as an expression of lad culture. These were men's lifestyle magazines that included glamour photography of scantily-clad female models. More explicit pornographic magazines also began to appear in the UK during the 1990s, typically imported from Scandinavia or the Netherlands, emulating the hard-core style of US magazines such as Hustler. These magazines featured masturbation, sexual penetration, lesbianism and homosexuality, group sex and fetishes. Hardcore magazines are typically only sold in sex shops or by mail order because UK law does not allow hardcore R18 certificate imagery to be sold at newsagents' shops. British softcore pornographic magazines have traditionally been sold in newsagents' shops and petrol stations. Their popular name "top-shelf magazines" derives from the tradition of keeping them out of the reach of children by placing them on the top shelf of the magazine display. By the end of the twentieth century British adult magazine market was in decline, but there were still about 100 adult magazine titles in the UK and the top ten titles had a combined UK sales estimated at 2 million. The market supported a growing number of specialist magazines whose titles indicated their contents: 40 Plus, Fat and 40, Skinny and Wriggly and Leg Love. Paul Raymond Publications dominated the market, distributing eight of the country's ten top selling adult magazines. Cinema The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was established in 1912 as the British Board of Film Censors by members of the film industry, who would rather manage their own censorship than have national or local government do it for them. It began operating on 1 January 1913. Its legal basis was the Cinematograph Act 1909, which required cinemas to have licences from local authorities. A court ruling determined that the criteria for granting or refusing a licence did not have to be restricted to issues of health and safety. Given that the law now allowed councils to grant or refuse licences to cinemas according to the content of the films they showed, the 1909 Act therefore enabled the introduction of censorship. The film industry, fearing the economic consequences of a largely unregulated censorship infrastructure, therefore formed the BBFC to take the process 'in house' and establish its own system of self-regulation. After the Second World War, developments in cinema technology stimulated the growth of a mass market, particularly the introduction of the 8mm and super-8 film gauges which resulted in the widespread