Daily Mail interesting today

There are two things in the Daily Mail newspaper today that interested me. One is that Sir Martin Sorrell was accused of having sex with a prostitute in Shepherd Market in Mayfair, London. The other is MP Jess Phillips complaining about twitter trolling and demanding an end to anonymity online.

I am familiar with the Shepherd Market area of London. In 2012 I took photographs of the walk ups (brothels) there although I have never paid for sex there as it is slightly more expensive than Soho.

This is my photograph of 50A Shepherd Market which is the one that Sir Martin is supposed to have visited. The most interesting thing about the Daily Mail article is that the reporter tried to find out who owns the flat. The Land Registry says that it was owned until recently by Viscount Curzon, the 6th Earl Howe. There is an interesting interview with one of the women who works at the flat.

Jess Phillips was on Woman's Hour last week talking about the inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade (Behind Closed Doors). A sex worker also on the programme said that it's impossible to get rid of prostitution. Her reply was that we can reduce it. If you look on the report there are two statistics that appear to show that prostitution has been reduced in Sweden because of the new law.

Both are wrong though. I will quote the relevant paragraph from page 22 below:-

Sweden became the first country to adopt this abolitionist law in 1999. Anonymous surveys conducted in 1996 and 2008 revealed that the proportion of men in Sweden who reported paying for sex dropped from 13% to 8%. The most recent study conducted on prevalence rates found that 0.8% of men in Sweden had paid for sex in the previous 12 months - the smallest proportion recorded in two decades and the lowest level in Europe.

The first statistic (13% to 8%) is not to do with men who pay for sex, but men who at some time in their lives have paid for sex. So a 72 year old man would answer yes in the 1996 survey if he paid for sex when he was 18 in 1942 and a conscript in the Swedish army or navy. He would be too old to participate in the next survey in 2008. It tells us nothing about whether the amount of paid-for sex in Sweden is increasing or decreasing.

The second statistic (0.8%) is to do with people who pay for sex. Active sex buyers, who report that they have paid for sex within the 12 months previous to the survey being conducted. But when you look at the actual statistics, the number of people who pay for sex increased between 1996 and 2008 (1.3% to 1.8%). The new law criminalizing men who pay for sex was introduced in 1999. So it went up, not down.

The only way to explain this mismatch between the two sets of statistics between 1996 and 2008 is that the number of men who pay for sex did increase after the 1999 law was introduced, despite it now being illegal. Older men, who perhaps paid for sex while away from home as young men in the war, became too old to participate in the 2008 survey, or died. Sweden was neutral in the war but there was conscription.

Since 2008, the number of men who pay for sex has decreased (1.8% to 0.8%). Numbers can go up as well as down, as we have seen, and the changes have nothing to do with the 1999 law. Men aren't becoming too afraid to visit sex workers. I suspect that the Swedish figures have always been the lowest in Europe, between 1996 and 2014 the number dropped by only about a third.

This drop was probably something to do with the 2008 financial crisis. It certainly hasn't gone from 13% to 8% to 0.8%, which is what they may be trying to imply. The number of mdl who have paid at some time in their lives has decreased by a very small amount since 2008 (7.9% to 7.5%), which is consistent with older wartime men no longer participating in surveys.

The evangelical Christian politician Jim Wells used a false statistic to get the Nordic Model adopted in Northern Ireland. He said in the Northern Ireland Assembly that 127 sex workers were killed in a 15 year period after legalization in the Netherlands when in reality they were killed over a 30 year period with most killed before legalization not after. He's been in the news again after comparing abortion to the holocaust and has been castigated for his homophobic comments.

The evangelical former pastor MP Gavin Shuker is the leader of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade who produced the report. It seems he has learned from Mr Wells about how to get the Nordic model adopted. Gavin Shuker, Jess Phillips and her chums at the APPG want to use statistics creatively too to get the same law here. I hope they don't succeed.

watching loose women

I went to Manchester again and I did so many things I can't possibly tell you about them all. I started in Chinatown where I tried to find a girl in a massage establishment. I had read about her on a site, he said the place is a dump but she's so damned attractive he keeps going back. He'd got the name wrong - it was Lina not Lisa - and she wasn't there anyway so I moved on.

I'll skip ahead and tell you about Cosmopolitan in Portland Street. I went up the stairs and into the brothel. The receptionist was on the phone, I waited and then said "I'll sit down, shall I?". There was a big TV but I was watching the women. There was a blonde woman with tattoos who was looking through a carrier bag with some takeaway food in it. A skinny dark-haired girl came out of a room in a dressing gown and looked in the bag. She went back into the room. A tall blonde woman in a sexy dress came in.

Usually there are four women to choose from but I needed to choose between these three. I like dark-haired women but the skinny girl was too thin for me. She was from Portugal. The tattooed woman was nice, but I chose the Dutch woman. When I'd been there before I thought there were girls who looked like students. Manchester has a big student population and I liked the idea of a student girl.

Zoe was a disappointment though. She seemed very withdrawn, the opposite of Ling the Chinese woman who I'd seen at Cosmo before. Ling had been very enthusiastic, sucking on my cock without a condom and laughing and giggling when I was on top of her. Zoe only got interested near the end when I said "That Portuguese girl is too thin". I also told her that the receptionist is the most attractive of them and she agreed that she's very attractive.

I have been getting viagra from Boots in Manchester. I could have gotten a prescription from my doctor but instead I chose to get them 'over the counter' at the Market Street branch in the centre of Manchester. They do a check up first. So now I no longer have a problem with losing my erection when having sex.

I'd been shagging away at Zoe but hadn't come, so I thought I would go to the nearby Tropical Palms. There was one girl available and the receptionist said if I waited there will be another one coming out soon. I sat on one side of the room and the East European girl sat on the other side. She was reasonably pretty. I thought it's a bit like the school disco where the boys sat on one side and the girls on the other. If a boy liked a girl he could go over and invite her to dance.

I was thinking she was looking more and attractive and I might make an invitation but then a black man came up the stairs, dropped two twenty pound notes on the counter and she traipsed off with him. I thought 'What am I supposed to do now?'. I thought I'll wait for the other girl to come out. She was small and skinny though, another Eastern European, so I declined. She gave me a funny look.

Cherrys is not far away so I went there. There was the receptionist, a man sitting on a sofa, and a tall woman standing nearby. I knew straight away that I wanted her. She had a dark skin and a pretty face. I think the receptionist said something to the man, I paid my £40 and went into a bedroom with Amira. I asked her where she comes from and she said Algeria.

Amira was everything I'd been looking for. She's probably in her 20s or 30s and not skinny, a real woman. She lay down on the bed and opened her legs wide, holding open her pussy for me to see. Her natural skin colour is like a perfect all-over tan. When I got on top of her I enjoyed looking at her face and her big dark eyes. I had asked her to turn the light on so that I could see her properly.

I enjoyed myself so much with Amira that I could see her on a regular basis. In a recent post I said that I'd met Maisie and another Thai woman who were so nice I could see them again and again. Now there's Amira too.

Later I thought about the man at reception in Cherrys. I think what happened to him is what happened to me at Tropical Palms. He was waiting for all four women to become available so he could make his choice, but before that could happen I came in to spoil it for him. Maybe he waited long enough and he finally got his choice. I don't think he would have got better than Amira though.

Sex, Lies, and Paperbacks

I heard the feminist Julie Bindel recently on the radio talking about prostitution. I thought it would be interesting to read her new book and was delighted to find that no one seems to have a copy. I could get one off Amazon of course but I'm not going to pay for it. I've asked in libraries and been told I can request it, which I don't want to do. It's not in bookshops. There is a feminist/socialist bookshop in Bold Street in Liverpool and they had a copy but it wasn't on the shelf and they had to look for it.

So even though she's had free publicity for her book from Woman's Hour and free publicity from The Guardian it doesn't look as if many people are going to read it. I could get the gist of what she's saying from the radio programme and the newspaper article. I was pleased to see that she's no longer claiming that when she went to Nevada they found learning disabled women who were being double pimped.

She had claimed that on an earlier appearance on Woman's Hour, although that hadn't been in her report. The report said that one learning disabled woman had been found, which is one too many obviously, but hardly any indication of what will happen here if we legalize brothels.

In her Guardian article she makes no claim that there is less prostitution in Sweden now because of the law criminalizing men for paying for sex. She writes that prostitution is 'a consequence of women’s inequality' and that 'it should be possible to eradicate it'. Yet Sweden is held up as the best example of an equal society, and after 18 years of the law they haven't eradicated it.

While looking for her book I came across a similar book by Kat Banyard called Pimp Nation. I read Chapter 5 in the bookshop and was annoyed that she is repeating a false statistic that I've seen before. Around the year 2000 prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands, but in Sweden they began to prosecute men for paying for sex. Banyard writes that 127 prostitutes were killed in the Netherlands during that time but only one in Sweden.

I heard Rachel Moran state this on Woman's Hour, and it's false. The 127 prostitutes were killed over a 30 year period, not 15 years, and most of them were killed before prostitution was legalized not after. So it looks as if fewer women are being killed in the Netherlands now than before legalization. Not more, which is what they are trying to pretend.

What's more, no prostitutes were killed in Sweden in the 9 years before the new law prosecuting punters. Banyard tries to dismiss the one killing since 2000 as 'domestic'. It wasn't domestic, the authorities handed over Petite Jasmine's kids to a violent ex-partner because she was a prostitute, who then killed her. This is what the authorities in Sweden do. They take away their children. They also deport them or get them evicted.

Banyard doesn't mention this in her book of course. She's happy to point out that in New Zealand prostitution might not be called fully decriminalized because prostitutes aren't allowed to solicit near schools, but she doesn't mention the extra-judicial punishments of prostitutes in Sweden. She doesn't mention that two women who choose to work together for safety can be arrested in Sweden, as also happens in Britain.

Prostitutes can be treated like pimps, as can their landlords if they don't cooperate with the police to evict them. I would like to know if it is men or women who are prosecuted, and if it is women whether they are younger or older. My guess is that it is women in their 20s and 30s who get prosecuted, not so much men or older women.

There are police in Sweden (and Norway) whose job it is to identify prostitutes, find out who their landlords are, contact them, and get the women evicted. Or deport them, or take their children away. Then they tell the world that they treat prostitutes as victims. Victims, yes, but of the police. 'Violence against women', yes, but it is this Nordic model which is violence against women, not prostitution.

Woman's Hour has got a lot to answer for. They let Julie Bindel pretend that she'd found learning disabled women (in the plural) being double pimped in Nevada. They let Rachel Moran state the false 127 statistic. Then Bindel again plugging her new book.

I used to like Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour until she started having a go at the transsexual woman guest whose only crime was to contradict Murray by saying she didn't think it was too much of an imposition for a top hotel to require their female employees to shave their legs when in skirts with bare legs. Jenni later came out with a statement stating that trans women aren't really women, that they can't understand what it's like to be a woman. I think that it's Jenny who is the one who is out of touch with how most women feel.

Kat Banyard got the false statistic from Jim Wells, who was a politician in Northern Ireland (before he started making homophobic comments). He's a Protestant Christian so he together with Catholics in the south of Ireland have campaigned to ban sex work. Radical feminists like Kat Banyard ally themselves with social conservatives like Jim Wells, she quotes him in her book.

She thinks that if a man pays for sex with a woman then he can do anything he wants with her during that time, and that men like nothing better than asphyxiating prostitutes by forcing their erect penises down their throats. That's why she thinks sex work can't be a real job, because you can't be taught that. The reality is a sex worker will tell her clients what she will and will not accept: most that I've encountered don't allow kissing, fingering, oral sex without a condom or anal sex (or asphyxiation). She can even tell her client she doesn't want him to get on top of her if he's too big (that has happened to me twice, I'm tall and slightly overweight: I respected what they wanted).

This blog allies itself with sex workers, transexuals and gay men. Not that I think these three groups have anything in common except that they are under threat by people like Jim Wells. It allies itself with sex-positive feminists, as opposed to radical feminists like Bindel and Banyard.

I ally myself with sex workers like Laura Lee who after she was presented with the false 127 statistic at the Northern Ireland Assembly found out the truth about it. I ally myself with all the sex workers who are arrested just for trying to make themselves safe by working together, and the ones targeted by the punishment squads in Sweden and Norway. I ally myself with transsexuals and support their right to be who they really are. I ally myself with gay men and women and believe they can make parents who are just as good as heterosexual couples. Jim Wells - who doesn't believe that - can keep his opinions to himself. So can all the liars with their false statistics and their hidden agendas. I know what side I'm on.

I realize that many will doubt that sex workers are arrested and evicted in Sweden and Norway. The whole idea of the Nordic Model is that prostitutes aren't punished. Bindel said in her recent Woman's Hour appearance "They shouldn't be arrested - ever". I have collected all the evidence on my blog page The truth about the Swedish Model. Even more on my new page don't erase or edit out Petite Jasmine. You can also read my An Open Letter to Rachel Moran for more information about the 127 statistic. You may want to read my review of feminist Natasha Walter's book Living Dolls where I expose her false statistics.

UPDATE: After reading more about Petite Jasmine I can see that there are people who are trying to say that she didn't have her children taken away because she was a sex worker. There is no evidence that she was drinking and taking drugs, although she was accused of these things.

Jasmine wrote in a letter to a Swedish MP after her house had been stormed by social workers and her children forcibly taken into custody "I was subjected to an investigation which in a desperate way tried to find all those signs that they already from the start were convinced would be there, because I had been selling sex. Drug abuse, sexual abuse, emotional disturbance. They had a difficult time finding any of this, but it should certainly be known that they tried." So before she died, she herself had said that it was because she was a sex worker, and I believe her.

Someone asked why we don't mention the four women who have been killed in New Zealand since their change of law in 2002. We have no reason to believe that these four women (Mellory, Suzie, Anna, and Sky) would have not died if New Zealand had different laws. It isn't the policies of the New Zealand government that have resulted in the deaths of these four women, but it is the policies of the Swedish government that have resulted in the death of Petite Jasmine. That is why we protest at the policies of the Swedish government.

Sweden has not reduced prostitution. Neither can they claim that their policies have resulted in an end to the murder of sex workers. There were no murders in the nine years before the introduction of the new law. They want us to believe that the Swedish law has stopped women from being killed because prostitution is no longer tolerated there. They want us to believe that prostitutes are treated nicely there. All three of these are false: there has been no reduction in deaths, prostitution is just a common as before, and women are persecuted.

It wasn't just Petite Jasmine who was the victim. Her children witnessed their father stab and murder her, and stab and seriously injure a social worker. I want to leave you with more of what Petite Jasmine has written. I do this not to use emotion to promote my point of view, but to show what she was like and as a tribute to this brave woman. It is a translation from the Swedish so it might not be always grammatical.

"After one year and three months finally see her standing in front of me. The feeling when she runs into my arms and hug me, to get sniff her hair immediately becomes soaking wet of my tears, drag your finger along her small nose and chin, stroking her little hand and hold on her tiny body hard in my embrace and kiss her eleven thousand times in the forehead. To finally get to see her in the eye and say seventeen thousand times how missed and loved she is. And never want to let go again, but must. Created by my body when we two have been and we are part of each other forever. The love for my children is indescribable. (And justice system as said joint custody and half the time, where were you when everything was going on?)"

my day trip to Manchester

I was getting fed up with the winter so I decided that March 1st is springtime now and I want to have an adventure. What better than getting away from all the familiar places and going somewhere far away. I decided to go to Manchester. On the bus into Liverpool the sun was shining and I saw some daffodils with fully open flowers so I felt optimistic.

When I got off the train at Manchester Oxford Road I got a coffee at Prêt a Manger and headed for Chinatown. I wanted to have a massage so I thought I would go to Red Moon where I went a couple of years ago. You have to go up a lot of steps and the only woman was older and unattractive but I did have a nice massage. She offered me extras but I decided not to.

Nearby is a brothel called Tropical Palms. Funny name for a brothel, more suitable for a Thai massage place? You have to go along a back street to get to the entrance. I was shown two women there, one looked Eastern European the other looked like a local drug addict. First impressions can be deceptive but I moved on.

Next up was Cosmopolitan just up the road in Portland Street. I asked the receptionist who was available. She gave me the names of three women. The third name was Dana but she wasn't sure if she was available right now. I said that I wanted to see Dana and I can come back a bit later if she's not free. I saw Dana twice in 2015 and she was definitely the prettiest.

Dana came into the room and the receptionist made a joke and said something like 'It's your boyfriend here'. Maybe she thought it unusual that I didn't ask to see the other women available, and that I was willing to come back later if Dana wasn't free. When I was in the room with Dana she didn't seem to accept that she's really pretty. I said she could be a movie star. I asked her if she had ever thought about being a model. She seemed to think it was a strange question.

I told her she looked Italian. She said so I don't think she looks like a Pakistani then? I said no. I thought she looked like the actress Eva Mendes, who I compared her to on this blog. Nobody seems to agree with me that she's something very special.

I know all the brothels in central Manchester but there's one I've never been able to find. It's called Cherry's. I've looked for it round the back of the street called Piccadilly. I thought I would try again. I saw the sign in a side street off Back Piccadilly and went in. If I remember correctly you go down stairs then you have to go through a few rooms to reception. There was a young woman standing there in a dressing gown but the receptionist said that only one woman was available and pointed to a black woman sitting there. She smiled at me but and she was quite nice looking but not nice enough. As I was leaving four men who looked like Somalis came down the stairs.

Next I went to a brothel in Great Ancoats Street called Piccadilly Club. I have been here a few times. Two girls were in reception and another two girls came into the room. They were all slender and looked like teenagers, waiting for me to choose one of them. I told the receptionist that these ones are a bit too young for me.

I went to Salon 24 Park St Manchester. I asked if Cat was there. The receptionist said that Cat doesn't work for them anymore. I was offered two women and I chose an Asian woman called Habiba. Habiba is of about average attractiveness but she is very friendly (a Lancashire lass) and I enjoyed my time with her. She let me put two fingers in her pussy. When I had asked Dana if I could put a finger in her pussy she said no even if it was in a condom. When I had asked Dana if she had a vibrator she thought it was an unusual request. Habiba wasn't like that though.

I could have got onto the train at Victoria station nearby but I wasn't ready to go home yet. I thought it would be good to have another look at Manchester's Red Light District. I realized that Passions of Great Ancoats Street was on my way to the Red Light District. Lounge 56 in Swan St was too, but that seemed to be closed. At Passions I was offered two women, one of them looked so young I thought she might be underage. The other one I found attractive.

When I asked the price, I was told £35. Piccadilly Club is also £35 for a half hour. That's half the price of the going rate in Liverpool. I had paid £40 for Dana and Habiba. £35 for half an hour with Bianca seemed a good idea. All of the women I saw wanted to put a condom on me and give me oral sex. I explained to each of them that it doesn't work for me, that what I want is to look at her pussy and play with myself to get an erection. I like to ask them what they have been getting up to with the previous customers that day. In each case I then got on top of them and started fucking them.

Bianca looks about 40 years old and although she's not skinny I think she's got a nice body. I don't normally go for blondes but there was something about her I liked. She was very friendly and spread her legs to let me look at her shaven pussy.

It didn't take me long to get to the Red Light District. I walked through St Andrew's Square but I didn't see the pretty Asian girl I saw before. I went to where I had seen the other women but didn't see anyone there at all. I hadn't wanted to do anything with them, just see what was going on. So I just wandered around the centre of Manchester till it got dark and I got back on the train at Oxford Road.

In Liverpool I noticed lots of homeless people with their sleeping bags in the streets. The men don't seem to mind too much but I noticed a woman who clearly wasn't happy. I felt sorry for her, I imagine she leads a traumatic life. When I decided to move from London to Liverpool a couple of years ago I had several offers of social housing. I was told by one housing officer that she had expected a few people to turn up but I was the only one who had and the flat was mine if I wanted it. I chose somewhere else. So it's not lack of social housing in Liverpool that's the problem. It must be drugs or mental illness that stops them from having a nice place to live.

my review of the year 2015

I made several trips to Manchester where there seems to be more choice than anywhere else and it's cheaper. There are so many brothels and the going rate seems to be £40 per half hour, whereas in London and Liverpool it's £60 and in Glasgow (another place I punted in for the first time) it's £80.

I liked Cosmopolitan in Portland Street where I met the extremely attractive Dana and Piccadilly Club in Great Ancoats Street where I met a number of lovely women such as Katie, Sonya, Priscilla and Camille. It's even cheaper at Piccadilly, it's only £35 per half hour. The other place I liked was Salon 24 especially Cat.

I also made several trips to Soho. I mostly visited the walk ups but also a few Chinese massage places. My best day in Soho was in April when I saw pretty Thai girl Poppy, Scandinavian blonde nympho Eva and voluptuous Romanian Amy. I had seen all of them before and they are some of the best.

When I go to Chinese massage places it's not usually as sordid as the walk ups. Usually it is a nice massage and then the girl uses her hands to bring me to orgasm. That was how it was in May when I went to see a girl in London Chinatown that I had been told about. Two people emailed me to ask if I'd seen this girl who they both said was very pretty. I also saw a Thai woman in Manchester Chinatown who was very skilled at what she did.

However, it can be more sordid in Chinese massage places than the walk ups. I saw again a woman in Charing Cross Road who I had seen last year. She gave me oral sex without a condom and she lets men put their fingers in her pussy and bum hole. I found another one like her in Little Newport Street who was equally as wild.

I tried all of the brothels on the eastern side of the Wirral. I met Chrissie and Jordan at Jays Wallasey, Lauren at Overpool Angels, and Taylor at The Penthouse. All of these women are older local women who seem to be nymphomaniacs. Completely different from the younger ones in Soho who are mostly Eastern European. I went to the Thai brothel in Rock Ferry too where I met Jenny.

In Liverpool I met the independent black escort Maya and a Thai woman called Lily, both of them working from flats in the central Ropewalks area.

I have enjoyed my time with all of these women, but who was the best? That's difficult to say. Dana in Manchester was the most attractive. Katie in Manchester combined good looks and youth with sexiness and fun attitude. I liked Lauren because she's the one I would most like to have an affair with. The best one was the most recent: Cat in Manchester is young (24) and attractive (if you like her type) and seems a complete nymphomaniac. I used to think it was a myth that you can find local nymphomaniacs in brothels but since I moved to the North West I believe it. People will say that they are good at pretending but I think you can tell. When they wank themselves to orgasm, that's a good sign, especially if they screw their faces up as if they're in pain; they wouldn't do that if they were trying to look sexy.

I talked to three street girls this year. I found the Red Light Districts in Liverpool and Manchester. I only saw one street girl in Liverpool and I talked to her. I saw several in Manchester but I only spoke to one of them, a glamorous Asian looking woman sitting at the northern corner of St Andrew's Square. I also talked to Shanie in Croydon. I keep away from street girls now.

The number of 'Pageviews all time history' for this blog is very nearly one million. It's always amazed me that I can type in something and thousands of people will read it.

thoughts about my first escort

On Tuesday this week I experienced my first escort. I wrote about it in my previous post. I have been thinking about it. I've only seen one escort, and so I'm hardly in a position to comment on all escorts, but there are a few things I can say.

Firstly, my escort wasn't someone from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia desperate to make money. I can't say that about all escorts of course, but it isn't true that they're all poor women who have few choices in life. That's what some people would want you to believe, the ones who want it banned. My escort was educated in America and I expect she could have lived there if she'd wanted.

Secondly, she seemed to enjoy my company and enjoyed the sex too. When we were having sex she wanted to wank herself until she came. That was nice for me to watch. Some people will say she was only pretending, because that's what turns men on. They will say she didn't really want to be with me. But when I looked at her pussy she was obviously aroused. And why not, lot's of women will have sex for free with a stranger in a hotel room. She told me I was her first client of the day. Perhaps I was the last of the day too. I don't think she has to have sex loads of times every day.

Thirdly, not all escorts are tall, slender and beautiful. Men don't insist on women with big breasts and tiny waists. My escort wasn't tall, slender or a stunner. But she made me happy. She can make a living through escorting. Unless, of course, the radical feminists and faith groups manage to ban her from making a living. Then you've got the blokes who say why can't you get it for free. But if a man pays £50 for a meal and £50 for his date's meal, with drinks on top that's easily £120. It's not for free. And a man might have to pay for several dates before he gets any action.

People say that Belle de Jour was nothing near the reality of prostitution. Well, what I experienced on Tuesday night comes very close to that. The only real difference is that my escort wasn't young, tall, slender or a stunner. I could have got that if I'd wanted that, the agency have a website where you can select a woman you fancy.

I don't know what India is going to do with her money. She might be studying or on an internship or has her own business. Whatever she is I wish her the best and I hope the money will be a help to her.

my best Soho experience

52 Greek Street - you can see the sign for Monica
click on picture to see bigger picture

I've just had probably my best experience in Soho. I went to 52 Greek Street looking for Monica. She wasn't there but there was this beautiful girl there instead. Her name is Sarah or Sara. When I asked her where she comes from she wanted me to guess. I said South America, but she said no, Bulgaria.

She has black hair and big dark eyes. She is of medium height, not slender but not fat either, and looks to be about 21.

It's strange but a while ago I went looking for Monica at 52 Greek Street and found Suzy. She was lovely but I think I like Sarah even better. I think she's more sexy. Not everyone agreed with me that Suzy was beautiful, and I don't expect they will agree with me over Sarah either.

Usually when I see a Soho sex worker I tell her that I want to look at her pussy and wank myself. I said that to Sarah too. She lay back on the bed with her legs apart and I knelt between her legs. It didn't take me long to get an erection. It was quite strong and I decided I wanted to try and fuck her. She put a condom on me and I got on top of her.

Instead of me losing my erection after a while, which is what usually happens, I kept going. It would have been nice if I could have looked at her face while I was on top of her but all I could see was the top of her head. So I decided to imagine the dark-haired woman in the comedy show 2 Broke Girls, someone I find really sexy. Sarah has the same kind of sultry sexiness that this actress has.

It took me a while but I came inside her. This doesn't happen often with me, although I had a similar experience earlier this year in a Thai brothel in South Croydon. It must be the best £22 that I've ever spent.

UPDATE: This woman may be the same as Zara, who used to work at 21 Greek Street. That's the problem when they're not allowed to put their names next to the door. She might have said Zara to me and I misheard it as Sara or Sarah.

A couple of weeks ago someone told me about a Chinese girl in Covent Garden. She was as young and pretty as I had been informed. I was told she has a lovely figure too but I didn't get that far. She wanted £40 for hand relief but I declined. If it was £40 for hand relief and a strip that would have been more like it. When I said I didn't have £40 she seemed a bit sulky, no more smiles and giggles, and massaged me a bit more till my time was up.

This may have been because she thought I didn't fancy her. She had been fishing for compliments and I could tell she loves flattery about her appearance. She may have thought I wasn't willing to part with money because I didn't find her arousing. Also she had been questioning me about how I had got her name. I just said a friend had told me about her but she kept asking and when I told her that I found out about her on the Internet she didn't like that at all.

She's very secretive about what she does, and not just because she doesn't want knowledge about what she does to get back to her employer. I think that when she's alone in her room with a man she finds attractive then she's willing to do a lot more. Someone got a body-to-body massage from her, and he said she was very sexy and put her tongue in his mouth.

I think this young lady has things just the way she wants it. She makes loads of money because men will pay more for a pretty young girl like her. Her working environment is good, there's a shower in the room. She keeps what she does confidential so that if an older and less attractive man asks if she does any extras she will say hand relief only - nothing else, not even a strip - £40 take it or leave it. When she's with a younger or more attractive man then she has some fun. And she gets told how pretty she is many times a day. Good luck to her.

the prostitution debate on Woman's Hour

On the BBC Radio 4 programme Woman's Hour recently (03/03/14) Gavin Shuker MP talked about the results of the cross party committee report he chaired on reforming prostitution laws. He is a former Evangelical Christian (Pentecostal) pastor and he talks the language of radical feminists. It's a clear example of how religious groups and radical feminists are 'singing from the same hymn sheet'.

Here's what he had to say "There's always going to be a small group of people for whom it's a choice that they've made actively, but for the vast majority of women involved in prostitution it's a choice that's been made for them or a choice they're trapped in."

To which presenter Jane Garvey replied "And surely - you would imagine - that the vast majority of men who choose to pay for sex will know that the women who are doing it don't want to be there or there are a string of reasons why they find themselves in that position." No pun intended I'm sure.

The point is that the vast majority of men who choose to pay for sex are well aware of what all the research shows - that in Britain coercion is very rare. Neither is there any credible research to show that women are trapped in prostitution.

He goes on to say "The challenge is to men's attitudes of buying sex and in countries where they've successfully changed the law and made a difference to the prevalence of selling sex that's what they've done. They've tackled it head on and said it's unacceptable to purchase sex and our law's going to back that up rather than the other way around."

He's obviously referring to Sweden and some other Nordic countries. It's generally agreed that the law criminalizing the purchasers of sex in Sweden has had no effect at all on the majority of sex workers apart from making their lives more difficult. It has had some effect in reducing on-street sex work but that has always been a small part of the sex work industry and in Britain we have done much better through the use of ASBOs.

He also says "Prostitution is a form of violence against women and girls." This is just radical feminist propaganda and there is no evidence for it whatsoever.

He's obviously swallowed the radical feminist creed hook, line and sinker. He's just propagating radical feminist lies that have no foundation in reality. He continued "What you're confronted by though when you go into this with a genuinely open mind and you take more than 400 different submissions is you're confronted by alarmingly similar and consistent reports of the nature in which women have come into that trade. Many of which have come in under the age of 18 before they are able to even legally consent, with alarming numbers of care leavers, people that have been sexually exploited as a child, people that have been sexually exploited for money under the age of 18. Now if we're not going to take a serious look at our law in light of that ... then I think we need our heads looking at."

I have been trying to find out where is the research that shows that many prostitutes started before the age of 18. On the AVA site they state 'According to evidence submitted to the UK Government between 50-75% of women entered prostitution before they were 18, with 15 years being the average age of entry. [Home Office (2004). Paying the Price.]' However, when you look on the Home Office document Paying the Price: a consultation paper on prostitution July 2004 you can't find where it says that. On page 97 under Annex C (Age of first involvement in prostitution) the only place it mentions 15 years of age is where it mentions 3 studies, the largest of which was of 48 women and the most recent was 1998. Nowhere does it say that 15 years is the average age of entry. Just the opposite. The Home Office document does not make it clear what type of prostitutes these are; it seems that they are talking about street prostitutes who have always been a small minority among prostitutes and who hardly exist in Britain today because of ASBOs.

So when Gavin Shuker says on national radio "Now if we're not going to take a serious look at our law in light of that ... then I think we need our heads looking at" he is seriously misrepresenting the facts. Let him state where he gets his information from, because I can't find it. You can still listen to the programme here.

Rachel Moran

The next week on Woman's Hour (10/03/14) Jane Garvey talked to Rachel Moran and Ana. Rachel Moran said that she used to be a street girl and Ana said she was trafficked. However, blogger Maggie McNeill has good reasons to believe that Rachel Moran is not telling the truth. Another blogger, Laura Lee, believes the same thing. It seems that religion has reared it's ugly head again, only this time it's not Evangelicals like Gavin Shuker but Roman Catholics.

Ruhama is a Catholic organization connected with two orders of nuns. These nuns, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and the Good Shepherd Sisters, used to run the Magdalene laundries in Ireland where large numbers of young women were imprisoned without trial. A wide range of innocent women and girls were sent to Magdalene asylums because someone in authority felt they were sexually active or might become so.

Presenter Jane Garvey asked Rachel Moran "If the punters are criminalized, won’t this drive them and the prostitutes to even more risky circumstances?" To which Rachel replied "Well you only have to look at the difference between Sweden and Holland to get your answer to that. There’s been 127 women murdered in Dutch prostitution in the last 15 years. Now in Sweden there’s only been one prostituted woman murdered."

I have been unable to find this statistic anywhere on the web, although I did find on this page that 127 have been killed in the last 30 years. Prostitution in the Netherlands was not fully decriminalized until about 15 years ago so it's important to get the facts right. Were these women killed before or after decriminalization? Whatever the facts it seems that religious extremists, whether Evangelical or Catholic, are quite happy to say things that aren't true to further their cause.

As for Ana, the woman who said that she was kidnapped and taken to Ireland, I'm wondering why they had to go to Ireland to find a case of trafficking. I believe that trafficking does exist but that it is at a low level in countries like Britain. Could this perhaps be Ruhama again saying things that aren't true? You can still listen to the programme here.

Valerie Lempereur

It would not be the first time that someone pretending to have been a prostitute wrote a book and had an effect on the debate about changing the law. Dutch journalist Valerie Lempereur wrote the book Behind a Window in the Wallen (Achter het raam op de Wallen) under the name Patricia Perquin. People believed what she said and it had the effect of changing the law for the worse.

Maggie McNeill has written about this in a post on her blog, and in the same post she gives information about the situation in the Netherlands. In September of 2007 Amsterdam commissioned a study which was published in 2010; it’s 232 pages long and available only in Dutch. Maggie has put the conclusion and summary in English on her site. I've had a quick look at it and done a couple of searches using keywords but as far as I can see there is nothing about prostitutes getting murdered.

So I can only conclude that the authors of the study did not see murder as a problem for sex workers in Amsterdam because it doesn't happen. It looks as if Rachel Moran's statistic about 127 of them being killed in the last 15 years is totally wrong. This study also shows that underage prostitution is essentially nonexistent in Amsterdam. It looks as if Gavin Shuker's statistic about there being lots of underage prostitutes is also totally wrong.

One thing that I disliked in the Woman's Hour discussion of prostitution is when presenter Jane Garvey said that you can use statistics to prove anything. People can try to use statistics to prove anything but bad statistics can be challenged. I don't think the BBC should just allow false statistics to be broadcast if they can't be backed up. The BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less is very good at debunking incorrect statistics.

Dr Brooke Magnanti's book The Sex Myth debunks many of the statistics used by people who want to ban pornography, erotic dancing and prostitution. I especially like the chapter in her book about the belief that the presence of lap dancing clubs in Camden has increased the incidence of rape. Dr Magnanti - who is a trained statistician and a former sex worker - shows that this belief is false.

So statistics are important because they support the cause of decriminalizing sex work and not criminalizing the clients of sex workers. I can't accept the idea that statistics can prove anything and we just have to go with our gut feelings. Are most sex workers in Britain coerced or aren't they? It's not that difficult to get to the truth. The debate is hotting up, and the consequences could be that the lives of sex workers are made more difficult and dangerous if the law is changed on the basis of the falsehood of religious extremists and radical feminists.

UPDATE: I've just found out that Croydon Community Against Trafficking are screening a film about trafficking at the New Life Christian Centre in Croydon. "Our fellowship is in the evangelical and Pentecostal/charismatic traditions that lay emphasis on Bible based faith and an ongoing experience of the Holy Spirit." The same type of Christian are causing trouble for gays in Africa.

As it says in this Independent article 'Roger Ross Williams, the director of God Loves Uganda, a documentary about the influence of conservative US Christians in the East African nation, said, “The anti-homosexuality bill would never have come about without the involvement of American fundamentalist evangelicals.”' I'm sure that they would like to cause trouble for gay men and lesbian women in this country but public opinion won't allow it, but they can make trouble for sex workers by confusing people about the true nature of sex work.

I have been looking at the document produced by Evangelical/Pentecostal Gavin Shuker and his all party parliamentary group. There is very little in the way of facts and figures, it doesn't seem to refer to research, but there is a lot of opinion and some anecdotal evidence. They don't have any information to back up their assertions.

I've found out more about the 127 statistic. Laura Lee on this page states:-
"Given his obsession with this 127 statistic, I'd like to clarify: the statistic relates to 118 murders that occurred between 1985 and 2012 being investigated by a police cold case team in the Netherlands. In 25 of the cases, the victims were not sex workers, or it is not known if they were sex workers or not. Most of the sex worker victims were working illegally and outdoors, not indoors. Eighty-six of the murders took place before October 1, 2000 (i.e. before prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands)."

I don't know if Rachel Moran was ever really a sex worker and I don't know what her association with Ruhama is, but we can be sure her '127 women murdered in Dutch prostitution in the last 15 years' statistic is false. If she was really concerned about the deaths of prostitutes then she would try to get her facts straight.

Ella Suzy Eva

Yesterday I went to see Ella at 2 Lisle Street. I was hoping that she would be pretty like Suzy. Someone had said she's good-looking. It just shows how personal and individual tastes are because I didn't find her attractive. I would say that she's above average but nothing special. I didn't find her friendly either. On the other hand, someone went to see Suzy yesterday after what I had written about her and he said he didn't find her attractive at all.

It is possible that the girl I saw wasn't Ella. Last year I went to see a girl in Lisle Street called Evelina because someone said she's a real beauty. There was a sign up saying Evelina but when I saw her I wasn't impressed at all and I left. Then I realised this woman has blonde hair where Evelina was supposed to have black hair. So it was a completely different woman. It looks as if Evelina only lasted a few days in the Soho walk ups.

When describing a girl from memory sometimes your memory can get things wrong. I described Suzy as having a light tan but that was inaccurate. Her skin, although not pure white, is paler than that. They can look different though depending on light levels. After I saw Ella I went to see Suzy in Greek Street. She seemed tired and wasn't wearing much make up but I still think that she's the prettiest girl in Soho. I asked her if she had been dancing all night but she said no.

Then I looked around for who else I could see. I knew that Eva was back in her Berwick Street flat after an absence. I had seen Eva twice before and enjoyed it both times. When I knocked on the door of the upper flat at 70A Berwick Street it was opened by Eva. She told me she would be a few minutes and asked me to sit in the chair. She pulled a curtain next to me so that when the other punter left we wouldn't see each other.

I listened to the muffled sounds coming from the bedroom. There were two women in the kitchen and I could see one of them. She looked about 40 and I found her very attractive. The other woman was the maid; I saw her briefly and she had her hair partly in foil. It looked as if she was dying her hair, which might explain why she hadn't open the door to me. I recognised her as the woman who has a chihuahua dog that she used to bring with her. The two women were talking animatedly. I looked at the unfamiliar woman and wondered who she is; it even crossed my mind that this might be the infamous Claudia come back for a visit.

it was a lot like this when I was waiting to see Eva

The other punter left and Eva invited me in. Eva is tall and slender but not too skinny and she had next to nothing on. She has light blonde hair and a pale skin. She is everything that Ella was not. She's attractive and very friendly. She wanted a hug, then a smack on the bum and then another one. She said she thought she remembered me.

I had given £22 to Ella and £22 to Suzy but I decided to give Eva £32. We got onto the bed and she put a condom on and started sucking my cock. After a couple of minutes I said "Show me your pussy" so she lay flat and opened her legs. She wanted me to play with her clit and showed me how she likes it.

She got her vibrator out and started masturbating while I knelt between her legs and wanked myself. She kept going until she had an orgasm, her third of the day apparently. A few seconds after she came I came too. I hadn't come with Ella or Suzy so I was pleased when it happened. She showed me the vibrator saying that it feels like a real penis. I touched it and it felt soft to the touch.

When I was getting dressed we talked about the maid. She goes to the English Collective of Prostitutes meetings apparently. I asked Eva who the other woman is. She said it is Lisa, who works here at weekends. This surprised me because the last time I saw Lisa she had longer blonde hair. Although, as I said, your memory can get things wrong. When I thought about it I could see yes it could be her. So now I am thinking I should make a special trip into Soho on Saturday. I always said Lisa is damned attractive but I fancy her even more now. I'm definitely going to see Eva again though, maybe next Tuesday.

I had an eventful day yesterday

I had an eventful day yesterday. I started off in a spa in Balham and ended up in a basement in Soho. I wanted to go again to a spa I had been to just once before. I phoned and asked if the woman whose name I had been given was there that day and if it would be better to book to see her or just turn up. I made an appointment for 12.30 that afternoon for a one hour massage. I thought that if I got there about midday then I could use their sauna and steam room.

At reception a pretty young woman was asked to show me to the sauna and steam room after I had handed over my £40. She explained that it would take a while for them to warm up. I asked if she was the woman I had booked to see. She gave me a funny look as if to say "You don't think that I would be doing that sort of thing, do you?". I put my clothes in a locker and put on the disposable slippers they provide. I couldn't find one of the bathrobes that I used last time so I just wrapped a towel round me.

The sauna was indeed cold so I went in the steam room. The plastic seats were cold but the steam was warm so I sat in there. After a while two women came along. I could see them dimly through the glass of the steam room and I could hear them talking. They opened the door to the backyard and kept it open so that one of them could smoke. I couldn't hear what they were talking about but it sounded like someone's personal problems.

One of the women opened the door of the steam room and introduced herself. She was a middle-aged woman and she smelled of smoke. She said that I should come to one of the rooms in a while for my massage. I asked her if she could turn the steam back on because it had gone off but she said something about it turns itself off after a while.

I judged what I thought was the right amount of time then went down the stairs to the massage rooms. The woman was very talkative but I didn't understand everything she said as her English is not that good. She asked me if I'm always so quiet and I told her that when I'm lying on my front with my head in the hole in the massage table it's not so easy to talk but when I turn over then we can talk better.

I said "Do you ever get any celebrities in here?". When I came in the receptionist had been talking to someone who looked like Naomi Campbell. She didn't understand what I was saying so I said "Do you ever get any famous people come in here?". She said they did but she didn't elaborate. She had to keep breaking off the massage to go and blow her nose as if she had a cold. The room wasn't very warm either.

When the time came for her to ask me if I wanted hand relief I was in two minds as to if I wanted to give it a go. The physical sensations of masturbation are not enough on her own for me to come to orgasm. I need either to see an attractive body or for her to talk dirty. I didn't want to ask her to take her clothes off because I could see her body wasn't that good. I asked her to talk dirty but she said I didn't need that. I tried to get her to talk about her experiences with her boyfriend or her clients but she didn't say anything erotic.

She tried very hard to bring me to orgasm. I got an erection but then lost it after a while. She had two or three goes at it but then our time was up. I could imagine that she could be very popular with some men because she is so friendly and chatty. After the massage I could hear her talking loudly to a colleague in Polish or Russian and laughing. I wondered if she was talking about me.

I decided to go into Soho. If the Chinese girl I found recently had been there I would have gone to see her. She has left but I'm hoping she will return. I wanted to go to one of the walk ups.  I thought of the names of all of the women who were popular but mostly they were busy. Even Lily the old French woman was busy, with a punter waiting in the kitchen. I went to Mesa's flat in Greens Court but I didn't find her attractive so I didn't stay. In the flat below was Bianca but she was busy. Holly in Little Newport Street wasn't there that day.

The second time I tried to see Amy in Greek Street she wasn't busy. However, she refused to see me. I hadn't seen Amy for a long time, not since she got back from the massage parlours of Luton, so I thought she wouldn't remember me. I think she confuses me with someone else who is a time-waster. Either that or I have said something to her in the past that offended her. All I can think of is that I once asked her if she is Roma. Or she might have read my blog and not liked my description of her as the plumpest prostitute in Soho.

I wanted to see if Monica was at 52 Greek Street. When I saw the girl there I thought she's much prettier than Monica so I said I would like to spend 10 minutes with her and I handed over my £22. Usually in Soho you go up some stairs and there are two flats but at 52 Greek Street you go down the stairs and there is one flat. There's just enough room for a big black leather sofa and the bed.

the walk down at 52 Greek Street Soho
you can see the sign for Monica

She told me her name is Suzy and she looks about 17 but she told me she's 20. She is very slender with small breasts. She has black hair which she wore up. She works Tuesdays only.

The evening before I had watched part of the film Black Swan. Suzy reminded me a bit of both Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. She looks a bit like a ballerina, she has a lovely long neck. Most of the time I was with her I looked at her face and her pussy. She lay on the bed with her legs wide apart and smiled a lot while I talked to her.

I told her there was something I would like to do to her. I didn't expect her to consider it but she said that I could. I'm not going to say what it is because she wouldn't thank me if lots of punters wanted to do the same thing to her. Also I intend to see her again and I wouldn't enjoy what I did to her if I thought other men had been doing it to her that day. I just don't like the idea of coming into contact with other men's saliva.

I felt really happy going home after I had seen Suzy. She really is a pretty girl, a real find. I had spent £60 at the spa. Not a lot of money so I didn't feel that I'd wasted lots of money there and it was an interesting and even amusing experience. Then just £22 to see Suzy. I will go to see her next Tuesday, and maybe stop off to see Ella at 2 Lisle Street who is supposed to be the other great beauty. And today my muscles really ache so I think the massage at the spa was really working. I think she knew what she was doing, so at least I got something out of it.

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.

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

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

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.