Editing Soho (section)

===Sex industry===
[[File:saint annes ct.jpg|thumb|left|[[St Anne's Court]] in the early 1960s]]
The Soho area has been at the heart of London's [[sex industry]] for more than 200 years; between 1778 and 1801, [[Manor House, 21 Soho Square|21 Soho Square]] was location of the White House, a [[brothel]] described by the magistrate Henry Mayhew as "a notorious place of ill-fame".{{sfn|During|2009|pp=110–111}} Shortly before World War I, two rival gangs, one led by Chan Nan (also called "[[Brilliant Chang]]") and the other by Eddie Manning, controlled drugs and prostitution in Soho. Both were eventually arrested and imprisoned; Manning died midway through a three-year sentence in 1933.{{sfn|Kirby|2013|p=47}} Following World War II, gangs set up rings of prostitutes in the area, concentrated around Brewer Street and Rupert Street. Photographers also visited Soho in the hope of being able to [[blackmail]] people caught in the act of visiting prostitutes.{{sfn|Glinert|2012|p=844}}

When the [[Street Offences Act 1959]] drove prostitution off the streets, many clubs such as the Blue Lagoon at [[50 Carnaby Street|No.&nbsp;50 Carnaby Street]] became fronts for it.<ref>{{cite book|title=Dancing in the English Style: Americanisation and National Identity in Britain 1918–50|first=Allison|last=Abra|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=129|year=2017|isbn=978-1-784-99433-4}}</ref> Gangs controlled the clubs and the prostitutes, and the police were bribed.{{sfn|Kirby|2013|p=49}} In 1960 London's first sex cinema, the Compton Cinema Club (a members-only club to get around the law), opened at 56 Old Compton Street. It was owned by [[Michael Klinger (producer)|Michael Klinger]] and [[Tony Tenser]] who later produced two early [[Roman Polanski]] films, including ''[[Repulsion (film)|Repulsion]]'' (1965).<ref>{{cite news |first=Matthew |last=Sweet |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-lost-worlds-of-british-cinema-the-horror-525200.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090608213835/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-lost-worlds-of-british-cinema-the-horror-525200.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=8 June 2009 |title=The lost worlds of British cinema: The horror |newspaper=The Independent |date=29 January 2006}}</ref> As post-war austerity relaxed into the "swinging '60s", [[clip joint]]s also surfaced; these unlicensed establishments sold coloured water as champagne with the promise of sex to follow, thus fleecing tourists looking for a "good time".{{sfn|Hutton|2012|p=90}} [[Harrison Marks]], a "glamour photographer" and girlie magazine publisher, had a photographic gallery on Gerrard Street and published several magazines in the 1950s and '60s. The model [[Pamela Green]] prompted him to take up nude photography, and she remained the creative force in their business.{{sfn|Hutton|2012|p=61}}

[[File:Agent.provocateur.london.arp.jpg|thumb|[[Agent Provocateur (lingerie)|Agent Provocateur]], lingerie retailer at 6 [[Broadwick Street]]]]
By the 1970s, the sex shops had grown from the handful opened by Carl Slack in the early 1960s. From 1976 to 1982, Soho had 54 sex shops, 39 sex cinemas and cinema clubs, 16 strip and peep shows, 11 sex-oriented clubs and 12 licensed massage parlours.<ref name=LowCulture>{{cite book|title=British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation|first=Leon|last=Hunt|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781136189364|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXyMAQAAQBAJ|page=24}}</ref> The proliferation of sex shops dissuaded some people from visiting Soho.{{sfn|Glinert|2012|p=845}} The growth of the sex industry in Soho during this time was partly caused by corruption in the [[Metropolitan Police]]. The [[vice squad]] at the time suffered from police officers enforcing against [[organised crime]] in the area, while simultaneously accepting bribes. This changed following the appointment of [[Robert Mark]] as chief constable, who began to crack down on corruption.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8037604/Sir-Robert-Mark.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8037604/Sir-Robert-Mark.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Sir Robert Mark |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |date=1 October 2010 |access-date=8 November 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In 1972 local residents started the [[Soho Society]] in order to control the increasing expansion of the sex industry in the area and improve it with a comprehensive redevelopment plan. This led to a series of corruption trials in 1975, following which several senior police officers were imprisoned.{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=845}} This caused a small recession in Soho which depressed property values at the time Paul Raymond had started buying freeholds there.<ref>{{cite web|title=Paul Raymond the King of Soho|url=https://strip-magazine.com/articles/paul-raymond/|date=27 December 2013|website=Strip Magazine|access-date=15 June 2016}}</ref>

By the 1980s, purges of the police force along with pressure from the Soho Society and new and tighter licensing controls by the [[City of Westminster]] led to a crackdown on illegal premises. The number of sex industry premises dropped from 185 in 1982 to around 30 in 1991.{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2008|p=846}} By 2000, substantial relaxation of general [[Censorship in the United Kingdom|censorship]], the ready availability of non-commercial sex, and the licensing or closing of unlicensed sex shops had reduced the red-light area to just a small area around Berwick Street.{{sfn|Glinert|2012|p=430}}<ref>{{cite news |url=http://content.met.police.uk/News/Soho-drug-dealers-jailed/1400019263878/1257246745756 |title=Soho drug dealers jailed |work=Metropolitan Police Service |date=19 August 2013 |access-date=6 August 2015 |archive-date=28 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170228001156/http://content.met.police.uk/News/Soho-drug-dealers-jailed/1400019263878/1257246745756 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Much of the business has been reported to have been run by Albanian gangs.{{sfn|Glinert|2012|p=430}} By the end of 2014, [[gentrification]] and competition from the internet had reduced the number of flats in Soho used for prostitution (see [[Soho walk-up]]), but the area remains a [[red-light district]] and a centre of the sex industry in London.<ref>{{cite news |title=So long, Soho |url=https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21637452-londons-seediest-district-hints-some-ways-capital-changing-so-long-soho |date=30 December 2014 |newspaper=The Economist}}</ref>