Back when MTV was just finding its feet and music videos felt like the wild west, plenty of artists tried to push the envelope. But few pushed it off the table, out the window, and into another galaxy the way Soft Cell did with their infamous 1981 video for “Sex Dwarf.” It wasn’t just edgy — it became the stuff of legend, soaked in controversy and banned into near-myth status.
The Vision: Horror, Sleaze & Raw Meat
Let’s be real — the song itself was already provocative. “Sex Dwarf” was the B-side to “Tainted Love” and, lyrically, it was dark, twisted, and brimming with underground club energy. So when director Tim Pope (known for videos with a surreal flair) got involved, he didn’t hold back. He took cues from horror flicks like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and leaned all the way into the grotesque.
The result? A chaotic, NSFW fever dream. Think full nudity, simulated orgies, BDSM imagery, and scenes so graphic they sound made up — but weren’t. The production reportedly involved real sex workers, piles of raw offal, and live maggots flung at performers (yes, really). One shoot reportedly destroyed the studio floor. It wasn’t just edgy; it was deliberately disturbing.
The Fallout: Bans, Raids & Tabloid Mayhem
The backlash was swift and intense. One early screening allegedly turned into a full-on club riot. British tabloids had a field day. The police raided Soft Cell’s headquarters, confiscating all known copies of the video. The band was slammed with accusations of obscenity and sexism, fueling the scandal even more.
Over time, the video became music video folklore. This was pre-internet, after all — you couldn’t just Google it. Rumors spread that the footage had been destroyed or only existed on bootleg VHS tapes. For years, Marc Almond and Dave Ball would even deny it existed, further feeding the fire. Almond later admitted it “caused a lot of problems,” including fending off fabricated stories — like a dwarf claiming he’d been drugged into appearing in it (he hadn’t).
The Cult That Followed
Despite — or maybe because of — all the chaos, “Sex Dwarf” helped carve out Soft Cell’s image as defiant outsiders. They weren’t here to be palatable. They were here to be something else entirely. The controversy only made their fanbase more devoted, especially among people who didn’t fit into pop music’s usual mold.
To this day, the video remains banned from UK television, standing as a relic of a time when artists were testing the limits of what music videos could say — or show. “Sex Dwarf” wasn’t just a track or a video; it was a challenge, an explosion of sexual politics, grime, and glam that refused to play nice.
And in the end, it became exactly what it wanted to be: unforgettable.