The Duke of Westminster

I have just finished reading the biography of Gerald Grosvenor, the 6th Duke of Westminster. It is called The Reluctant Billionaire by Tom Quinn. There was a big scandal a few years ago when it was revealed that Grosvenor had spent lots of money on high-class prostitutes.

A journalist had interviewed a number of these girls and this is what he said:-

"They told me that it was either being an escort girl or doing cleaning jobs, which paid almost nothing and were often degrading. One said, 'If I had stayed at home it was poverty - no job, no life, no fun. In London I could live like a princess but only working as an escort girl. I could have been a cleaner or worked in a coffee bar for the minimum wage so I had to choose. I thought it would be better to sleep with the super-rich - even if they were old and boring and sometimes ugly!'"

Despite being a billionaire, Grosvenor didn't usually ask for the most expensive of the escorts from the agency that he used. They would have cost £5,000 per hour. Instead he usually paid between £500 and £1,000 per hour. The most expensive option would have been to pay £30,000 for one of the most expensive escorts to spend the whole day or night with him, but we don't know if he ever did that.

Of course, this is at the opposite end of what I have been doing, spending £50 or less for half an hour. In Soho, I used to spend £20 for 10 minutes. I think it is still true though that nearly all sex workers in Britain are not coerced and could work as a cleaner or in a coffee bar. The Radical Feminists and the Evangelical Christians tell people that women are coerced by violent pimps and not paid or they are in danger of homelessness or hunger.

Migrants come to Britain to avoid homelessness or hunger. Most don't choose sex work. They work as cleaners, in a coffee bar or somewhere else. Cleaners can be victims of modern day slavery and so can others, including sex workers. This is rare though.

The escorts said that Grosvenor was boring and the opposite of generous, but he wasn't abusive. I've often wondered why abusers like Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris did what they did. They could have paid for beautiful escort girls, as Gerald Grosvenor did, but instead they seemed to want to harm and upset women and girls.

One aspect of this book is that there is an attempt to explain why Grosvenor wanted to see escorts. It's as if people think that it is such aberrant behaviour that it needs to be explained psychologically, as a personality flaw caused by childhood unhappiness. It is said that he had a loveless childhood and was traumatised by his boarding school. This would have caused him to seek sex without involvement.

Yet we know that he was married, so it's not as if he avoided involvement. People sometimes think that men who pay for sex are unwilling or unable to form relationships. They pay for it because they can't get it in the usual way.

When you think what his ancestor, the 2nd Duke of Westminster, got up to it is difficult to see the 6th Duke as such a flawed person. The 2nd Duke - Hugh Grosvenor - and his contemporaries did not lead peaceful and contented lives. Drunkenness, divorce, promiscuity, casual relationships, gambling-addiction, suicide and drug-taking were very much part of their lives. The Queen had an uncle, Prince George Duke of Kent, who was a drug addict.

Gerald Grosvenor married Natalia Phillips. Her father was Bunny Phillips, who was Lady Mountbatten's lover. I was already aware of some of Lady Mountbatten's lovers (Leslie Hutchinson, Lord Molyneaux and Laddie Sanford) but Bunny Phillips was one I hadn't heard of. It seems you don’t have to be ladylike to be a Lady.

The aristocrat with the most interesting love life of the inter-war period, the period of Hugh Grosvenor and Lady Mountbatten, was Marmaduke Furness - 1st Viscount Furness. He had 3 wives. He was accused of murdering his first wife*. If he had been found guilty he would have been hanged, but it is said that as a peer of the realm it would have been with a silken rope.

His second wife was Thelma Morgan. As Thelma Furness she became mistress of the Prince of Wales and lover of Aly Khan (playboy son of the Aga Khan). His third wife was Enid Lindeman. He was her third husband (she had tried to get Hugh Grosvenor interested in her). She smoked opium and injected heroin. She had been married to a Brigadier General in Cairo and it is said she had sex with the entire regiment for a dare*.

Drinking and betting are a part of many if not most people's lives. Few people have long and happy marriages. If I buy bottles of whisky or lose money on a bet nobody will think it odd. Yet if I spend the same amount of money on spending time with a beautiful naked woman people think that it needs explanation. I've never understood the attraction of getting drunk or betting, I prefer to spend my money on more sensible things.

---

*Since writing this I have read more about these characters. It seems that the book I had read about them (The Mistress of Mayfair by Lyndsy Spence) is not accurate. It was only gossip that said Marmaduke Furness has murdered his first wife, no formal accusations were made, although the circumstances of her death and burial were unusual. Enid Lindeman was not a heroin addict. She - Enid Cavendish as she was then - did not have sex with the entire regiment, only the officers. So that's alright then.

local girls

I have said before that most men would want a sex worker who is young, tall, slender and pretty. I have found a couple of those locally in the last couple of months. Eva is Spanish and works at Overpool Angels in Overpool. Lily is English and works at The Office in Ellesmere Port. Both are a short walk from the Merseyrail stations, just one stop apart. I have seen Eva three times and Lily four times. Both have let me use my ultra thin condoms.

The combination of viagra and ultra thin condoms means that I can get and keep an erection easily and orgasm. I gave Eva £45 each time and Lily £50. I could have paid just £40 to see Lily but I gave her an extra £10 for oral sex without a condom. That's for half an hour. Much better value than Blackpool and about the same as Manchester.

I went to an older woman's house in Chester (Jackie) after I saw her ad in a local paper. She was nice and I was sure I would see her again but that was before I met Eva and Lily.

I saw Lily again on Tuesday this week. I had to wait to see her so I sat with the older woman, who I fancy. She had an American drama on the TV and she was also playing a game on her tablet. She asked me to help with the general knowledge. I tried flirting with her, reminding her of what we did together, but she made it clear that she didn't 'work the room' anymore. There were several phone calls and a man came to the door.

Lily is getting a bit picky now that she's becoming popular. She doesn't really like men coming inside her, she prefers it if they come on her tits. She let me use one of my condoms to begin with but then said could we change to a regular one. Then she said she wanted me to come on her tits. We tried, but it didn't work.

I left without having had an orgasm but I went one stop along to Overpool Angels. A woman opened the door. Eva wasn't there. I told her I wasn't going to hand over my money until I saw the sex worker, so that I could see if I fancied her. I sat on a corner of the bed and in walked another woman who I recognised as the 'maid' from previous visits. She's older, but I really fancied her.

It's funny that in February this year I went to Sheridans in Salford for the first time. I walked out because they tried to give me a much older woman. Most men who were expecting to see a young, tall, slender and pretty girl in her 20s like Eva would have walked out - if they hadn't paid already. I thought I would have a nice time with this older woman and I was right. I said I would have her if she let me use one of my ultra thin condoms like Eva does. She said fine, a condom's a condom.

She said her name's Amber. I think she's mixed race, she said she's naturally brown. She's quite small, with a small pretty face. I enjoyed shagging her, even more that Eva, and to judge from the look on her face she enjoyed it too. I orgasmed inside her. Afterwards she told me she had to fill in for Eva at short notice. Eva had remembered she had an appointment. I learned several interesting things from Amber talking to her afterwards.

She told me the reason why I had never been offered the bigger room with the four-poster bed when I'd come to see Eva. They keep it for other clients, but I won't go into the details. I asked her about young Italian Roberta, who I had shagged on the four-poster in June. Amber said that they had gone together on holiday to Mexico but Roberta didn't want to continue sex work.

Roberta told Amber that she was annoyed that none of the men came to see her again. She had been expecting that she would have regular clients, who would see her and no one else. That didn't happen, even though she gave them more than the minimum. I had hoped to see Roberta again but she wasn't there, so I saw Eva.

I guess my favourite age for a sex worker is about 40. I'm happy to go younger or older if I find them attractive. I can find a woman attractive even when she's not conventionally attractive. A smile or a laugh can be as important as a pretty face.

I'm giving up paying for sex for this winter. It's not as much fun in winter. I might start again in the spring. I'm trying to restrict my spending for a while. When my finances improve, I'm sure that I will continue: I can't think of any better way of spending £50 than having half an hour with an attractive woman.

You have to go round to the back of this row of shops. Look for the open gate with the number 30A. Go up the stairs to heaven with the angels. The two windows lit up above Bespoke Care Cheshire Ltd is where the room with the four poster bed is.

Nordic model in Northern Ireland

The Nordic model has been in place in Northern Ireland since 2015. This is supposed to criminalise men who pay for sex. Now there is a study which shows how effective it has been in reducing demand. The data shows that there has been an increase. "On the contrary, we found that the supply of commercial sexual services appears to have actually increased in the period following the implementation of the legislation." page 164

The study is called A Review of the Criminalisation of Paying for Sexual Services in Northern Ireland by Graham Ellison, Caoimhe Ní Dhónaill & Erin Early and it came out in September of this year. It shows that the Nordic model has not worked in Northern Ireland, neither has it worked in Sweden.

Other important statements from Chapter 10: Conclusions are

• none of the foundational claims of the Nordic model can be supported
• it is difficult to argue that Article 64A has had any noticeable effect on deterring sex workers from working or limiting their availability in the jurisdiction.   
• sex-purchase legislation is not particularly effective at reducing either the supply or demand for prostitution
• there have been few arrests, prosecutions and convictions under Article 64A and the two convictions that have ensued have had nothing to do with either human trafficking for sexual exploitation or prostitution
• an increase in anti-social, nuisance and abusive behaviours directed to sex workers
• purchase legislation in Northern Ireland has not significantly altered client behaviour
• the evidence base from Sweden and the Nordic countries generally is simply not strong enough to support the proposition that sex purchase legislation has led to the massive decreases in prostitution and human trafficking that are alleged to have occurred in those jurisdictions
• Article 64A has had minimal to no effect on the demand for prostitution, the number of active sex workers in the jurisdiction and on levels of human trafficking for sexual exploitation

I have copied-and-pasted the final paragraph of the conclusion at the end of this post.

Some people will say that I don't want the Nordic model to come to Britain because I fear conviction. There have been only two convictions so far, but neither of them were men who paid for sex. Both men were said to have offered payment for sex to females who weren't prostitutes. You have to wonder what is wrong with them. Were they just trying to be offensive? Were they drunk? Did they have a psychological problem or a learning disability? I don't proposition women in the street.

There are a couple of things that I found disappointing in this report.

Firstly, I would have liked to have seen data on who is prosecuted for brothel keeping. Are they mostly male or female? Are they young or old? I think that it will be mostly young women, this seems to be the case in the Irish Republic. I suppose the study is about demand, but the Nordic model is supposed to reduce demand and stop the criminalisation of prostitutes.

"The sex worker has to fear being recorded as a prostitute in police records, possibly being prosecuted for brothel keeping, losing her accommodation, stuff around immigration and so on. Remember even EU workers can be refused entry at airport/port once they are recorded as a prostitute by police." page 154

So no man has been convicted of paying for sex. Yet women are convicted of brothel keeping, evicted and deported. So much for 'shifting the burden'. That's the Nordic model for you. They say prostitution is violence against women but they do that to women. What bastards.

Secondly, the study doesn't point out that surveys in Sweden show an increase in active sex buyers after their 1999 law, from 1.3% in 1996 to 1.8% in 2008. It really does seem that the Nordic model increases demand, and if there is a decrease later it is because of other factors, such as the 2008 financial crisis.

"It may be disappointing for proponents of this legislation that the research did not uncover more evidence of a reduction in prostitution in Northern Ireland, particularly since this was hailed as such a success in Sweden, and one of the main reasons why the Nordic model (so termed) has been exported internationally.  However, we would respond by suggesting that the evidence base from Sweden and the Nordic countries generally is simply not strong enough to support the proposition that sex purchase legislation has led to the massive decreases in prostitution and human trafficking that are alleged to have occurred in those jurisdictions.  We noted in the Introduction that we are not aware of any prevalence studies from the Nordic regions relating to before and after the legislation was introduced, nor are we aware of any trend analyses of administrator data from ASWs that operate in these regions which would provide a clearer indication of prevalence rates. Certainly, the evidence from Northern Ireland based on a comparison of the before and after data suggests very strongly that Article 64A has had minimal to no effect on the demand for prostitution, the number of active sex workers in the jurisdiction and on levels of human trafficking for sexual exploitation."

A new law in Northern Ireland criminalises sex work – and endangers sex workers

in the news

A few posts ago I wrote about the arrests of women in Nordic model Ireland. Now there is proof that the Nordic model harms women but has little effect on pimps or punters. This is from The Irish News.

New research by UglyMugs, a sex worker advocacy service, taken from CSO statistics and media reporting of brothel keeping since 2009, found that young migrant women are the people most likely to be convicted of the offence.
The results show that the vast majority (85%) of those convicted of brothel keeping are female and most are aged 18-24 (30%) or 25-44 (59%).
All of the sex workers convicted appear to have been non-nationals, and in 22 of 82 of the cases (27%) it was stated that one or more of the sex workers being prosecuted was a mother.
In various cases it was also highlighted that a sex worker was supporting other family members.
In 79 of the 82 cases (96%) it appears the sex worker(s) pleaded guilty, which has stoked concern that sex workers are not availing of their right to have a solicitor present when being questioned. In two of the cases it was found the sex workers did not even have any legal representation in court.
In 42 (51%) of the 82 cases examined the sex worker(s) voluntarily pledged to leave the jurisdiction, or the judge ordered them to do so.
A total of 148 of the 165 individuals (90%) in the cases were named in the media.

So I was correct in my suspicion that most people who are criminalised under the Nordic model are young women. They are not only imprisoned but also deported. The prohibitionists are telling lies when they say they believe that prostitutes should be decriminalised. These young women have had their lives ruined by conviction, deportation and being named in the media.

These figures are from 2009 onwards whereas the Nordic model started in 2017 in Ireland. However, nothing has changed since 2017 in Ireland in terms of women getting arrested except that the penalties for brothel keeping were doubled. So these figures present a picture of what is happening in Ireland today. We know about women who have been convicted since 2017.

They should do a gender impact assessment for the 2017 Criminal Law Sexual Offences Act. It seems many women have been jailed or fined, mostly young women. One man has been fined for paying for sex. There will have been a few men who have been convicted of pimping. I know that it's no excuse to not know the law, but this is the first law where the state has lied about what is legal. People have been told that in Ireland prostitutes have been decriminalised. It's so unfair: they should release all the young women now.

Gunilla Ekberg, a prominent supporter of the Nordic model, said 'if you criminalise women your are in a situation where victims are penalised. It is in violation of international law'. She doesn't understand that prostitutes get arrested in Sweden just as she doesn't understand that the studies she praises showed an increase in active sex buyers after the law was introduced. 'In mid-November 2008 when a new research study was published, the number of purchasers or buyers was down to 8%. This is a good and trust worthy study -- solid, strong, and empirical.' It was a good study - but it showed an increase in 'purchasers or buyers' (active sex buyers) from 1.3% to 1.8%.

A survivor of the Magdalene laundries has been awarded an undisclosed five-figure settlement after she was forced to work unpaid for almost six years. This laundry was run by the Good Shepherd Sisters. They now help to run Ruhama, who campaigned to get the 2017 Criminal Law Sexual Offences Act which is causing all the problems. Why did the Irish state give them so much power then and now?

Also in the newspapers recently is the latest attempt to bring this cruel and hypocritical system to Britain. The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission has brought out a report The Limits of Consent. The chair of this commission is Fiona Bruce MP and she has announced her intention in Parliament to submit a bill to “end demand for prostitution”. Fiona Bruce is an Evangelical Alliance council member and sits on the All Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group. She has voted against allowing same sex couples to marry.

Dozens of academics and experts have criticised the report and issued an open letter. In Bruce's report it states: "Sweden established a ‘neoabolitionist’ approach in 1999 in which the provision of sexual services was decriminalised while the purchase was criminalised". So the young women who have been convicted and deported have been decriminalised? I don't think so.

Let me give you a taste of the sort of thing the report says:-

Surveys in Sweden show a reduction in the number of men reporting that they had ever purchased sexual services from 13.6% in 1996 (before the law against purchase was introduced in 1999), to 8% in 2008 and 7.5% in 2014. Several submissions reported that the industry did not shrink with the law change but moved online and indoors. However, a 2010 report by the Swedish Chancellor of Justice concluded that the number of persons in prostitution had halved overall and not just been displaced into off-street locations.

They are hiding the fact that the same surveys showed an increase is active sex buyers from 1.3% in 1996 to 1.8% in 2008. Hiding the fact that the number of men reporting that they had ever purchased sexual services increased from 8% in 2008 to over 10% in 2011, and that Swedish criminologists have said that the 13.6% to 8% drop is statistically impossible. All the other metrics of demand that increased: number of people selling sex, number of women selling sex, number of schoolgirls and young women selling sex.

Like so many of the prohibitionists they use the prevalence rate instead of the incidence rate that they should be using. The prevalence rate is a drop from 13.6% to 8% between 1996 and 2008. The incidence rate is an increase from 1.3% to 1.8% in the same years. I have dealt with this issue in detail here.

The 2010 report they refer to is the Skarhed report which does NOT say that the number of persons in prostitution has halved and does not prove that they had not been displaced. It said that there has been an apparent reduction in street prostitution by half. Not prostitution in general. Street prostitutes have always been a small fraction of prostitutes in general. The report says that as far as it can tell there has been no increase in prostitution in Sweden: it does not claim a reduction.

The Skarhed report does not say they know that street prostitutes have not started working indoors. What it does say is "Nor is there any information that suggests that prostitutes formerly exploited on the streets are now involved in indoor prostitution". So they just don't know. It does say though that there has been an increase in internet contacts and advertisements in magazines.

If the Skarhed report had said "Nor is there any hard data that proves that prostitutes formerly exploited on the streets are now involved in indoor prostitution" that would have been true. But there is plenty of information that suggests that they are.

I have written a lot more about this report in this page here.

Another thing in the news that irritated me is an article that states: “Studies show anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent of women who end up in the sex industry were sexually abused as children”. This is false. It does seem that between 50 and 90 percent of children who were victims of child sex trafficking had been involved with child welfare services.

The article was “Forgotten Women: How girls get swept into the sex industry – and how they can get out of it” by Lucy Anna Gray in The Independent. It seems that the Nordic model can only exist because of lies. There are two sides to this argument, but only one side relies on false statistics.

the brothels of Blackpool

In my last post I said that I thought I might have wandered into Blackpool's red light district - and that I would give you the name and number of the young lady I had a nice time with.

Research on the Internet showed that I was indeed correct in thinking that the King Street/Cookson Street area not far from Blackpool North train station is the red light district. There are five or six brothels in the relatively short road of Cookson Street, then a Thai brothel in King Street and a Thai massage place in a side street.

I could see on Google Streetview that they make no attempt to disguise what they are. You can guess from their names what they are. Natalie's Sauna, Frenchies Sauna, Secrets, Brooklyn's and Babylon. There's also Magaluf but that looked empty.

There may have been a few in Central Drive some distance away but they seem no longer to be there. They were supposed to be more discreet, usually with a back-alley and up steps entrance. There are supposed to be lots of street girls in Central Drive. I didn't see any, but I was there in the afternoon and I guess they only come out at night.

The Cookson Street brothels in Blackpool charge double the price of Manchester, there's less choice and they are less willing to do even basic things. You don't get the full half hour. They charge £70 for a blowjob and sex, but they might not let you get on top of them. If you just want a handjob they all charge £40. If you want blowjob or sex (but not both) they charge £60.

I went to Frenchies. There were two women there. I chose the one with black hair and glasses. No touching allowed, and the only sex was with her bending over at the end of the bed. She didn't tell me before I handed over the money that there was no touching and I wouldn't be allowed to get on top of her. Avoid her.

I also went to Babylon. There was one woman there. She was a middle-aged to elderly woman from Poland with hardly any English. I asked her if I would be able to use my ultra thin condoms. She couldn't understand to begin with but then was quite emphatic that I would have to use her condoms. She tried her best to make me happy although as I was walking away I realised I hadn't had my full half hour.

Her name is Victoria. She's of average attractiveness. She will be there for the next week or so before she moves somewhere else. Babylon is a nicer place than Frenchies. I also spoke to an attractive blonde at Natalie's Sauna who asked me why I was taking photos of the brothels. I told her it was for my blog.

I have also seen the nice young lady again in her hotel room. I wasn't intending to see her again but when I was investigating Central Drive I saw two women walking along. As we passed one of them smiled and said hello. They looked like ordinary young women, not street girls, and I didn't stop to talk.

A bit later I thought to myself 'Is that Erika?', the young lady I had seen on my previous trip. It's a bit of a coincidence but Hull Road where she lives is just round the corner from Central Drive. This woman looked prettier, with more makeup and nicer dressed than when I had seen Erika though.

I thought there's one way to find out. I still had her number in my phone so I texted her. I texted 'Hi Erika. You look very pretty today. Would you like to meet up later? About 5 pm like before?'. I was outside her hotel at 5 pm and she turned up late after numerous texts between us. She was wearing a skirt unlike the previous time and I could she had false eyelashes on.

In her room I handed over an unopened box of ultra thin condoms and she took one out for us to use. I don't know if she knows what the words 'ultra' or 'thin' mean: her English is not good. She gave me some oral sex, then she wanted to get on top of me, as before. I had given her £60, as before.

I wanted to get on top of her. She looked uncomfortable when I was fucking her. I asked if it was good, or bad. Sometimes what seem to be looks of discomfort can be looks of pleasure. She wasn't happy with me fucking her, so I stopped.

She had asked me if I wanted to lick her pussy. I said no. A bit later she asked me why I didn't want to lick her pussy. I said it's because I know she will ask for £20. She kept asking for it and I kept saying no. I said I would do it for £10 and she refused but then said yes. So obviously she prefers men licking her pussy to them fucking her. She likes a finger in her pussy when she's wanking herself.

She is on vivastreet (or she was) but the photos are not of her. She's plumper than the girl in the photos. Her mobile number is 07551226257. I almost got my full half hour with her. I won't be seeing her again. I probably won't be going back to Blackpool. Although there's a direct train from Liverpool Lime Street it takes more than an hour. I do like Blackpool though.

It's better going to the places near the part of Merseyside where I live, or Manchester. I had a choice of five girls once at the Piccadilly Club (Piccadilly Selecta) in Manchester, and they only charge £35 for half an hour. The local women charge £40 or £45 for a full half hour.

At Overpool Angels nearer to me there's a lovely young woman called Rochelle (also called Roberta or Robbie) who lets me use my ultra thin condoms. She also gave me oral sex without a condom. She told me she will be going on holiday to Mexico, but I think she would be back by now.

At The Office in Ellesmere Port is an older woman called Stella who said she would let me. Lucy did but doesn't work there any more, which is sad because she was good. She remembered me even though I hadn't seen her for weeks, and she remembered that I liked to use my special condoms. She said 'Have you got one of your condoms?', so I didn't even have to ask.

At Jays in Wallasey there was a woman there on Fridays called Stacey who said I could fuck her without a condom for extra money (she's not there any more). I told her I find nighties very sexy, and the next Friday she brought her nightie in and put it on for me.

I met a sad case at another place. I won't say who or where. She was going to get on top of me without a condom but I stopped her. I asked her to use a condom. I'm pretty sure she's a drug addict. She says she doesn't use them. I told her I do because it's always best to be safe. I thought to begin with she was being amateur and naive, but now I think she caters for abusive men because she really needs the money because of her habit.

I also saw lovely Thai girl Sara in Chester again. She was just as lovely as the first time I saw her in her nice flat down by the river.

UPDATE: Rochelle isn't at Overpool Angels anymore. She decided to quit, for reasons I might explain in a new post. There's a lovely young woman called Eva there some days. At The Office is a lovely young woman called Lily there some days. I might write more about them in a new post. I've seen both of them several times, and there is also a nice older woman called Amber at Overpool Angels.

my day trip to Blackpool

The first time I went to Blackpool was last week. Yesterday I went again, but this time I had the phone number of a woman I had found on vivastreet. It's quite simple, you just type 'Blackpool escorts' into Google and the first to come up is vivastreet. I texted her and asked if she was available that day. She replied that she was so I told her the time I wanted to see her.

Blackpool has a reputation for illicit sex. Men took their secretaries there for dirty weekends. Young men and women would meet each other and have sex. This happens at any holiday destination but Blackpool is notorious for it. Holiday makers stayed in boarding houses where you weren't allowed to share a room unless you were married, and this was the subject of a lot of humour.

Between the phallic symbol of Blackpool Tower and the sea is a paved area with the names of many comedians, both recent and from times past. These I expect are comedians who have appeared in Blackpool, I don't know if it was under the phallic symbol or at the end of the pier. There are some of their jokes there too, so many I didn't have time to read them all. Some of them are quite bawdy.

It would be nice if my favourite Benny Hill joke was there. I heard it again recently just by chance on the radio. He takes a woman to a boarding house and the landlady wants to see their marriage license. He gives her his dog license and she goes off to find her glasses. They lock the door, and when she comes back she bangs on the door and shouts "Whatever you're doing in there, stop it! Because this is not for it!".

I heard a comedian on the radio say that Benny Hill had made a rape joke and so it wasn't all innocent fun. Catherine Tate though made a rape joke more recently. Does that mean we shouldn't watch Catherine Tate? It seems many people don't like Benny because he appealed to working class people of a different generation. Catherine Tate had a character who one week was collecting money for 'all the little victims of sexual harassment in the workplace' and who said "Did you know that every 38 minutes some unsuspecting little temp in a short skirt bends over to file something in the bottom drawer and gets shagged up the arse?".

I texted her half an hour before I was due to see her but she didn't reply until 10 minutes before. I had to get to Hull Road. When I got there I could see that it was a street full of little hotels. I don't know if they would be best described as boarding houses or Bed-and-Breakfasts. I found the one where she was, but I wasn't sure what to do. There was an open door and I didn't have a room number that I could ring. I went into the lobby, then up the stairs. I could see that it was quite shabby and cheap.

She phoned me and said "Where are you?". She sounded a bit rough and I thought about abandoning it and walking away. I had taken a viagra an hour and a half before though so that would have been wasted. Up the stairs walked an attractive young blonde woman who gave me a lovely smile. She was wearing jeans and didn't seem to have any makeup on but she was of well above average attractiveness.

She led me to her small shabby but nice room. She went to the window and closed the curtains then started taking off her clothes. I couldn't quite remember how much it was for half an hour but I gave her 3 £20 notes and she seemed happy with that. She hardly spoke any English. She had the perfect body for me, not too skinny.

She looked lovely lying on the bed with her legs apart. Her pussy was beautiful. She played with her pussy and showed me how she wanted me to play with it, moving my fingers up and down on her clit. She made licking movements with her tongue and I could see she was inviting me to lick her pussy. Because it was so pretty and didn't smell I thought that could be good.

She wanted money for that though. I thought she said £10 so I got the money out of my trouser pocket. She wanted £20 though. I said I wasn't going to give her £20. There was a look of disappointment on her face, she thought for a second, then accepted the £10. I found her clitoris with my tongue, and also gave her labia minora a suck too. She put a condom on me (I had given her an unopened pack of 3 thin condoms) and got on top of me, riding me. Then she stood up and thrust her pelvis into my face, so I licked her cunt again.

We also did some fucking from behind, then with me on top. However, that didn't last for long because soon my time was up. I told her I would see her again next week for an hour. I'm not going to tell you her name yet because I don't want her to get booked up when I want to see her again. I can tell you her name in my next post. She definitely fits into the category of enthusiastic amateur.

When I was on my way back to the train station I went a different way from before. I saw this place which I thought looked like a brothel. On the outside it just said '10 King Street' and a neon sign saying 'Open'. I went to the doorway but was no wiser. I Googled '10 King Street' and it came up a Thai massage place. Different from any Thai massage place that I had seen before. I went inside the doorway again and a middle-aged Thai woman came out to talk to me.

I asked her how much is it for a half-hour massage. She asked if I wanted just a massage, then said they don't do just massage, they do full personal service for £60. I walked away and then just round the corner there was another Thai massage place. Unlike 10 King Street, this one said Thai massage in the window.

So I thought perhaps I had wandered into Blackpool's red light district. So if anyone can tell me about this little area, and especially about number 10 King Street, I will be very interested.

review of Paid For part 3

There are several different aspects to this book. One aspect, her own personal experiences, is very interesting. Another aspect, her comments on her experiences, is not interesting. For example, in Chapter 10 she says that she met 'advantaged middle-class women' who were prostitutes. That is interesting, because it contradicts what the 'abolitionists' say. When Moran comments that these women must all have something wrong with them, probably child abuse, that is not interesting, because that's just her opinion.

"They were privileged. They were educated, only to second level usually but even so, I am talking about well-to-do fee-paying private schools. They seemed to have had other viable choices open to them; they could have gone to university, they could have gone to work in daddy's business, but yet here they were in this awful place doing something they clearly hated and that obviously made them miserable." Chapter 10 page 96.

Moran wrote in the same chapter that she knew one woman who managed to save ten thousand pounds. This woman would have been even better off if she hadn't spent so much money on overheads - rent, advertising, mobile phone, taxis, clothes and shoes. Moran criticised her for this: "The whole idea was supposed to be about making a half-decent living, I'd say to her, for God's sake" page 92.

The ex-preacher Gavin Shuker (now an MP but not for much longer I hope) said this in a debate about prostitution in the House of Commons: "There is undoubtedly a huge supply of money, estimated by some to be £5 billion or £6 billion of our economy, but that money is not finding its way into the pockets of women who are exploited through this trade; it ends up in the pockets of pimps, exploiters and those who benefit from trafficking."

In the debate Moran's book was mentioned three times. It's almost as if they haven't read it. She wrote that the reason she and others became prostitutes was 'the opportunity to put roofs over our heads and food in our mouths' page 73. She didn't hand over her money to 'pimps, exploiters and those who benefit from trafficking'. So her experiences contradict what Shuker and other abolitionists say.

This leads us on to the question of is it a good idea to remove the opportunity for women to put roofs over their heads and food in their mouths. This is a question that has been answered by Molly Smith and Juno Mac in their excellent book 'Revolting Prostitutes'. On page 150 they write this:-

"One anti-prostitution organization, the Women's Support Project, write in support of the Nordic model: 'If men were not prepared to buy sex, then prostitution would not work as a survival behaviour.' When you enact a policy that makes a survival strategy 'not work' any more, some of the people using it to attempt to survive may no longer survive."

I don't believe that all women who become prostitutes do so because they would otherwise be homeless or starve. Many will survive by low-paid work and then they turn to prostitution when they want something better than survival. We can all agree that there should be social security so that nobody remains homeless or hungry.

Another important question that Molly Smith and Juno Mac answer in their book is about how some laws can make prostitution more dangerous for women. It is important for sex workers to be able to screen potential clients. Street sex workers could do this but the 1993 law in Ireland and the 1999 law in Sweden made this much more difficult. On page 144 they write this:-

"Everywhere in the world, regardless of the legal model, street-based sex workers use a familiar range of safety strategies. For example, they might work together with a couple of friends, they might take time to assess a client before getting into his car, and they might have a friend write down his car's number plate to signal to him that someone will know who she's with."

A woman who is was a street-based sex worker (as Moran was) either had to give up working on the street and work indoors (as Moran mostly did) or continue under more difficult circumstances. In either case she can no longer screen her clients in the way she used to. Moran said this was a big problem with the 1993 Irish law. Smith and Mac say this was a big problem with the 1999 Swedish law. Yet Moran and others successfully campaigned for the Swedish law to be enacted in Ireland. This happened in 2017, and according to newspaper reports it seems to have been a complete disaster.

A major theme of this book is trauma. She writes that she was traumatised by having to have sex for money. People don't usually do things that traumatise them a second time. You might think that she was forced to do it because she had no other way of making money. However, she seemed to have quite a few different ways of making money. I'm not talking about her early attempts at erotic dancing and erotic photography. I'm talking about her drug dealing and her pimping.

"I had progressed to snorting cocaine at that point and would procure it for certain punters, making a mark-up on it, so that I was profiting from the drug transaction as well as whatever bizarre fantasies I was helping these men indulge." Chapter 9 page 87.

"I rented an apartment in Terenure for a short time and opened an escort agency of my own. I was seventeen at the time and I'm quite sure I was the youngest person advertising an escort agency in Ireland. It was a very simple thing to do and only required an apartment, a mobile phone and an advertisement in the back of In Dublin magazine, but when I had to deal with the reality of the ridiculous overheads, I soon got rid of the apartment and advertised for call-outs only. I worked mainly in the brothels and escort agencies of others from then on and did my own call-outs to homes and hotels. If I'd get a request for a call-in on my agency line I'd use a bedroom in the brothel of one of the women I was associating with at that time. I'd pay them a fee for the use of the room, which was common practice. I'd made money that way when I had my own apartment." Chapter 10 page 93.

As someone who has spent years on Job Seeker’s Allowance I'm not very sympathetic to people who sell drugs or pimp and who justify it by saying they needed the money. I never did that, I lived within my means on benefits. Many people in Ireland travelled to England and worked night shifts in factories. So to say she had no other option is far from the truth.

She wrote that she never had the opportunity to do an ordinary job, such as working in a bank. She wrote that she didn't feel worthy of that type of work. Well I would never have been allowed to work in a bank. You don't have to feel worthy to live on the dole or work in a factory.

Many women and men become full-time drug dealers or pimps. If she hated 'paid intercourse' so much why did she not do one or both of these? She said she didn't want to deal with the reality of the ridiculous overheads. Is she saying that prostitutes keep more money than pimps? She was 17 and hadn't yet developed her cocaine addiction. I'm not saying that women should do anything apart from prostitution, but if you are really traumatised by it then it's odd you should continue because of something about overheads.

Not once in this book does she express regret about the harm she did when she sold drugs or pimped. She does express regret about having been a prostitute. I don't expect anyone to feel guilty about being a prostitute, but I do expect people to feel guilty about dealing or pimping. Especially when pimps (and men like me) are demonized by people like her.

I have said that there are several different aspects to this book. One of them is her own personal experience. Another is her comments about her experiences. A third aspect is the quotations from Ruhama and others which begin each chapter and which I commented on in the first part of my review of this book.

There is a fourth aspect, and this is where she writes about some of her experiences but in a very vague and ambiguous way. It is clear what she intends us to believe, but it is not clear if there is evidence to back that interpretation. Consider this:-

"What was going on was the very same thing that was going on when I was lifting my skirt in a backstreet alley. The nature of prostitution does not change with its surroundings. It does not morph into something else because your arse is rubbing up against white linen as opposed to roughened concrete." Chapter 10 page 100.

She said that she only did handjobs and oral sex up till 1993. Then, after a change in the law, she had to start working indoors. She went back onto the streets sometimes though. One can only assume this was because on the streets she didn't have to do the 'paid intercourse' that she disliked so much and only did 'sporadically'. So why is she writing about her arse rubbing up against roughened concrete? How would she know what street girls do?

My understanding is that street girls don't wear skirts. They wear jeans, and they pull them down a bit and bend forward so they can be taken from behind. So they don't experience their arses rubbing up against concrete, either that of paving or a wall. But then again, maybe they did it differently in Ireland in the 1990s. Why doesn't she make clear what the facts are?

Another thing that is odd is that for the first two years men accepted that she didn't want to do vaginal or anal sex. Later they accepted that she didn't want to do anal sex. Yet they didn't accept that she didn't want to be penetrated with fingers or objects both vaginally and anally. She says that men didn't accept the limits of the 'agreed contractual exchange'.

My own experience of prostitution is that few women allow digital penetration. It is not usual for a prostitute to say beforehand that she doesn't allow it. If I ask for it she will most likely say no, or sometimes she will say she charges extra for that. Occasionally she will let it happen without additional payment. I have never forced anything upon a woman.

If Moran had written "I told him to stop but he wouldn't listen" or "I told him he would have to pay extra for that but he went ahead anyway" then we would be clear about what happened. That would be sexual assault or rape. But she doesn't write that.

In Chapter 23 on page 252 Moran writes this:-

"A 2005 Ruhama research report on barriers affecting women in prostitution states: 'Studies in Ireland have found that 38% of women involved in prostitution have attempted suicide and 25% suffered from diagnosed depression and were in receipt of medical treatment'. It is my personal conviction that the twenty-five percent of prostitutes recorded as having depression in Ireland is a significant underestimate of the true figure and that many prostitutes have not been diagnosed simply because they have not presented their symptoms to a doctor."

If you look for this Ruhama report it does indeed say this:-

"There are also high levels of stress related illnesses. Studies in Ireland have found that 38% of women involved in prostitution have attempted suicide and 25% have suffered from diagnosed depression (O’Connor, 1994)."

The Ruhama report is Factors affecting prostitution – Damage and survival mechanisms. In the references section they give the full title of the work they say they derive these statistics from: O’Connor, A. M. (1994) Health Needs of Women Working in Prostitution in the Republic of Ireland, First Report for EUROPAP, Dublin: Eastern Health Board.

However, the O'Connor 1994 document says nothing about either suicide or depression. What's going on? There is another document, written by O'Connor and somebody else that does contain these statistics. It is O’ Neill, M. and O Connor, A.M. (1999) Drug Using Women Working in Prostitution, Report prepared by the Women’s Health Project, Dublin: Eastern Health Board.

Now that we know the correct title of the document we can tell immediately that it is not about prostitutes in general in Ireland, but about prostitutes who are drug addicts in Dublin. As the study itself says "Numerous studies have highlighted the fact that women working in prostitution who are drug users, particularly intravenous drug users (IDUs), appear to be a different population from those who are non-IDUs." The number of drug addicted prostitutes is a fraction of the total number of prostitutes.

The study was of 77 women. All were drug users. 95% were working on the streets. 45% were homeless. Between 11% and 28% had HIV. 52% had been charged with soliciting. This had resulted in 20% of those women being imprisoned and 12% fined. 29 of the 77 (38%) reported having attempted suicide. 19 of the 77 (25%) suffered from diagnosed depression and had received treatment.

"Living with drugs causes considerable strains. A woman drug user who is also a mother faces specific problems organising her drug-related needs around her commitments as a parent, especially where young children are involved. Another dimension to the drugs issue for women is dealing with the reality of prison sentences for themselves, their partners, their siblings or their adult children. Prison sentences for drug related offences severely cut across family networks and reduce still further levels of support for women." O’ Neill, M. and O Connor, A.M. (1999)

Their problems were numerous: addiction, homelessness, imprisonment, fines, and risk of HIV as well as street prostitution. We know that drugs can increase depression, and people with depression may be more vulnerable to addiction. So to say that a quarter of prostitutes are so unhappy in prostitution that they suffer from depression and that even more attempt suicide is simply wrong. It is a deliberate distortion of research. They have hidden the facts.

What they are doing is using research that applies only to drug addicted street prostitutes and pretending that it applies to all prostitutes. They have used this tactic time and time again. It is dishonest. Another tactic they use is to bury information. Instead of referring us directly to the research which is the source of the statistic, they refer instead to a document that refers to it. Or a document that refers to another document that refers to the research.

So if someone tells you that the number of active sex buyers in Sweden is the lowest in Europe, or that there is no evidence that criminalizing men increases the risk to women, you should remember that you have to trace the evidence back to the original study. They know that most people, no matter how much they say they care, can't be bothered to do that.

The O'Connor 1994 study is interesting, resulting from interviews with 18 street-based sex workers after the introduction of the 1993 law. It says twice that they are not a representative sample of sex workers in Ireland.

"Three (17%) of the women felt very strongly that the new law is leading to the emergence of pimps (male protectors) and therefore, an increase in violence and intimidation on the streets. One said "anyone with enough money to rent an apartment and a mobile phone can go into business as a pimp. These men are offering protection and a "safe house" to women who are working. "They leech (latch) onto the women providing protection and paying bail, that's when the violence comes in"." O'Connor, A.M. (1994)

We know that at least one woman was leeching onto the women and that was Rachel Moran. It seems that sex workers don't hate people like me, they hate people like her. I think that O'Connor and O'Neill did good work interviewing street-based sex workers. Their data should have been used to improve the lives of the most vulnerable women. Instead it has been abused by Moran (former pimp) and Ruhama (The Church) to bring in legislation that harms the most vulnerable women. She exploited them then and she's exploiting them now.

The only time Moran mentions decriminalisation is when she writes about the Nordic model decriminalising the sale of sex. It doesn't. Prostitutes go to jail under the Nordic model. There is no mention of New Zealand where prostitutes are genuinely decriminalised: they do not go to jail. She is not presenting both sides of the argument. She does not mention the difference between legalisation and decriminalisation.

There is the issue of why do sex workers get paid so much. At the end of Chapter 19 page 204 she writes this: "Their higher pay does not reflect gender parity; it reflects the difficulty involved in earning it". In a way she's right.

Incidentally, on this page she uses her most florid language. Phrases such as 'the decision to sell the flesh on one's bones' and 'to bear the burden of its corruption on their bodies' may go down well with the abolitionist audience and especially the Christians but to me they are laughable.

If you go to Manchester the going rate for half an hour with a sex worker is £35 to £40. If you go to Liverpool it is £70. In Liverpool the going rate for a straight massage with nothing sexual is £25 to £30 for a half hour. The reason why Liverpool sex workers demand more than Manchester sex workers is not because they hate what they are doing more but because the police have a different attitude. In Liverpool women find it more difficult to work and keep themselves safe. It is the police who create the difficulty not the punters.

Note that she doesn't say that the money goes to pimps and traffickers and not to the women.

In the epilogue on page 293 Moran writes that "Prostitution first fell sharply in one place and one place only. That is in the nation which suppressed demand. A global implementation of Sweden's laws, which criminalise demand, is the one thing I'd most like to see before I die." This repeats her statement that "prostitution in Sweden has plummeted" in Chapter 20 page 215. Although there has been an effect on street prostitution, none of the reports from Sweden show an overall reduction in demand. I have devoted a page to this issue, and I have devoted a post to the disaster that is happening now that the Nordic model has come to Ireland, with women being jailed not decriminalised. This dishonest book helped to bring this situation about.

In Chapter 21 page 233 she writes about 'pro-prostitution groups' who march in Gay Pride Festivals around the world. She writes that the gay community is being used and 'the pro-prostitution lobby is trying to pull a fast one here'.

By pro-prostitution groups/advocates/lobby she means people who believe in genuine decriminalisation for sex workers, as happens in New Zealand. They are not 'pro-prostitution', they just don't want sex workers to be arrested for working together for safety. It is the 'abolitionists' who are trying to pull a fast one by pretending that they don't want 'prostituted' women to be arrested. Ruhama is now pretending that they never intended this to happen in Ireland even though this issue was discussed before 2017.

Abolitionists are a threat to gay men and lesbian women. They are a threat to transsexual people. Jim Wells, the Northern Ireland DUP politician, is a Christian. He is a Creationist who has got into trouble with his views on abortion and gay rights.

He was instrumental in getting the Nordic model adopted in Northern Ireland, where the first man to be arrested was arrested along with three women. He used a false statistic to do that. He said in the Northern Ireland Assembly that 127 prostitutes were murdered in the Netherlands after legalisation there.

Rachel Moran repeated this false statistic on radio. Julie Bindel and Kat Banyard quote 'Mr Wells' in their recent books. Banyard uses his false statistic.

So it's not surprising that sex workers and people who genuinely believe in their decriminalisation are welcome at Gay Pride Festivals. Obviously they aren't a sexual minority, but then neither are transsexuals who are also welcome and also threatened by people like 'Mr Wells'. Third-wave sex-positive feminists belong here too.

If the abolitionists don't like it then they can have their own parade. What would that look like? They could have Jim Wells to lead it, but then maybe they would keep him out of sight because you don't want to let the mask slip. But you could have another evangelical like Ian Paisley junior or Gavin Shuker. Ian Paisley junior has said "We don't like poofs" and was Chair in a debate where Gavin Shuker and Fiona Bruce spoke in favour of the Nordic model.

Or MP Fiona Bruce from the Evangelical Alliance. She is trying to get the Nordic model adopted in Britain. She voted against gay marriage and wants to restrict abortion. The nuns of Ruhama would be there, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and the Good Shepherd Sisters could each have their own floats. It might seem odd that Evangelicals, Catholics and Radical Feminist lesbians can work together but one thing unites them: they don't like men and women having casual sex.

Radical Feminists like Julie Bindel and Kat Banyard would be there. There could be a guest speaker from America, a social conservative who could talk about incarceration of men and women: after all the American model is the same as the Nordic model just without the hypocrisy. Another guest could be an African preacher or politician, one of the ones who put gay men and lesbian women in prison. Maybe someone from the Taliban?

Pride of place would be the survivors. Women like Rachel Moran and Anna, who we are all supposed to be listening to, despite the fact that they tell different stories. Anna's book 'Slave' makes 'Paid For' look like 'Belle de Jour'. Dr Brooke Magnanti wouldn't be invited because she doesn't count as a survivor. Also she's an expert in statistics so she might upset the nuns.

The biggest problem with this book is that the main message is women go into prostitution to avoid poverty. This is different from the 'abolitionist' message and Anna's book which says it is all about violent pimps or traffickers. Also, Moran contradicts her own message when she writes about the 'advantaged middle-class women' that she knew.

A big problem for her message is that if you say that women do it to avoid poverty then you are open to the criticism that most people work to avoid poverty. If your answer to that is saying that you feel offended by someone saying that sex work might have some similarity to working in a factory (even though she compared sex workers to bank robbers) and something about someone putting his penis up your anus (even though no-one put his penis up her anus) it's not convincing.

I found these on a Radical Feminist site