London's Soho, in the heart of the city, has always had a lawless quality about it. Boxed in between Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street, Regent Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, with its narrow streets and architecture dating back to the 18th Century or even beyond, Soho remains off the beaten path to the tourist coaches that roar around nearby Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.

By day, the area is a bustling centre of media companies, production houses, record labels and hip shops – categorised by trendy young things dressed in regulation black. But in the night time, Soho is transformed into a neon-lit hotspot dedicated to sex.

In the 1970s, Soho was in decline, full of “dirty” bookshops and overpriced revue bars where burly bouncers would strong-arm customers into purchasing £100 (RM700) bottles of non-alcoholic “champagne” in exchange for watching tired, middle-aged women strip off. Sleazy was an understatement, to say the least.

But in the 1980s and 1990s, the area transformed itself. Thanks to more progressive licensing regulations, the sex shops and strip clubs were able to operate legit. The outlets cleaned up their act and started acting like respectable businesses. And as sex itself went mainstream so did Soho, turning the area into one of the few genuinely late-night areas of the capital.

Sandwiched in between the erotic dancing and sex cinemas are scores of trendy bars and clubs, trading off the area's edgy reputation. Places like Madam JoJo's, mere feet from the site of the original Raymond Revue Bar that was Soho's archetypal symbol of decadence for several decades. Madam JoJo's nights offer anything from burlesque shows to cabaret and straight club nights.

The area is also one of the best places to get a late-night bite or simply sip cappuccino on its crowded streets in the afterdark. Old Compton Street, the heart of London's gay community is also home to Bar Italia (Frith Street), London's original post-clubbing chill-out cafe. For those with a sweet tooth, there's Patisserie Valerie, reputed to be one of London's oldest and still its most fabulous cake shop. In Soho overall, food comes in upscale varieties like the Gay Hussar on Greek Street to the ridiculously good value of The Stockpot on Old Compton. The Stockpot is where you can feast for under a fiver, a rarity in Central London.

Soho is also the natural home for lingerie emporia like Agent Provocateur on Broadwick Street. With one of the most risqué window displays in the city (the sex shops are required to have blacked-out windows), Agent Provocateur is sandwiched alongside several decidedly down-market adult bookstores and opposite one of the trendiest Malaysian restaurants in the city.

Soho is also a great place to shop. London's hippest hairstylists like Fish, and Cuts on Frith Street are found in the area, as well as countless boutiques offering street and upmarket designers. Another quirk in the city's licensing laws requires many sex shops to sell non-sex-related products, so the ground floors of many adult bookstores operate as discount bookshops offering everything from best-selling fiction to music and art and design.

Even the sex industry has gone upmarket. While there are still plenty of not-so-discreet brothels advertising “models”, and strip clubs that tout for business on the streets of Soho, there are places like Harmony, a sex shop with a department store-feel that targets couples, and lap-dancing bars like The Windmill, which occupies the historic Great Windmill Theatre building, that are more likely to be used as a corporate perk by both male and female execs than as a place for goggle-eyed post-teens.

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