowing that you are merely an hour or so away from Girlvert 13!

E. You can browse much easier in a store than online.

F. You can get your product immediately without waiting for a crappy quality download or Sasha Grey to arrive in your mailbox.

I could go on.

Yes, there are stores that have charged waaaaay too much for waaaaay too long. I constantly blog about this and try to educate stores about this. If you aren't pricing your product comparable to the internet and reasonable for people's budgets you are going to go out of business plain and simple. Apathy killed most brick and mortar stores, they have no one to blame but themselves. But there are great stores out there with great prices and selection. Problem is they aren't in every area, so until we have a Dreamers or a Taboo Video or a Fairvilla in every area, some areas are going to suffer.

Might want to thank the brick and mortar stores out there that are successful and doing things right because that's how every studio is staying in business. If you took that away and all they had were online purchases and VOD, no one would still be in business and you'd wind up with nothing new online but cheap, crappy quality home videos uploaded to tube sites, that while the amateurish quality can be appealing for a bit, will ultimately leave you unsatisfied.

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F. You can get your product immediately without waiting for a crappy quality download or Sasha Grey to arrive in your mailbox.

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Goddamn, you'd think you'd at least have to get FedEX involved in that one. God bless the US Mail system!

Fenris