police raided walk ups on Wednesday

The police have raided a number of places in Soho on Wednesday night, some of them walk ups (called 'brothels' in newspaper reports). A number of the walk ups have been closed, I don't know if this is permanently. This article said "After the raids last night a dozen women, mostly from eastern Europe, working in squalid rooms, were taken to safe locations where they will be questioned. Police believe that some were trafficked into the country and forced into prostitution".

I don't believe that the women were trafficked or coerced, and I don't believe that the police believe that. They're not trying to help these women at all. As for 'squalid rooms', someone photographed one of the rooms recently, at the request of the people working there, and I wouldn't describe it as squalid. You can see the photos below, they are typical of the bedrooms of Soho walk ups. The flat is 2 Greens Court, upper flat. I don't know if this is one of the ones that has been closed, I'm going to have a look around tomorrow.

it looks as if they have DVDs here



certainly they have lots of uniforms here
I don't know what that is next to the fire extinguisher

disappearing Soho

card in walk up at 70A Berwick Street Soho

I took this photo on Tuesday this week. It is a card that was on display in the hallway of the walk up at 70A Berwick Street in Soho. It shows one of the two women who were working there that day, informing potential customers what she is like. Yesterday I went back and there were no cards there. From what I can gather the police have insisted that all these cards in Soho are removed.

This card was not visible from the street, you would have to walk through the open doorway and along the hallway to see them. I have been told that the ones that used to be visible from the street at a lot of the walk ups went a couple of weeks ago. I don't know what the legal basis of this police action is, it seems that they are making more and more demands. No one knows where it will end. What you see in Soho could be gone forever the next time you look.

I thought I'd found some street girls

Last month I went to Liverpool again. I didn't look for any sex workers this time. After listening to a radio programme about St James Gardens I wanted to see it again. I used to go there sometimes when I was living in Liverpool in the 1980s. It is described as 'once a derelict no-go area' formerly frequented by drug addicts. This surprised me because when I used to go there I didn't notice any drug addicts or syringes, even though I keep an eye open for that sort of thing.

I only ever saw one prostitute there. Above the gardens is Hope Street which was the red light area. I was riding my bike along Hope Street one day on my way to the city centre. I saw one woman waiting on the street corner. I had never seen her before, she was beautiful. I went into St James Gardens and sat on a park bench. After a while she walked past me with a man, giving me a big smile. I wanted to see where they were going so I followed them. When I found them they were hugging. She saw me and I made a hasty retreat, although the man was a lot smaller than me he might have got aggressive. I never saw her again.

After I came back to London I saw a TV programme that said there were drug addicts and prostitutes causing problems for residents near Brick Lane. There used to be a street in east London called Flower and Dean Street. It was a notorious slum and associated with theft and prostitution. A couple of Jack the Ripper's victims came from there. Today it no longer exists, but there is a Flower and Dean Walk.

I had a look round this area, and where Flower and Dean Walk meets Brick Lane I saw several women standing around. I felt sure that they were street girls. None of them propositioned me, but these days street girls have to be very wary of the police. The only way I could have found out for sure is if I had gone up to them and talked to them. I wasn't interested in doing anything with them though. Now I think they were probably just people waiting outside the medical centre for homeless people.

I thought it might be possible that women have been waiting on that spot since Victorian times. It's an area with an interesting history, today it is a Bengali area but before that it was a Jewish area. There are two shops where they sell salt beef, a Jewish food. When I'm in the area I have salt beef in a bagel with mustard and a cup of tea.

On Channel 4 last month there was an interesting documentary called The Fried Chicken Shop. The most interesting character in it was Jessie, the Clapham Tranny. Especially interesting for me because I remember seeing her on Tooting Bec Common years ago. She used to hang out with the street girls there waiting for men to turn up.

Some people think that Jessie is bad tempered because she got irritated with a drunk girl who she was talking to. The girl kept asking the same question over and over again when Jessie had said she didn't want to talk about that. I can understand why she became irritated. It does seem that drunk people tend to ask the same question over and over again even when someone clearly doesn't want to discuss a personal issue. In another part of the documentary a drunk man kept asking one of the shop staff a personal question, to the increasing irritation of the staff. Later the drunk man tried to climb over the counter and was taken away by the police.


Jessie, the Clapham Tranny

In all three cases, with St James Gardens, Flower and Dean Walk and Tooting Bec Common, people living nearby have complained about drug addicts and/or prostitutes. In some cases people will have exagerated the problem because they wanted to get rid of the street girls. I know that to have been true of Tooting Bec Common. From what people were saying, anyone would think that Tooting Bec Common was strewn with drugs paraphernalia and used condoms. The truth was that there were no needles or syringes and the used condoms were only on one part of the Common in the undergrowth where it would have been difficult to find them. I don't know what all the fuss was about, it's not as if a labrador choked on one.

protest as 26 Romilly Street is closed

A protest was organized yesterday against the closure of one of the walk ups in Soho, 26 Romilly Street. There is a Guardian newspaper article about it and a post on the Time Out London blog. There is also a video on the Guardian story where you can hear a sex worker and a maid talking about how they feel about the attitude of the police.

One of the maids at the walk up stated "The police have completely changed, they've dragged customers naked out of bed, searched the flat – the girls are scared, they are not criminals. As far as I have understood one girl and one maid is not illegal, it's not a brothel."

The police were putting pressure on the property owner Soho Estates to evict the sex workers. Sex workers in Peter Street near Walker's Court have been told they will be evicted in January. The police closed 61 Dean Street, and more recently all 3 walk ups in Lisle Street, and failed. However, putting pressure on the property owner to evict sex workers might well succeed where other methods have failed in the past.

When sex worker Lizzie Valad was evicted from her flat she started working at King's Cross and ended up being murdered by Camden Ripper Anthony Hardy. The walk ups in Soho are safe places for women to work. Sex workers will be at greater risk of violence if they are evicted.

protest in Soho yesterday outside the offices of Soho Estates

my best Chinese massage ever

Someone left a comment on one of my posts asking if anyone had tried the flat near St James's Park run by a few Chinese students. He said they were advertising on Gumtree and elsewhere. This sounded intriguing to me. I couldn't find any of their adverts but someone commented that he'd been there, thought they were very good, and gave their phone number. It is 07923247974.

This isn't one of the Chinese medical establishments, it is a private flat. You have to phone them and make an appointment. I did this earlier this month. The flat is in a road just off Strutton Ground near St James's Park and Victoria. Strutton Ground has a street market and is a good place to buy something to eat for lunch.

I decided to have a half hour massage and paid £30. The girl was very pretty and was wearing a short summery dress. The massage took place in a pleasant room.

this is the room where I had my massage

I asked her how much hand relief would cost, and she said £30. She said that she does body-to-body for £50. I told her I would like hand relief so she put some oil on my cock and started massaging it. I was starting to get an erection but it was taking quite a while. I said "Could you take your dress off for me, please?". I don't think she normally takes her dress off unless she is doing body-to-body. She said that she would take her dress off for another £10.

She removed her dress and then her bra. I could see even better now just how skinny she is. She has tiny breasts, but that is something you expect from a Chinese girl, that is one of their charms. She told me I could touch her if I wanted. When she started wanking me again I got a strong erection. I needed to see her body to become fully aroused.

I asked her how old she is and she asked me how old does she look. I said 18 or 20, and she told me she is in fact 23. I felt that I might be beginning to lose my erection, and I said "Could you pull your knickers down for me, please?". She seemed a bit reluctant at first, then pulled them half way down.

I looked at her pussy and the top of her thighs. She continued to wank me and before too long the sperm was shooting out of me. When it was all over, she asked me if I would like a shower. I said that I would, but that I wanted to give her the money first in case I forgot. We had agreed on £40, but I gave her £50 because I was so pleased with her.

£50 is what I would have given her if she had given me a body-to-body massage. I'm glad that I didn't ask for body-to-body though. It was more exciting for me that during the course of the massage she started fully clothed then removed more and more clothing until she was effectively naked. The physical stimulation of her hands on my cock wasn't enough for me, I had to have that visual stimulation too. I paid £80 altogether, and it was worth it.

She took me to the bathroom and turned on the shower for me. While in the shower I looked out of the window to see what the noise was. There was building work going on. There is a lot of building work going on in that area. The sound was a bit off-putting during the massage, but not too much.

Before I went she said she hoped to see me again. I asked what days she does and she said Monday to Friday, but she's not always there, she lives not far away and she can come in specially if I want her. The other girl there is supposed to be just as nice, I might try her next.

I don't think they really are students. I think they are the same as the women in the Chinese medical establishments, but they have started up on their own. In fact, I think that I have seen this girl before. I think that she and her friend worked at Forever Health at 8 Windmill Street near Tottenham Court Road. I am glad if they have really set themselves up on their own, if they can make more money for themselves and organise themselves. I would much rather pay for people who work independently instead of a big company.

finding the cute Thai girl

After my adventures in Notting Hill it took me a couple of weeks to get around to trying to find the cute Thai girl again. I could have gone to see her at the place in Western Mews but I thought it would be more interesting to go to the other place where she works in Hornsey Rise. I hadn't been there before.

I phoned up and asked if she is there today. A British woman answered the phone and said that she is. Hornsey Rise isn't that easy to get to and I decided to go to Archway tube station and walk from there. When I got to the place on the high street it didn't look inviting. It is at number 522.

The door was opened by an elderly British woman. She asked me if I wanted half an hour or an hour. I told her half an hour. She asked me to give her £10. I asked her what that is for, and she said for the massage. This was a bit strange to me, nothing like this had ever happened before. I gave her the money because I didn't want to get into a disagreement with her.

She directed me into a room and the girl came in. At least I think it was the same girl as I had been told about. I could kind of see why someone would think that she's cute, but she wasn't that appealing to me. Not long before I had gone to Little Newport Street in Chinatown to see a particular girl who someone had recommended. Let me tell you a little about Little Newport Street.

It's only a little street but there are two Chinese medical establishments where men can get wanked off. There is also another massage place where you go up stairs half way along the street. And there is a walk up where they usually have a Thai prostitute. On the other side of the street is a casino. At the end of the street in Newport Place you can usually see two or three Chinese women who look like hookers but are in fact selling cigarettes in the street.

I went to the Everwell at number 7. I asked if this particular girl was there that day and was told she was. I sat and waited and a woman came and took me upstairs. She wasn't very friendly and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Since then I have seen her standing outside the massage place half way along the street and I don't believe she is the woman I asked for.

Anyway. I said to the Thai girl that I would like a half hour massage with hand relief. (I have often wondered if the Thai women call it a 'happy ending' like the Chinese do, or if they have a different euphemism: perhaps 'pearly fountain' would be a good one.) I asked her how much that would cost. She said £60.

I should have asked if this included a strip. I could even have haggled a bit. She took of her dressing gown to reveal that she was wearing a bikini. Then she took her bikini top off. She started wanking me and I got aroused. I asked her if she would take her bikini bottoms off but she didn't. When my time was up I still hadn't come. No shower was offered, either before or after, although there was a bath in the same room.

So it was a disappointment, but in my next post I will tell you about my most recent massage experience, the best one I have ever had. One that fulfilled all of my dreams.

searching for a cute Thai girl

In this post and the next two I will tell you about some massages I have had recently, none of them in any of the Chinese medical establishments that I usually go to. Somebody gave me a tip about a cute Thai girl. A while ago the same person told me about Claire, a Chinese girl who used to work in Charing Cross Road. Claire was really lovely, so I was hoping that this girl would be as nice as Claire.

He told me that she works at two different places in north London, and that I should check to see if she is there because she went back to Thailand for a while. One morning last month I phoned both of the places to see if she was there that day. They both said that she is still in Thailand.

I decided I wanted to go to one of these places anyway, the one in Western Mews. I could see on the map that it is not far from Portobello Road market. I hadn't been to this market for years so I decided to go, then have a massage after.

I got off the tube at Notting Hill Gate. Looking round, I saw a place that offered massage. It was different from any of the places that I am used to. It looked very upmarket, it looked as if their main business is beauty treatments for women. I thought it wouldn't do any harm to ask how much a massage costs.

So I went in. At the reception there were two or three women. One of them was tall and blonde. She looked as if she might be a Scandinavian model, like my ideal fantasy masseur. Ever since I was a teenager I have fantasized about massage with 'extras'. I told her I would take one of their leaflets and perhaps come back later. I walked through the market but it was raining so before long I headed for Western Mews.

Western Mews can be found at the northern end of Great Western Road near where it meets Harrow Road. The house is quite pleasant, with a different feel than the Chinese medical establishments that I am more familiar with. I was taken into a cubicle and I paid £25 for a half-hour massage. An attractive woman came in and introduced herself. I'm not going to tell you her name because I'm not sure that she would want that, although I shouldn't think that these Thai women have to keep what they do secret from their employers like the women in the Chinese medical establishments.

She encouraged me to take a shower. She seemed quite keen for me to do that so I did. Handing me a towel, she led me through to a room with a couple of shower cubicles and turned on the shower. I was slightly apprehensive because I had left my clothes and my wallet in the cubicle. Back in the cubicle we started the massage. She was fully clothed and at one point she got onto the massage couch with me, as Thai masseurs often do. She asked me if I would be wanting any extras today. I asked her how much hand relief costs and she said £40. She also does body-to-body massage for £50.

If she had said to me that she would take off all of her clothes while giving me hand relief I might well have accepted. However, I got the impression that this wouldn't happen so I told her that this time I wouldn't be having any extras, just a normal massage. When the massage had finished I was covered in oil and she encouraged me to take another shower. So I had my third shower of that day.

On the bus back towards Notting Hill I had another look at the leaflet from the posh place. I realized that I could get a 10% discount on the price of the massage because of the time of day. So I decided to try it. I knew that I probably wouldn't get the tall blonde as masseur and I was almost completely certain that there wouldn't be any extras on offer but curiosity made me want to go.

I was asked to wait in an area up some stairs. The whole place was painted white. There seemed to be a lot of staff dressed all in black. I didn't see any other men there. On the table there were two jugs. One had water in it with lemon slices and I think the other one was green tea. I was asked if I wanted anything. They asked me to fill in a form with my details, including any health problems.

Eventually an attractive woman came an called my name. She looked as if she was in her 30s and had short dark hair. Like the others she had a black T shirt on and black trousers. She led me down some stairs into a courtyard. Off the courtyard were different rooms. She took me into one room and said I should take off my clothes and lie down and she would be back soon.

I took off all of my clothes, although I wasn't sure if I should take off my boxer shorts. When she came back in she put something over the lower part of my body. She was very talkative, and asked me questions. Have you had massage before? Yes. Where do you usually go for massage? Chinatown. What sort of massage do they do there?.

I hadn't intended to tell her anything about what I usually get up to, but her line of questioning made me think I could say something. I told her that at some of these places they offer a sexual service. She told me that I wouldn't get anything like that here. We talked about other things and I found out that she is from Poland.

I said "Would you like me to tell you the real reason why I came to Notting Hill today?". I didn't want to antagonize her but I felt she might be interested. She asked me why, and I told her that someone had given me the name of a woman in a Thai massage place. She asked me if this was one of my sexual encounters and I said yes but she had wanted £40 so I hadn't taken up the offer.

On my way out I spoke to the tall blonde girl again at reception. She seemed to be treating me as a valued customer and not as some kind of pervert. She said that I could have an extra discount in addition to the 10% discount. So I ended up paying £25.50 for a half-hour massage. It was a good massage too.

A couple of weeks later I got an email from them. I had put my email address on the form they asked me to fill in. They wanted me to tell them about the service I had received when I was there. This is what I told them.

The massage I received was very professional yet affordable. I've not been in a place as nice-looking as this before. Most of the places I go to are a bit hit and miss and although there's usually a happy ending it's definitely nice sometimes to come to a more professional place.

I thought maybe they might put it on their site but I can see they don't put client comments on their site.

In my next post I will tell you what happened when I found the Thai girl I had been told about.

stunning girls

Last Friday I decided to go to a place in Bromley that I hadn't been to before. What made me want to go is that on the PunterNet forum someone said that he had encountered a 'stunning Mexican girl' although they usually have Thai girls there. The place is Laurens Adult Massage on Widmore Road.

I phoned and asked if I could see Amanda and I was directed to a flat. The woman who answered the door didn't look anything like I was expecting so I told her that I'm supposed to be meeting someone called Amanda. She said that she is Amanda. She didn't look Mexican at all, she was blonde. I decided to go along with it but throughout the session I thought she looks and sounds like an Eastern European.

She's actually quite an attractive woman, like a high-class escort, but it took me a while to appreciate that because I had been expecting something different. I paid £60 for half an hour of massage, body to body, and hand relief. It was a nice flat too. I just relaxed and let her do her thing.

The day before I had been in Soho. I had found out that there's a brothel in Soho, along with all of the walk ups. Someone had done a report on it on PunterNet. There's a black girl there called Zoe. It is number 8A Old Compton Street. When I got to the door I wasn't sure which flat to ring. There are three flats, and I think Flat 1 is the brothel. The label had a little heart drawn next to the flat number. I rang and said "Is Zoe there today?". The woman said Zoe only does weekends. I said "Who do you have there today?" and I was told to come up.

The maid or madam took me into one of the bedrooms and answered my questions. The minimum price is £50 which is for about 20 minutes. They have two girls there at a time and I could have taken my pick. I hoped to catch a glimpse of the girls but I thought I was pushing my luck and I had already told her I was only interested in Zoe.

The same day I went to Asian Touch which is a Thai massage place on Shaftesbury Avenue. I wanted to go there because someone had said there's an 'absolutely stunning girl' there. They told me I could come back at 5pm. I went to 26 Romilly Street to see Lulu. When I got up the stairs I saw the sign for Lulu but instead of the expected sign for Meena there was one for someone called Asia, and that she is Indian/Moroccan.

So I went to see Asia instead of Lulu. Asia is tall, with a dark skin like someone from the Mediterranean or the Middle East. She has small breasts and is neither skinny or fat. I got on top of her which I liked but I can't come that way. Later I asked the maid what has happened to Meena and she said that they hadn't heard from her for weeks. It sounds as if Meena won't be in Soho any more. Perhaps she ran up debts before she departed, they have to pay about £300 a day for the flat, it would make sense for them not to pay rent for as long as they could get away with if they're going.

I looked at the time on my mobile and realized I could be back at Asian Touch for 5pm. The girl was indeed pretty but it was dark in the room so I'm not sure if this girl is the absolutely stunning girl someone had mentioned. I'm used to the Chinese places, here it was a bit different, she used hot oils.

Last month I was in Croydon on a Thursday. I saw a Chinese woman who runs a Chinese medical establishment. When she was massaging me I asked her to put a finger up my bum, then two fingers. I already knew she is into this because I had seen her before. I said "I feel that you are the man and I am the woman". She laughed, asked me if I wanted to know how it feels, and moved her fingers in and out. The same day I went to a Thai brothel in Brighton Road. I saw Vicky and achieved orgasm while looking at her pussy and wanking myself.

The next day I went to Soho. First I saw Sandra at 26 Romilly Street. She is Thai. She wasn't very co-operative. I went back there later that day and saw Melanie. Melanie is also Thai, is older and tries harder to please. I had an orgasm with her, the same way as with Vicky the previous day.

The easiest way for me to orgasm is to have an oriental woman lie back on the bed with her legs wide apart and for me to wank myself while looking at her pussy and her talking dirty. It would help if they were stunningly beautiful, and I am always interested in stunners, but that's not the most important thing.

behind the towel

I watched a very enlightening documentary recently. It was called Confessions of a Male Stripper. It answered a question that I have had in my mind for many years. How far do they go? My interest in this subject was started when I saw a late-night game show on TV (probably Channel 4 again) where they showed a photograph which had been partly blanked out. The photograph was of one of the participants on the game show that night. It was a middle-aged or elderly woman, an actress in one of the soap operas - possibly Coronation Street.

It looked as if she was licking the penis of a male stripper. The penis had been blanked out, but not so much that you couldn't work out what was going on. I thought that this was the tackiest thing that I had ever seen.

Years later I saw another documentary where two young women got into the back of a taxi after a night out. One of the young women was very euphoric and talkative, the other one was silent. Someone asked if the silent woman was OK. The talkative one said that the silent one had never been to see a male stripper before, hadn't known what to expect and was shocked. I wondered what it was that the young woman had seen that had shocked her into silence.

There are a lot of videos on the internet showing male strippers. They show a number of women performing sex acts on a male stripper. Usually they look as if they have been staged for the camera. Some of them however have middle-aged or plain women who obviously aren't porn stars. These videos look as though they are actual recordings of what some women get up to when they are on a night out with a male stripper.

I went onto the PunterNet forum and asked the question. How far do women go? Do they perform oral sex on the stripper? The consensus seemed to be that I must be naive to think that these videos depict the activities of real women, that they are all staged with porn actresses.

I wasn't so sure. Then I watched Confessions of a Male Stripper and it showed women sucking male strippers on stage. The women come onto the stage and each sits on a chair. The strippers stand in front of them with towels around their waists. The strippers open the towel so that the woman sitting in the chair in front of him can see his cock. He is close enough to her that she can do what she likes without everybody seeing. The towel obscures their view. She might just want to have a look and giggle, or she might want to touch, or she might want to give him oral sex.

These are the Dreamboys, who are a well known group of male strippers. It makes me wonder what the less high profile strippers get up to. I don't think they bother with towels.

Another documentary I saw recently is one showing young people in Magaluf. It showed a bar with young women giving a blowjob to random men as part of a drinking game. So now we know what the average young woman wants from a good night out.

Radical feminists want to ban stripping. They have achieved this in Iceland. I remember listening to a radical feminist on the radio who said that when women go to see a male stripper it's completely different from when men go to see a female stripper. She said that for the women it isn't an erotic experience. I'm sure many people think this, that the women just go there to laugh.

I don't believe that it isn't an erotic experience for the women. The experience is different for men and women. Women are much more vocal, they shout a lot. Apparently WE WANT COCK! is something commonly shouted in unison over and over again at a particular stage in the proceedings. That doesn't mean that it's not erotic though. So, if they ban women strippers they should ban male strippers too. I don't think they should ban either though because I don't think there's anything wrong with what they do.

Confessions of a Male Stripper can be seen here. The documentary about young Brits in Magaluf is not available but you can find out more about it here.

lucky west end girls

I have just finished reading a new book by Violet Ivy about the sex industry called Lucky Girl. It is an account of her life and in particular her involvment in different areas of the sex industry on three continents. I was especially interested in her time at the Soho walk ups, which is the area that I know most about, but her life story starts in a small town in Australia.

As a young adult she moves to the city. Finding work is difficult so she tries serving beers in a sleazy bar wearing next to no clothing. Not being happy with this she progresses to stripping. Eventually she decides to try prostitution. Her account of what she has to go though, especially the first time she has sex for money, is quite harrowing. So too is her account of her first anal sex where she is injured and robbed.

She goes to work for a year in a brothel in Kalgoorlie (I don't know where that is either). It is only when she comes to Melbourne and a high-class brothel there that things begin to look up for her. Although happy at this place, she wants to travel, so she moves to Las Vegas and works as a stripper and a sex worker. She paints a fascinating picture of a world of orgies attended by her - group bookings - against a background of the desperate gambling addicts she sees on the streets and in the casinos of Las Vegas.

Again on the move, she comes to London. Although working in the Soho walk ups is not her first option, she endures it until she is headhunted by an elite fetish brothel in Mayfair. Returning to Australia despite loving her work in Mayfair, the pinnacle of her career is accompanying a leading actor to an award ceremony. He is a gay man who needs to pretend to the world to have a girlfriend, and Violet provides that service for him.

While in Soho she is threatened by an Albanian pimp. She sends him packing. The girl in the flat above her is attacked. The police try to help, but this is in the days when CCTV was uncommon in the walk ups and maids could not always be afforded. Maids get a £2 tip from every customer but the sex worker has to pay her £60 per day. She also has to pay £240 to £280 per day in rent for the flat. Some days some of the sex workers were unable to make that amount of money and could get into debt.

Some of the readers of this blog might remember her. She called herself Sydney then and she worked in Peter Street in Soho and perhaps other places too. This would have been more than 10 years ago. There were a couple of other Australian girls working in Soho then too.

One thing I liked was her account of how she tried her best to help a 32 year old virgin enjoy his first experience of sex. She showed great sensitivity to his needs and was aware that her actions could affect his future relations with women.

Violet writes about her experience of what is perhaps the biggest problem in the life of sex workers, and that is the problem of boyfriends. A sex worker might meet a lovely man and want to have a relationship with him. Only an unsatisfactory man would accept his girlfriend working as a prostitute. So she might keep her work a secret and always fear he might find out, remain single, or accept as a boyfriend a man who might try to exploit her.

A while ago I read the book West End Girls by Barbara Tate. Barbara was a maid in Soho walk ups soon after the end of World War 2. Although the information is a bit out of date now, there is one area especially where she is relevant to today, the problem of boyfriends.

Barbara wrote that there weren't any pimps in Soho but some of the women had ponces. A ponce isn't the same as a pimp. A ponce is a man who tries to form an emotional relationship with a sex worker, not because he cares for her but because he intends to exploit her. He emotionally manipulates her and gets her to hand over her money to him. He tells her that he will invest it for their future together.

In Tate's Soho a ponce was often a Maltese man who would try to hook an established prostitute - who was nearly always a British woman. I think that many of the women in Soho today have men like this. The women are from Eastern Europe and the men are from their own country, maybe their own town. They could be 'boyfriends' who persuade them they can have a good life together in London.

Taking the two books together, it seems to confirm that the clever women are the ones who use sex work to make as much money as possible, bank it or make sensible investments, then leave. They can use the money to set themselves up, do what they really want to do in life, and they don't have to lie to their boyfriends about what they do.

Lucky Girl is a very informative and enjoyable read. We need to hear more about women's experience of the world of sex work and its unusual and occasionally frightening characters. You can buy the book at many places: Amazon, BookLocker and Book Depository. Violet has her own website.


Violet Ivy



no names no photographs

I got an email a few days ago from an angry sex worker. She found out that I had put a photograph of her on my blog. She wanted it removed. I did what she told me to do.

About three years ago I found out about a woman who lived a short bus ride from me. She does erotic massage. She comes from a Mediterranean country and is young and beautiful. I sent her an email and asked her if there are any photographs of her on the internet. She replied with a photo of her face. She hadn't modified it in such a way that she couldn't be identified. I went to see her and it was a pleasant experience, different from what I was used to. I wrote about her on this blog. I didn't give her name or her AdultWork page, but I did use the photo.

I wanted people to see how beautiful some of the women are who are available. She is as beautiful as the photo in my previous post, the photo that I thought was of a Liverpool prostitute but turned out to be of a leading model. She has the same dark Mediterranean beauty. I think she must be even more beautiful when she's angry. It's a pity she doesn't go in for domination. I deserve to be punished.

I don't think that putting her photo on my blog was much of a risk to her but I can understand that she doesn't want people pointing her out in Sainsbury's and saying something like "You see that woman there - she likes to hold men's erections in her hand and watch the semen squirting out the end of it".

In October last year I was walking to my local supermarket when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I saw a thin scruffy woman. My immediate thought was that she is a street girl. After years of trying to locate street girls on Tooting Bec Common it is a look that I have come to recognise instantly. I looked at her face. She gave me a big broad smile, the sort of sweet smile that women can do when they really want to. She seemed kind of familiar.

I didn't know if she was an ordinary woman who was flattered by a man staring at her. Or a street girl who is always open to meeting new men. Or one of the women who I had known on the Common. She was really beautiful. I thought she might be the particular one that I had been most involved with, but I couldn't be sure. This particular woman is someone I have written about a lot when I started this blog years ago.

(This is not the street girl who has been in contact with me via email recently and who wrote two posts for this blog about her life. These two posts have been removed. She asked me to remove them because she was worried people might be able to work out that it was her who had written them.)

She had a man with her. I always said that if I saw one of the women who I had known on the Common in the street with a man then I wouldn't approach her and try to talk to her. I wouldn't want to cause a problem for them. If the man didn't know about her past he might say "Who the hell was that you were talking to?". Also, the man she was with looked quite tough and he might have taken offence with me for trying to talk to his partner.

this is not her but it reminds me of her

About two weeks ago I saw her again, alone. I went up to her and said "Are you (her name, but I'm not going to reveal it)?" We had a short conversation and then her boyfriend came along. She said "This is my boyfriend" and introduced me to him. She said goodbye and walked away.

She wasn't as beautiful as she was when I saw her a few months ago outside the supermarket. Women can seem more or less beautiful depending on their mood that day or maybe phases of the menstrual cycle. I thought that her face didn't look as thin as I remembered from years ago. Addicts do put on weight when they give up drugs.

She looked healthy. She looks as if she has given up drugs. Over the years I have asked people if they know what has happened to her. I was told by one person that she injects heroin in odd places. Later I was told by someone else that she was in prison. More recently someone told me that she'd been sectioned. She had been one of the two women on the Common who had seemed the most addicted, to crack cocaine and heroin.

When I started writing about her on this blog years ago I used her initial and not her name, as I did with all the women I met on the Common and in my neighbourhood. When I started thinking that she might be dead I thought it wouldn't do any harm to use her name and the only photograph that I have of her. Now that I know that she is not only not dead but seems to have overcome her multiple addictions I have gone though the posts on this blog removing her name and the photo.

I wouldn't want any information on this blog about her to become a problem for her. I wish her all the best for the future. If I see her again I would like to tell her that she should be proud of herself for having overcome such difficult addictions and other problems, and that if she can do that then she can accomplish anything.

I am glad that she not only remembered me but doesn't consider me to be an abuser. When I knew her on the Common I tried to be good to her. I think she thought that I was trying to save her. However, I believed that few people overcome heavy addiction to crack cocaine and heroin and that she would end up dead. I was wrong.

the southeastern corner of Tooting Bec Common
near to where the street girls used to congregate

looking for cheap prostitutes in Liverpool

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Living Dolls and The Sex Myth

I am reading two books on the same subjects; prostitution, erotic dancing and pornography. Natasha Walter has written Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism. Dr Brooke Magnanti  has written The Sex Myth: Why Everything We're Told Is Wrong. Natasha Walter is a feminist and has a negative view of prostitution etc. Dr Magnanti has been a sex worker (known as Belle de Jour) and is an expert in statistical analysis.

Natasha Walter writes that the number of sexual assaults increased in Camden Town in London after lap-dancing clubs opened. Dr Magnanti has shown in that this research (done by the Lilith Project) is false. She devotes the whole of Chapter 4 of her book to showing how poor the Lilith Project research is.

Other 'facts' in Living Dolls are:-

• two-thirds of prostitutes have been assaulted by clients
• 85% of prostitutes reported physical abuse in the family
• 45% reported familial sexual abuse
• a majority of prostitutes involved before age of 16 or 17
• all have a problem with alcohol misuse
• majority used hard drugs

These 'facts' seem to be about prostitutes in general. She then goes on to mention street prostitutes specifically. She writes that 96% of street prostitutes in Merseyside are using heroin and 81% using crack, 84% of these gave their reason for entering prostitution as getting money for drugs. I can well believe that this is true for street prostitutes - my experience is that when the police crack down on street prostitution it's only the drug addicts who keep on doing it. Before a crack down half of them are not addicts and eventually even the addicts give up - there is next to no street prostitution in London today.

All these figures are to set us up for her conclusion that prostitution isn't a real choice and therefore it is acceptable to take that choice away from women.

"Despite the fact that they have not necessarily been forced into this work, these women are not exempt from levels of abuse that make a mockery of the normalisation of prostitution."

She then goes on to write that 6 prostitutes are murdered every year. She doesn't write that no prostitutes are killed in New Zealand or the Netherlands*. She doesn't write that the reason prostitutes get killed in Britain in because people like her stand in the way of simple changes in the law that would make women a lot safer and probably remove the threat of death altogether.

The figures of 85% of prostitutes reporting physical abuse in the family and 45% reporting familial sexual abuse are dealt with by Dr Magnanti in Chapter 8. The research was the result of a handful of interviews, no control group, and is statistically pointless.

Walter writes in Living Dolls that she met and talked to a prostitute she calls Angela. Angela used words like 'dissociate' and 'psyche'. This reminded me of an article I read in the Guardian a few years ago by Emine Saner: 'You're consenting to being raped for money'. Saner wrote that she met and talked to a prostitute she called Karen. Karen also used these words. "You have to learn to dissociate your body from your mind which is dangerous for your psyche."

Could Angela and Karen be the same person? Angela in Living Dolls said "Basically you've consented to being raped sometimes for money". Karen in the Saner article said "Basically you've consented to being raped for money". Other things tie up in the two accounts. So who is Angela/Karen?

I did consider the possibility that she is a fantasist or someone like Valerie Lempereur who under the name Patricia Perquin wrote a book claiming to show the life of a Dutch prostitute in Amsterdam. Only it was a fabrication. Right-wing politicians used this book to push through changes in legislation restricting prostitution (just as feminist groups have been using the false statistic about Camden lap-dancing clubs to change the law to try and stop more clubs opening). Or perhaps Angela/Karen is a radical feminist (or a religious fundamentalist) who makes up stuff because she thinks she is helping the anti-prostitution cause. She is certainly a mouthpiece for feminist concepts such as dissociation.

When I re-read the Saner article carefully I realised that there was a lot of information that Karen has given about her career as a prostitute that Walter hasn't mentioned at all. Karen said that she's not a drug addict, she uses her earnings to save for her pension as well as pay her bills, she only needs to see five men per week to get enough money and the most men she has seen in one day is three. She gets paid £130 per hour (it used to be £170 till Eastern Europeans pushed prices down), has earned £1,500 in one sex session, and never has unprotected sex. When asked if she has experienced violence she answered 'Nearly' and refuses to see a man for a second time if she finds him physically unattractive.

It seems that Angela/Karen is more like Belle de Jour than Natasha Walter would like us to know. So I'm inclined to believe that Angela/Karen isn't a fabrication, if she'd wanted to make it all up to further the anti-prostitution cause then she could have made a better job of it.

Angela said that men sometimes asked if they could tie her up or gag her. Some also asked to have a threesome. It appears Angela didn't comply with these requests, yet she uses these as evidence that prostitution is becoming more violent.

Walter mentions the genre of books that include The Intimate Confessions of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour and Confessions of a Working Girl by Miss S. She dismisses the former but regards the latter as gospel truth. Miss S wrote that she continued to work in a brothel despite having a damaged, swollen and bleeding vagina.

She writes about PunterNet reviews and picks out some of the worst of them, using them as examples of what punters really think about sex workers. The reviews that she uses however are not representative of PunterNet reviews generally.

So what does the chapter in her book about prostitution add up to? Some statistics that might have been true of drug-addicted street prostitutes at one time, used to suggest that this is the reality of prostitution. The musings of Angela/Karen about her injured psyche (but nothing about her career as a prostitute because that would contradict the dodgy statistics). An unreliable paperback memoir. And some unrepresentative PunterNet reports. Not much really, is it?

It seems that what Natasha Walter is really bothered about is what she calls 'unemotional sex' or 'sex without much emotional engagement'. Lust is an emotion, but the emotion that she's thinking about is intimacy. She seems to think that sex without intimacy is degrading. As Angela said in Living Dolls: "All this push to get women to buy into porn and it's values - it's turning all women into paid or unpaid sex workers." As Karen said in the Saner article: "I believe there is a conspiracy to turn women into readily accessible semen receptacles." Natasha Walter is worried about 'The Return of Sexism'. I'm more worried about the return of Puritanism.

A woman can't consent to being raped. That's a contradiction in terms. It seems that the phrase 'Basically you've consented to being raped sometimes for money' was used by Angela only in the context of men asking to tie her up and gag her, perhaps because they wanted to enact a rape fantasy. She didn't think that all sex work is rape, although that makes a good headline for an article. Similarly, if you're a sex worker then you are paid for sex. There is no such thing as an unpaid sex worker.

What you get from reading Living Dolls is the idea that if a woman has sex without emotions/intimacy/commitment then she might just as well be a prostitute. The idea is that women don't really want promiscuous sex as fun, that it's only pressure from men or porn culture that makes women want to do it. That seems to me not only wrong but old fashioned and regressive. I don't have a problem with people wanting commitment, but it's not right for them to try and force it on the rest of us.

*since writing this I realize that four sex workers have been killed in New Zealand

Chinese sex workers

Like a lot of people these days I have recently experienced a drastic reduction in my income. So it's going to be fewer trips to Soho and Chinatown, and more trips to my local library. I am reading a couple of interesting books at the moment, The Sex Myth by Dr Brooke Magnanti and Living Dolls by Natasha Walter. They're quite interesting to read together because both books deal partly with the facts about sex work but from different perspectives. I will leave them for my next post though.

I was going to post on this blog about my experiences of sex work, because I think that's what most of my readers are interested in, and put anything else on the pages of the blog. Any information from the media or opinions I have about prostitution I tried to restrict to these pages. Now that I'm not going to have so many of these experiences, there will be more posts about information and opinions.

I have had some interesting experiences in the past couple of months however. I have been tempted to explore the world of Chinese massage in Goodge Street and the surrounding area. There are Chinese medical establishments all over London offering Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture and massage. At most of these places if a man chooses massage he might be offered a sexual service, usually masturbation to orgasm. I have tried many of these places in Soho and Chinatown, and more recently in Goodge Street and nearby.

I saw a lovely girl who I had seen before and wanted to see again. She hitched up her top so that I could feel her breasts but I was more interested in below the waist. At one point I was sitting up on the massage couch and I had her shorts and knickers down. I was touching her bum with my left hand and her pussy with my right hand while she was wanking me, her pretty face just a few inches from mine.

I went to a different place and saw a very pretty girl who offered a limited service, just a 'happy ending', but it was still a wonderful experience. Part of the pleasure of going to these places is that you might be able to persuade a nice girl to go further than she does with most customers. If you're a regular customer, are generous, and make her laugh and feel at ease, who knows what she might do for you. One fantasy I have is persuading a pretty Chinese girl to suck my cock and her trying but giggling too much and not being able to, to begin with. The idea of her leaning forward with her mouth open but then collapsing in giggles is an appealing one.

Also I saw a slightly older and less pretty woman who was very raunchy. I got her shorts and knickers down, and then she took them off. She put one foot up on the massage couch and started wanking herself. I put the end of my finger in her vagina while she was doing it and she orgasmed, or seemed to. Afterwards she told me not to tell anyone. That's why I'm not using any names, or even which establishment. I don't think they would like that. They are nice girls and I wouldn't want to do anything to cause problems for them.

These places are not such good value for money as other places, such as the Soho walk ups, but they are clean and discreet and offer a nice little sexual adventure.

So I was interested when recently in the Guardian there was an article about Chinese sex workers. The brothel worker: 'I regret not working in the sex trade as soon as I got here' Posing as a maid, Hsiao-Hung Pai infiltrated the murky world of the UK sex trade and spoke to some of the migrant mothers desperately working to send money home to their families Lots of Chinese women come to Britain on a visa but overstay. They work illegally in low-paid jobs such as catering. After working a couple of years they find out about sex work. Those that try it tend to say they wish that they had found out about it years ago.

Overall, the article was positive about Chinese brothels. There were a few negative points though. The 'madam' of the brothel was verbally abusive. They work very long hours. Occasionally some men try to take the condom off, putting them at risk of an STD. They were expected to offer oral sex without a condom, but not penetrative sex without a condom.

What I believe is that sex workers should be able to set up on their own without the need for a 'pimp' or 'madam'. Then they won't get the verbal abuse and don't have to hand over half of their earnings. I know there are reasons why this might not be so easy, but I have dealt with these issues in another part of this blog.

I don't think there are that many Chinese women working in brothels. There are none in Soho and Chinatown, as far as I can tell. There are however lots of Chinese women who offer a limited sexual service working in the Chinese medical establishments. There are one or two of these places that are not much more than a brothel. Most offer some kind of sexual service. Some offer nothing sexual at all.

At one place I went to there was one woman who did nothing sexual at all, not even masturbation to orgasm. Another woman offered this but nothing more. Another one offered oral sex and nudity as well as masturbation. Someone said she has full penetrative sex too.

It seems that Chinese women have an option that others such as Eastern Europeans do not have. They could work in a brothel, like the women in the article, or they could do massage with a 'happy ending'. If they don't want to do even that they can just do massage, or if they're prepared to do more - for the right customer - they can earn quite a bit. So the reality is different from what many people believe, that they do not have many options.

Some people don't like the term 'sex worker'. They say it would be better to use the word prostitute. I think 'sex worker' is a useful term because it includes women who offer massage and masturbation to orgasm but don't offer penetrative sex. Perhaps it includes strippers and erotic dancers too.

Tina, Meena and Lulu

Someone on the PunterNet forum was singing the praises of a new girl in Soho called Tina. He wrote that she is only there on Thursdays and I thought if I go to see her I can see Meena too who also only works on Thursdays.

Tina works at 2 Lisle Street in the flat above Amanda. She says she is Spanish but she sounds more Eastern European. Sometimes Romanians pretend to be Spanish or Italian because their language is similar. I asked her how old she is and she said 23 which is about right. She is quite tall and slender with small breasts. She's got a nice face and smile.

I asked her to give me a handjob and I handed over my £22. We ended up with me wanking myself looking at her pussy. She lay back with her legs wide apart. She is shaven and her pussy is pretty, a lovely long slit. I opened it slightly to look at the pink inside. I got an erection but I didn't manage to come, which isn't surprising because we only had 10 minutes.

As I was going up the stairs of 26 Romilly Street to see Meena I wondered who would be in the other flat. I thought that if it is Gigi then I might see her too. Many say that Gigi is the best of the oriental girls in Soho. It wasn't Gigi though, it was Lulu. Lots of people say that Lulu is great, so I thought I will see her too.

I have seen Meena a few times over the years. She is a lovely Indian woman. She has long straight black hair and an unshaven pussy. She asked me how I was. I asked her if she remembers me and she said she does. This always surprises me because it must be well over a year since I saw Meena and when you think how many men she meets it should be difficult to remember anyone.

Another £22 and I was lying on the bed with Meena kneeling beside me. I told her that I had been reading about her on the internet and that someone said she is good at talking dirty. She started talking dirty while she wanked me. I asked her what she had been up to that day. She told me and said I could pull down the black panties that she was wearing to have a look at her hairy pussy. I did that, and I told her the hair wasn't as long as I remembered it.

She asked me what she could do to make me come. I said that it's rare for me to come in Soho. I told her that I used to see a Filipina woman in Greek Street who could make me come. I said that Ivy used to sit between my legs and wank me. Meena moved between my legs and I explained the exact position Ivy had, sitting with her bum on the bed with her legs wide apart and over mine.

She did this, and I told her that the last couple of times I had seen Ivy she had lain back on the bed with her legs wide apart and I had looked at her pussy and wanked myself. Meena then lay on her back, drew her knees up to her chest and slipped off her panties. She opened her legs and held her pussy wide open for me to see. It was dark, but the opening of the vagina was reddish-pink and open. I still couldn't come though so when my time was up I got dressed and we chatted.

She told me she used to work in an Indian brothel in Covent Garden but it became difficult when lots of Eastern European women started working. She said that most of the Eastern Europeans have pimps or boyfriends. I don't know if she said that because she wanted to put me off seeing her rivals or if she really believed it to be true.

After seeing Meena I forgot that I intended to see Lulu too but I walked back to Romilly Street and up the stairs again. Lulu is a Thai lady. She looks about 30 with a pretty face and quite large breasts. She's about medium height and a nice enough figure. Meena and Lulu are about the same age and have slightly saggy tummies but that doesn't put me off.

Lulu moved and talked in a very sexy way when we were on the bed together. She straddled one of my legs and rubbed the end of my erection on her tummy. Then she turned so she was on her hands and knees with her bum in my face so I could see her pussy and her bum hole, still holding on to my cock. I told her I wanted her to lie on her back with her legs open so I could see her pussy. I knelt between her legs and wanked myself. Lulu played with herself and talked dirty, telling me she wanted me to fuck her pussy.

Her pussy was smaller than Tina's or Meena's but with larger labia. I could feel that I was going to come and I wondered if she would mind if I came all over her. I didn't think she would get angry, but I didn't want to irritate her. When I had come with Ivy I used my hand to stop the semen going everywhere. When I felt that I was definitely going to come I moved a bit closer to her and squirted over the lower half of her body. She held an upturned hand over her pussy to stop the semen going there.

She didn't seem to mind at all that I had come over her. She got off the bed and went to the sink, and then chatted to me as if nothing unusual had happened. Some people might think that I would be better off going to a brothel and spending half an hour with a woman for £60 or £70. But I saw three women of different nationalities, looks and personalities. I wouldn't say that any of them are stunners, but they are all attractive. I can't think of a a better way to spend an afternoon and £66.

guide to types of women in Soho walk ups

1. The Enthusiastic Amateur
If you go with this girl you will either have the best experience ever, or the worst. If she likes you, you may get the best service. If you are young, attractive and outgoing, and willing to spend more than the minimum amount, there's little that she won't do for you. You might get oral sex without a condom. If she doesn't like you, then she might not bother with you hardly at all. She might give a bad service, and have an attitude 'What are you going to do about it?'. She can be immature like a petulant teenager. She can also be a bit mad.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Anna, Angela
• examples of this type in the past: Jazmin (aka Kim)

2. The Time-server
This girl saves up her money to buy her house back home, and is willing to give a good service, but will only do the minimum for the money given. Anything different you might want to do costs extra. If you touch her on the bum she won't like it, especially if you haven't paid yet. She probably spends her hours fantasizing about her dream home back in Eastern Europe. She's usually quite passive, not at all raunchy. She can be sweet and innocent.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Rebecca
• examples of this type in the past: Nelly

3. The Totally-committed
This type knows that there's not much point in being there unless she maximizes her earning potential. She will go out of her way to please every customer. She will smile at him, she will flirt with him, and perform a range of activities sometimes at no extra cost. She wants those return customers, she wants those reviews and reports that will enhance her reputation.

She can take one look at a man and determine what type he is and what it is that he needs. To some men she will be foul-mouthed, to others she will be well spoken. She can give a Porn Star Experience (PSE) or a Girlfriend Experience (GFE) and usually you won't have to tell her what it is that you want.

Even towards the end of a 12 hour shift she is bright and perky. She is always professional, like a businesswoman. She might even have a business on the side or own property. Sometimes you don't know what she is thinking. She says she remembers you from last time, but does she really? She says she likes you, but does she really? She can seem a bit robotic sometimes.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Meena, Alena
• examples of this type in the past: Natalie

4. The Pleasure-seeker
This one enjoys her work. Not necessarily because she is a nymphomaniac. It could be she likes flattery or the buzz of meeting lots of people every day. She likes to talk about sex and she might like you to pleasure her. She is the most reliably raunchy type, although types 1, 3 and 6 can be raunchy too, but unlike type 1 she's professional enough and emotionally mature enough to give a good time to any man who comes through the door.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Eva, Angie, Yaya
• examples of this type in the past: Paris

5. The Girl Next Door
She's not really happy being there. She'll go through the motions, although if she's in a bad mood she can be no fun. She likes to make people happy, and tries to do so, but can't always succeed. She might try doing something else for a while, but often she comes back to it because she doesn't have the determination to succeed at anything else.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Sandy
• examples of this type in the past: Andra

6. The Real Woman
This type likes to make people happy. She doesn't just lie back and expect you to get on with it. She encourages you with smiles, maybe opening her legs wide and moving her pelvis in a very seductive manner. When you're on top of her she might whisper things in your ear to encourage you. If you lack confidence then she might talk to you about it and say you shouldn't worry so much.

• examples of this type in Soho today: Monica
• examples of this type in the past: Mimi (Polish Mimi)