h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is this for real? That the people who clean the tunnels and stations are called 'fluffers'?

I ask because it is a term that has a particular usage in the porn industry...

This rather begs the question - which meaning came first, as it were? Or are they genuinely mutually exclusive?

Absolutely true. I supposed it's because they "de-fluff" the underground by getting rid of all the hair and other debris on the tube rails and in the tunnels.

Never knew that it was also used in the porn industry though!!!

When I was a young, but fairly worldly Signalman at Piccadilly Circus (Bakrloo Line)back in the late sixties I first encountered a 'gang' of fluffers. Most gangs then consisted of six or seven usually mature and rumbustious ladies and a ganger (in charge)who had a programme of work and would descend upon a different station each night or in the case of Piccadilly for several nights. One gang would defluff, degrase and generally clean the escalators and another gang would clean the running tunnels. The gang would arrive at about 11o/c (23:00)and either go to the staff mess room or come to the signal box and wait for the last trains to depart. that night, if I was an innocent before, I certainly was not after they left!! I can understand how the term fluffer entred the pornography lexicology.

Fluffers ?...Porn ?... I must have lived a sheltered life.