IN THE FIRST SERIES of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, brickie Oz is being asked about a German prostitute he’d slept with the previous night. "Whey man – sex is in its infancy, in Gatesheed," he replied, enthusiastically.

It was nearly twenty years ago, but Gateshead’s moral guardians seem determined to keep it that way.

An application for a sex shop licence by a Rotherham-based company to open a "sex supermarket" on an industrial estate in Blaydon was met with fury from Gateshead councillors and local residents, whipped up by the Evening Chronicle’s reports that it would be stocking "sex aids, lingerie and bondage equipment".

This, of course, is the stuff of perverts and weirdoes; and the knee-jerk reaction was – as ever – to prevent it opening.

The site for the store, to be called ‘Pulse & Cocktails’, was chosen because it was far from local homes. Membership was required to shop there, and the store was to have a security system on the door that would prevent people accidentally walking in.

Yet 400 objections were lodged and, predictably, the Christian Institute and the Cornerstone Christian Fellowship lead the condemnation. Strangely enough, Blaydon’s many devil-worshippers weren’t consulted – but there you go. The application has been withdrawn.

Over the water in Newcastle, you can buy almost everything Pulse & Cocktails intended to sell, from the Anne Summers shop, on Grainger Street. This national chain is able to sell sex toys without a sex shop licence because the Local Government Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1992 states that more than ten per cent of a shop’s stock has to be of a sexual nature, to require a licence. That licence costs around £5,000 a year.

Newcastle has only one licensed sex shop: Sven’s, on Scotswood Road. But the council keeps a close eye on anyone else they feel may be trading without one.

However, the "10 per cent" rule is often flouted in Newcastle; nowhere more so than the Happy Chip, on Waterloo Street. This takeaway displays and sells a wide variety of sex toys, condoms and ‘poppers’ alongside the usual cod, haddock and savoloys - although the vibrators had been withdrawn when Newcastle Stuff paid a visit.

Bobby Johnstone and Yvonne Gilbert are partners in Propaganda, on nearby Low Friar Street, which sells club and fetish wear. They’ve been trading nearly two years, but have already had several visits from council officials and police.

"We’d been open about six months when the CID came in and accused us of being a sex shop," says Bobby. "They were quite heavy-handed, claiming they could seize the stock, and threatened us with bankruptcy."

Almost all the stock in Propaganda is clothing and accessories, and they sell no sex toys at all. Bobby and Yvonne say that almost everything in the shop could be worn in a club - although some people may feel a little uncomfortable on a hot night down at Shindig, in a plastic nurse’s uniform.

An application for a second sex shop license is to be heard by the council this month, for premises a few yards from Propaganda. An Edinburgh-based company wants to reopen the former Saturn 5 clothes shop, on Cross Street, as a store called ‘Erogenous Zone’.
The council have paid another visit to Propaganda, this time to ask if they would object to the shop opening near them.

"We told them ‘the more the merrier’," says Yvonne. "We’ve got a Chinatown, a Theatre Village and a Gay Village, so why not a Little Soho?"

While nobody in their right mind wants to see pornographers setting up shop in Newcastle, what Yvonne is alluding to, is a greater tolerance of people’s tastes and behaviour.
And this is currently being stifled by a law which obliges anyone who wants to dress up for a night at the club – or add a little variety to their sex lives in the privacy of their homes – to line the pockets of the dirty raincoat brigade.

The runaway success of Anne Summers and hundreds of happy Propaganda customers are proof that sex needn’t be a dirty business. Even in Gateshead.