Went to Soho yesterday. Wasn't sure who I wanted to see so I was looking around. Ended up seeing two of the three most beautiful of the Soho walk up prostitutes. I don't expect everybody to agree with me on who is the most beautiful, everybody's tastes are different.
I checked out the three walk ups in Lisle Street. At number 2 I noticed that Natalie was available in the lower flat and Victoria in the upper flat. I have seen both of these women before. I think I remember reading somewhere that Natalie wasn't going to be there much longer, she was going back to Russia. I definitely remember reading somewhere that she allows fingering. Few of them do. I had seen Natalie a couple of times before and the first time I remember we were in the 69 position and I had a finger inside her pussy. It was only when I tried to put my finger in her bum that she indicated she didn't want that.
Natalie is tall, slender, young and blonde. Lots of men only go for this type I should think. I'm sure there are lots of men who will think why would they bother with shorter or fatter or older women when they could have someone like Natalie. She is the sort of woman a millionaire would want to marry as a trophy wife. I, however, appreciate all ages and shapes and sizes. Usually I go for black hair and I'm not fond of pale skin.
I'm watching Celebrity Coach Trip on TV at the moment and I love Bianca Gascoigne and Imogen Thomas. Especially when they had a bath together. Bianca has lots of lovely black hair. I was familiar with the name Bianca Gascoigne because of a photo I found on the web and I've got on my computer at home. The photo doesn't show her face, so it was nice to see what her face looks like. Her face is as nice as her pussy. The photo shows her getting out of a car.
Natalie asked me what I would like to do to her. Most men will want to fuck her or for her to suck them, but I asked if I could play with her pussy. I gave her my £20. She took off her skanty clothing and lay on the bed. I lay down beside her and started touching her. She closed her eyes and I looked at her beautiful face close up. I told her she is like a Russian princess and I can imagine her in a fur coat and a fur hat. I touched her pussy and she was happy with that, but when my fingers moved away from her clit towards her vagina she indicated that she didn't want that.
I said "Do you know what I would really like to do to you?". She asked me what. I told her that I would really like to kiss her. She said that I could, it would cost an extra £10. I should have done it, I have never kissed a woman as beautiful as her. Even when I was the same age as her I never kissed a woman like her. I thought maybe it would have been unpleasant to her, but then again she wouldn't have told me she would if the thought of it had been unpleasant to her.
So I think I shall see her again. Better if I am the first punter of the day. I shall start with a kiss on the lips and then I shall try to get my tongue inside. Then I shall tickle the roof of her mouth with the tip of my tongue. Then I shall ask her if I put my finger inside her vagina. If she says no I will say that I can wash my hand to make them clean and to warm them. Snogging and fingering are the things I like.
I moved between her legs for a closer look at her pussy. I opened the lips to take a look inside. She had indicated that she didn't want a finger inside, but I asked to make sure. I said "How would you feel if I put a finger inside?". She said she didn't want that.
Now I remember that Mimi the Polish woman let me finger her the last time I saw her. Sandy the Spanish woman let me do so too. Mimi is blonde and good-looking but she is more sultry than Natalie.
Later I went to see Meena at 26 Romilly Street. She smiled at me and asked me why I hadn't been to see her in such a long time. I hadn't seen her for many months but she said she remembered me. She was just as pretty as I remember her, although she seemed thinner. I said I wanted oral and sex and I gave her £25. We got on the bed and she put a condom on and started sucking me. After a while I said that maybe hand manipulation would be more likely to get me erect so she took the condom off. She asked me what position I wanted her in, maybe with her bum in my face? We ended up with her sitting on my chest, facing away from me. Her long straight hair reached down to her bum. I remarked on her lovely hair, and then I put my hand round between her legs and said "You also have some lovely hair here!".
It wasn't long before I was erect and then I wanted to fuck her. So back on with the condom. Afterwards we were talking about her PunterNet reports. She has about as many as Paris. She asked me to do another report about her. As I was leaving she asked me to come back and see her before Christmas. She's certainly determined to get as many customers as she can and make as much money as she can. Good luck to her. I hope she makes a fortune.
When this blog began it was about my experience of prostitution in South London and Soho. Now it is mostly about my experiences in North West England.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
sinister journalist uncovered
Kirsty Whalley is a reporter for the Croydon Guardian, one of two free weekly newspapers in my locality. She has written a number of articles about trafficking. On the 20th of last month she did another one Police sex ads stance wins council approval. She's been running a campaign to get adverts for sex establishments banned from newspapers, principally her rival newspaper the Croydon Advertiser and its free edition the Advertiser Midweek.
The Croydon Advertiser had run a front page story Sinister brothel uncovered next to charity office. The Croydon Guardian criticised the Croydon Advertiser for carrying an advert for the same brothel the Croydon Advertiser had 'exposed'. The Croydon Guardian in turn scored an own goal when they had a picture of the offending ads in an article without having obscured the phone numbers. See here.
Kirsty wrote in her article 'It is estimated that 4,000 women a year are trafficked into the country, many of these pass through London forced to work as sex slaves against their will, seeing up to a dozen men a day'.
I sent her an email where I wrote 'I was interested to read your article about adverts for sex establishments in newspapers. You use the statistic of 4,000 women a year trafficked into Britain. Are you aware that this statistic is false? Do you think it is important to get the facts right?'
She sent an email back to me where she wrote 'Thank you for your email. The statistic quoted in the story is the is based on published research carried out by the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police Authority. If you have access to more recent, solid academic research on this I would be happy to receive it and use those figures in future stories. In the meantime I'll rely on the facts availble to me.'
I replied to her 'I have been to the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police Authority websites and I have not found the statistic that 4,000 women a year are trafficked into Britain. Last year Nick Davies wrote an article in the Guardian which says that in 2006 Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said "There are an estimated 4,000 women victims". That's 4,000 in total, not 4,000 a year. If you read the article you can see that there was no basis for this 'estimate'. I have included the URL below.'
This was last month and she hasn't replied to me. There are two possibilities here. Either she doesn't care enough about the issues or the 'victims' to get her facts straight. Or she knowingly stated something she knew to be false in order to manipulate public opinion. Either way she's not doing her job as a journalist. Nick Davies, however, is a proper journalist. I know she attended the 2010 annual meeting of CCAT (Croydon Community Against Trafficking) but I don't know if she is a member. She's obviously biased.
If it was really true that there were sex slaves in Croydon, who are raped up to twelve times a day, then the police would be smashing down doors to get to them and rescue them. I would be too. But whenever the police do something like that they don't find any. You may say that the police have identified victims, but many of them end up prosecuted by the police or deported or they disappear. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it is rare. Exploitation goes on in the domestic and agricultural sectors too but we don't ban them.
Would it not be more sensible for newspapers to ban adverts only for those sex establishments where trafficking is more likely to have occurred? Or for some kind of vetting process? Looking at the latest edition of Advertiser Midweek I can see two escort agencies advertized. They're not going to be anything to do with trafficking. I can also see two independent sex workers, Laura and Shakira. There are several brothels, but it's the oriental brothels where any trafficking is more likely to have happened.
Quite apart from not taking away the living of escorts and independent sex workers, a compromise would mean that punters would have less motivation to go to unwilling or unhappy prostitutes. If their needs are catered for by willing prostitutes then they aren't going to want to see unwilling ones. I don't think that people like Kirsty want compromise though, any more than they want dialogue. Even if it solves the problem they say they want to solve. People like Kirsty will never be happy until all prostitution is banned.
Kirsty has been working with CCAT and the police in her campaign to to get adverts for sex establishments banned from newspapers. Editors could be prosecuted for publishing sex ads. Vice squad detective inspector Kevin Hyland told the Croydon Guardian "It is an offence to advertise for prostitution. If newspapers do run adverts there is a possibility of prosecution. The legislation we are thinking of using is aiding and abetting offences of controlling prostitution for gain, offences of trafficking under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and possibly money laundering."
Money laundering? A newspaper editor prosecuted for aiding and abetting money laundering? Whatever next? I wonder if our MPs knew when they were debating money laundering legislation it would end up being used in this way. We all know what money laundering is, and this is not money laundering. It seems any business that breaks the law can also be accused of 'money laundering'.
This blog is not anti police and it is not pro trafficking. It is anti trafficking. It's just that my ideas are more likely to result in success than the ideas of people in organizations like CCAT. Their ideas are counterproductive, which is not surprising when you consider their real agenda.
When are people going to wake up to the fact that politicians are always trying to erode our rights, and will use external threats to make us compliant? It's not terrorists or paedophiles or traffickers or people on benefits who are the biggest problem in society, it's the politicians who want to take away rights and those who aid and abet them like Kirsty Whalley.
I don't like people with hidden agendas. I don't like people who say all they want is to rescue the victims when it is they who stand in the way of real progress. I don't like people who think that only people like them can see the truth and that they can tell lies to manipulate the public. I don't like people who campaign for laws that they know damn well are going to be used for something other than their stated purpose. These are the sinister ones.
Friday, October 15, 2010
not dead yet
not dead yet: news from the front
I was on TB Common a couple of weeks ago and I met a woman I hadn't seen before. It's surprising I hadn't seen her before because she'd been going there years and knew all the people that I had known. I won't give her name but I shall refer to her as J.
J. told me that she was friends with C. and D., and had lived with .. It was Denise who told me a couple of years ago that N. was pregnant and was giving up prostitution. She thought that N. would be able to give up her crack addiction but I remember having my doubts.
When I asked J. about N. she told me that N. had given up drugs and prostitution. Then she told me something that I didn't know. She said N. has got her daughter back.
I asked J. about K.. She told me that K. doesn't come to the Common any more, she goes to Brixton Hill at night. She said that K. had been in prison. I wish I had asked J. what K. had gone to prison for, if she had been imprisoned for breaching the conditions of an ASBO or something more serious.
A while ago I put my photo of K. on this blog (I have since removed it). When I first started this blog I didn't even use her name only an initial. I didn't want to identify her because it would have been unfair to her. After a while I decided it wouldn't matter because I thought she could well be dead, considering how she lived her life. So I started using her name and showed her photo. Now I know that K. is still alive I regret identifying her, not that it matters much because not many people will see this blog.
The last time that I saw K. I thought that there is little that I can do to help her. I thought there was one thing I could do for her. I don't think I ever told her this but I thought that if she kept my number then one day after she had had rehab we could meet up and I could buy her a coffee or something to eat and we could talk. I think she's had rehab a number of times but obviously it hasn't worked. One of the problems with people like her is that they don't know anyone in London who isn't a drug addict. I would have liked to have seen her when she wasn't on drugs.
I was on TB Common a couple of weeks ago and I met a woman I hadn't seen before. It's surprising I hadn't seen her before because she'd been going there years and knew all the people that I had known. I won't give her name but I shall refer to her as J.
J. told me that she was friends with C. and D., and had lived with .. It was Denise who told me a couple of years ago that N. was pregnant and was giving up prostitution. She thought that N. would be able to give up her crack addiction but I remember having my doubts.
When I asked J. about N. she told me that N. had given up drugs and prostitution. Then she told me something that I didn't know. She said N. has got her daughter back.
I asked J. about K.. She told me that K. doesn't come to the Common any more, she goes to Brixton Hill at night. She said that K. had been in prison. I wish I had asked J. what K. had gone to prison for, if she had been imprisoned for breaching the conditions of an ASBO or something more serious.
A while ago I put my photo of K. on this blog (I have since removed it). When I first started this blog I didn't even use her name only an initial. I didn't want to identify her because it would have been unfair to her. After a while I decided it wouldn't matter because I thought she could well be dead, considering how she lived her life. So I started using her name and showed her photo. Now I know that K. is still alive I regret identifying her, not that it matters much because not many people will see this blog.
The last time that I saw K. I thought that there is little that I can do to help her. I thought there was one thing I could do for her. I don't think I ever told her this but I thought that if she kept my number then one day after she had had rehab we could meet up and I could buy her a coffee or something to eat and we could talk. I think she's had rehab a number of times but obviously it hasn't worked. One of the problems with people like her is that they don't know anyone in London who isn't a drug addict. I would have liked to have seen her when she wasn't on drugs.
Friday, September 17, 2010
2 different types of prostitution in South London
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Saturday, September 11, 2010
some interesting photos
When I saw this picture I recognized it as 61 Dean Street, a walk up in Soho. It was the only walk up with a big yellow sign saying MODEL. This sign is no longer there. I have written about 61 Dean Street before. The police tried to close it down but failed to do so.
The Home Office are using this picture as part of a campaign to discourage men from using prostitutes. It's ridiculous because a man isn't going to be convicted of rape if he goes to 61 Dean Street, or anywhere else that I know of. He's not even going to be convicted under the new law that was introduced last year. Nobody has been convicted under this law. All this campaign and this law will achieve is to scare off the best customers - the more law abiding ones - of the women who work in these places.
A couple of days ago Clayton Littlewood was back on the JoAnne Good show on BBC London. He talked again about how he got to know the women working at 61 Dean Street. He had a shop underneath. He knows that they are not coerced. I found this photo here.
When I saw this picture I recognignized it as one of the walk ups in Greek Street. I found it on the POPPY project site. This walk up could be one of the sleaziest in Soho. Nice shade of blue though. I have written about it before.
What amuses me is that there is nothing on the web page to say that this is a walk up (or brothel, as they are often termed). I'm sure there are some people who look at this page and think that this is the entrance to the offices of the POPPY Project itself.
This was an image that could be seen as part of a series of images (some of them apparently subliminal) at the beginning of each of the 3 episodes of the C4 television documentary 'The Hunt for Britain's Sex Traffickers'. It is used by a few anti-trafficking blogs or sites. It is intended to get people to think that vulnerable girls are being treated like meat. The sex industry needs 'fresh meat' so that it can continue, punters can be kept happy and pimps can continue to make profits. This kind of propaganda is not going to help people to understand the issues and come to sensible decisions about how to help those women who are genuinely trafficked.
The Home Office are using this picture as part of a campaign to discourage men from using prostitutes. It's ridiculous because a man isn't going to be convicted of rape if he goes to 61 Dean Street, or anywhere else that I know of. He's not even going to be convicted under the new law that was introduced last year. Nobody has been convicted under this law. All this campaign and this law will achieve is to scare off the best customers - the more law abiding ones - of the women who work in these places.
A couple of days ago Clayton Littlewood was back on the JoAnne Good show on BBC London. He talked again about how he got to know the women working at 61 Dean Street. He had a shop underneath. He knows that they are not coerced. I found this photo here.
When I saw this picture I recognignized it as one of the walk ups in Greek Street. I found it on the POPPY project site. This walk up could be one of the sleaziest in Soho. Nice shade of blue though. I have written about it before.
What amuses me is that there is nothing on the web page to say that this is a walk up (or brothel, as they are often termed). I'm sure there are some people who look at this page and think that this is the entrance to the offices of the POPPY Project itself.
This was an image that could be seen as part of a series of images (some of them apparently subliminal) at the beginning of each of the 3 episodes of the C4 television documentary 'The Hunt for Britain's Sex Traffickers'. It is used by a few anti-trafficking blogs or sites. It is intended to get people to think that vulnerable girls are being treated like meat. The sex industry needs 'fresh meat' so that it can continue, punters can be kept happy and pimps can continue to make profits. This kind of propaganda is not going to help people to understand the issues and come to sensible decisions about how to help those women who are genuinely trafficked.
Friday, September 3, 2010
The Hunt for Britain's Sex Traffickers
I watched the final episode of Channel 4's The Hunt for Britain's Sex Traffickers last night. The testimony of the trafficked women, and one in particular (Lily), was very upsetting. There is no doubt that trafficking to Britain does exist, and that when it happens it can be horrific. We can argue about the numbers, and whether the numbers are increasing or decreasing, but we can all agree the police are doing a good job in stopping these slave traffickers.
The facts of trafficking are concerning enough, and I wonder why it is that programme makers feel the need to say things they must know are untrue, use information selectively and imply things that they probably don't believe. Why do they feel they have to use sound effects, background music and jerky blurred images to create a mood? Call me old fashioned but I like a documentary to present me with the facts and let me decide how I want to feel about them.
There are not 4,000 sex slaves in Britain, as stated in the programme. That's an old figure from 2006 that was not true then. Even if that statistic was believed in 2007 when Pentameter was in operation, the programme should have stated what we know now. They could have used the recent ACPO figures. They could have said that the 4,000 figure had no basis in reality.
If it was really true that there are 4,000 sex slaves in Britain today, which the programme makers seemed to be saying but may not have meant, on what basis do they insist that the problem is getting worse? If it was 4,000 in 2006 and it is 4,000 today that would mean that the problem is not getting worse.
They seemed to think this was a very important thing to say. At the beginning of episode 2 the narrator - Helen Mirren - said October 2007. The Government tasks Britain's 55 police forces to tackle the growing number of women trafficked into the country - for sex.
This was immediately followed by a police officer who said Forget drugs, forget cash, forget anything else. Human trafficking is becoming one of the biggest crimes and one of the biggest cash earners for organised crime groups there is.
This was followed by a sequence of images and sounds. They had this in each of the 3 episodes after the first minute or so. One of the images was a strange image of 2 rows of naked girls all in a foetal position and all facing the same way like sardines in a can. I guess the purpose of this was to suggest vulnerability. Another image was of a child's cot, with rumpled sheets and a teddy.
One of the sounds was someone talking about 25,000 sex slaves. Did the programme makers want to imply something that they did not mean? The MP Denis MacShane had said there were 25,000 sex slaves but this figure was discredited. The programme makers didn't think they could get away with saying 25,000 but thought that they could get away with 4,000. If someone pulls them up on it they can say they didn't actually say that. I expect they would say that they are just reflecting media concern at the time, but it doesn't help viewers to understand the issue.
On my video recorder I can look at a recording frame-by-frame. When I did this to the fast-cut sequence of images shown towards the beginning of each episode I noticed that many of the images were of only 1, 2 or 3 frames. To me they look like subliminal messages. You can't get shorter than 1 frame. I thought this was illegal, but apparently it is not. It is certainly manipulative, and designed to create a mood. They want to horrify, and perhaps to titillate too.
The makers of this programme want people to believe that the problem is getting worse, even though there is no evidence for it. They want people to believe the problem is large scale, even though there is no evidence for it. There are several reasons they might want to do this. It makes for a better TV programme, with more concerned people talking about it and wanting to see it. It makes people think that particular police actions are justified. And it changes people's attitudes towards prostitution, with fewer people thinking it should be legalized. This programme obviously had an agenda.
Lily was not rescued by operation Pentameter. She was rescued by a punter. Yet there was no indication in the programme that this was the case. Most people watching the programme would assume that the police smashed down the door of a brothel and rescued Lily and other girls. They made the decision that men who use prostitutes will have to be portrayed as callous bastards. The police have to be portayed as heroes rescuing vulnerable girls from nasty traffickers and punters.
If we don't get to the truth of issues we will never be able to make things better. In fact, we will often make things worse. Would the punter who rescued Lily have been willing to do so if the law had existed then where he could have been prosecuted for having had sex with Lily? I would also like to know if Devon and Cornwall Constabulary's Serious Organised Crime Investigation Team (SOCIT) would have been able to prosecute the traffickers had Pentameter never happened. They probably would have. So to present Pentameter as a great success is wrong.
If you want to find out more about Lily then you can look at the 3 articles covering the issue on the Plymouth Herald website, where they call her Sue.
Sex trafficking gang jailed for 17-and-a-half years 05/02/09
Sordid world of sex slavery 06/02/09
Long jail terms for brothel pair 17/02/09
Only one of these articles even mentions operation Pentameter, and that's just a paragraph tacked onto the end of the article. They do mention the punter (and his wife) who rescued Lily/Sue. So the Plymouth Herald have made a better job of reporting what happened. I found the links on Stephen Paterson's blog.
The facts of trafficking are concerning enough, and I wonder why it is that programme makers feel the need to say things they must know are untrue, use information selectively and imply things that they probably don't believe. Why do they feel they have to use sound effects, background music and jerky blurred images to create a mood? Call me old fashioned but I like a documentary to present me with the facts and let me decide how I want to feel about them.
There are not 4,000 sex slaves in Britain, as stated in the programme. That's an old figure from 2006 that was not true then. Even if that statistic was believed in 2007 when Pentameter was in operation, the programme should have stated what we know now. They could have used the recent ACPO figures. They could have said that the 4,000 figure had no basis in reality.
If it was really true that there are 4,000 sex slaves in Britain today, which the programme makers seemed to be saying but may not have meant, on what basis do they insist that the problem is getting worse? If it was 4,000 in 2006 and it is 4,000 today that would mean that the problem is not getting worse.
They seemed to think this was a very important thing to say. At the beginning of episode 2 the narrator - Helen Mirren - said October 2007. The Government tasks Britain's 55 police forces to tackle the growing number of women trafficked into the country - for sex.
This was immediately followed by a police officer who said Forget drugs, forget cash, forget anything else. Human trafficking is becoming one of the biggest crimes and one of the biggest cash earners for organised crime groups there is.
This was followed by a sequence of images and sounds. They had this in each of the 3 episodes after the first minute or so. One of the images was a strange image of 2 rows of naked girls all in a foetal position and all facing the same way like sardines in a can. I guess the purpose of this was to suggest vulnerability. Another image was of a child's cot, with rumpled sheets and a teddy.
One of the sounds was someone talking about 25,000 sex slaves. Did the programme makers want to imply something that they did not mean? The MP Denis MacShane had said there were 25,000 sex slaves but this figure was discredited. The programme makers didn't think they could get away with saying 25,000 but thought that they could get away with 4,000. If someone pulls them up on it they can say they didn't actually say that. I expect they would say that they are just reflecting media concern at the time, but it doesn't help viewers to understand the issue.
On my video recorder I can look at a recording frame-by-frame. When I did this to the fast-cut sequence of images shown towards the beginning of each episode I noticed that many of the images were of only 1, 2 or 3 frames. To me they look like subliminal messages. You can't get shorter than 1 frame. I thought this was illegal, but apparently it is not. It is certainly manipulative, and designed to create a mood. They want to horrify, and perhaps to titillate too.
The makers of this programme want people to believe that the problem is getting worse, even though there is no evidence for it. They want people to believe the problem is large scale, even though there is no evidence for it. There are several reasons they might want to do this. It makes for a better TV programme, with more concerned people talking about it and wanting to see it. It makes people think that particular police actions are justified. And it changes people's attitudes towards prostitution, with fewer people thinking it should be legalized. This programme obviously had an agenda.
Lily was not rescued by operation Pentameter. She was rescued by a punter. Yet there was no indication in the programme that this was the case. Most people watching the programme would assume that the police smashed down the door of a brothel and rescued Lily and other girls. They made the decision that men who use prostitutes will have to be portrayed as callous bastards. The police have to be portayed as heroes rescuing vulnerable girls from nasty traffickers and punters.
If we don't get to the truth of issues we will never be able to make things better. In fact, we will often make things worse. Would the punter who rescued Lily have been willing to do so if the law had existed then where he could have been prosecuted for having had sex with Lily? I would also like to know if Devon and Cornwall Constabulary's Serious Organised Crime Investigation Team (SOCIT) would have been able to prosecute the traffickers had Pentameter never happened. They probably would have. So to present Pentameter as a great success is wrong.
If you want to find out more about Lily then you can look at the 3 articles covering the issue on the Plymouth Herald website, where they call her Sue.
Sex trafficking gang jailed for 17-and-a-half years 05/02/09
Sordid world of sex slavery 06/02/09
Long jail terms for brothel pair 17/02/09
Only one of these articles even mentions operation Pentameter, and that's just a paragraph tacked onto the end of the article. They do mention the punter (and his wife) who rescued Lily/Sue. So the Plymouth Herald have made a better job of reporting what happened. I found the links on Stephen Paterson's blog.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Are the prohibitionists in retreat?
Many people who would like to see prostitution banned seem to have changed tack recently. Instead of saying that the majority of women involved in prostitution are coerced in one way or another, with large numbers of women trafficked, they are now saying that it doesn't matter how many women are trafficked. They are not admitting that their statistics are false but as these statistics are discredited they are starting to say they are unimportant.
However, it seems to me that their entire argument is based on their false statistics, which is why they have always stated them so frequently.
The MP Denis MacShane had said that 25,000 women had been trafficked into Britain. After a poor performance on Newsnight where he was heavily criticised, he is now talking about 'a futile war of statistics'.
A new Association of Chief Police Officers report shows that the number of women trafficked is less than thought. Last year Dr Nick Mai produced research that showed some migrants prefer to work as sex workers because they earn more money and work fewer hours. It has recently been revealed that no men have been convicted and only 3 men cautioned since the introduction of the new law in Britain banning men from paying for sex with a coerced woman. The recent Pentameter 2 police operation failed to convict anyone of trafficking.
In October last year Nick Davies wrote two articles in The Guardian Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution (about Pentameter 2) and Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic that seem to have caused quite a stir in the anti-trafficking world. The second one shows how the statistics on trafficking have been grossly inflated by some feminist and religious groups. Politicians such as Harriet Harman and Jaqui Smith who have used these false statistics to support bad legislation have now been removed from power.
Amid all the bad news for the prohibitionists was something that at first sight might seem a boost. In July of this year Julie Bindel wrote an article in The Guardian Legalising prostitution is not the answer that says a new report on the effectiveness of Swedish anti-prostitution laws shows that banning men from paying for sex is a good thing. The report said that the number of women involved in street prostitution in Sweden has halved whereas the number of women involved in street prostitution in Denmark and Norway have seen a 'sharp rise'. However, Norway has very similar laws to Sweden, so how can such laws be regarded as a success?
Now it turns out that the figures for Denmark are false. There has not been a sharp rise in street prostitution in Denmark.
The fact is that if we introduce a law to criminalize men who pay for sex in this country it could result in a sharp rise in street prostitution as it has in Norway. The best that could be hoped for is that half of street prostitutes will abandon their traditional red light districts. That is the message of the report on Swedish law.
Also, I would expect the number of women involved in street prostitution to have decreased by a lot more than just a half before the law could be judged a success. Just because street prostitutes aren't seen in their traditional red light districts doesn't mean they aren't still working. I have written more about this on my 'the issues' page on this blog.
Julie Bindel doesn't mention that Norway has similar laws to Sweden. She seems triumphant, but I think she is trying to bluff it out. She says there is no evidence that prostitution has been forced underground in Sweden, but it seems obvious that the lives of Swedish prostitutes has become more unpleasant and dangerous.
Looks like the 'academic consensus' of opinion on the subject that Bindel writes about in her article was correct after all.
To take the emotion out of the issue, it would be good to compare sex slavery to domestic slavery.
If it was true that most women who work as child minders or cleaners were trafficked into the country and coerced into doing this type of work, then it would make sense to ban people from having having child minders or cleaners. The people who use them could be criticised for encouraging a trade that causes misery. We know that there are some trafficked women in domestic slavery and yet it would seem absurd to want to ban people from having domestic help.
Much better to regulate it. This would be the best way to avoid abuse. To want to continue to criminalize many aspects of prostitution to help a tiny minority is wrong for two reasons; not only does it stop lots of women from being able to feed their families but it doesn't help coerced women. In fact it harms the coerced women. The prohibitionists are harming women. So to say that we need to continue to crack down on prostitution to help a tiny minority is wrong.
If you did believe that most women involved in prostitution are coerced, then it would be the traffickers and the pimps who make the profit from the sex industry. Cracking down on prostitution would harm their profits and make Britain less attractive for traffickers. Trafficking would decrease, and in time possibly stop.
If you believe that it is the women themselves who are making the money then cracking down on prostitution means they have to work harder for the money they need; working longer hours, having sex with more men, doing things they wouldn't usually do and don't want to do - such as oral sex without a condom.
That is why it does matter how many women are trafficked. It does matter what proportion of prostitutes are working for much the same reason as most of us are working or coerced into doing it. If you get it wrong, you harm some of the most vulnerable people in society and increase their problems, making worse the things you say you want to cure.
If you are opposed to prostitution, in the past it was possible to say only that you are opposed to trafficking. Who could have a problem with someone being opposed to trafficking? No one likes to think of sex slaves being raped 30 times a day (prostitutes don't have sex with 30 men a day - brothels just don't get that many customers). If prostitution=trafficking then you will get a lot of public support. They know that most people don't want prostitution banned. That is why their false statistics have always been so important to them.
Some people have an ideological opposition to prostitution, even if it occurs between consenting adults. Some feminists and some religious people. Ideological opposition is usually an attempt to justify a visceral hatred. Some feminists and some religious people have a visceral hatred of paid for sex just as some religious people have a visceral hatred of homosexual sex. I think that feminists should think very carefully about who they ally themselves with.
There was a very amusing article in my local free paper this month. Another local paper had had a front page article with a headline something like 'Sinister Brothel Uncovered'. There is an organization called CCAT - Croydon Community Against Trafficking - that pointed out that the paper had been advertising this brothel. This to me shows that concern can be manufactured by the media and politicians to get publicity and support for themselves.
The paper advertises lots of brothels and independent sex workers. CCAT, described as 'an anti-sex trafficking charity' have campaigned against 'adult advertisements'. They are an alliance of feminists and 'church groups'. They call for a boycott of this paper, saying that it is 'making a profit from the exploitation of women'.
I don't know what they are hoping to achieve, men will just look on the internet to find women. I'm sure that CCAT would call for the internet to be censored. Harriet Harman has already called for the PunterNet site to be closed down. That's how dangerous these people are. They want to censor the media and deny freedom of speech. No doubt they would love to be able to censor any attempt to expose their deceptiveness.
They don't care about truth, all they care about is getting their own way, by fair means or foul. All they care about is their weird obsessions yet they pretend they care about the vulnerable. In many countries of the world these types have the upper hand, now they seem to be on the run. That makes me happy.
However, it seems to me that their entire argument is based on their false statistics, which is why they have always stated them so frequently.
The MP Denis MacShane had said that 25,000 women had been trafficked into Britain. After a poor performance on Newsnight where he was heavily criticised, he is now talking about 'a futile war of statistics'.
A new Association of Chief Police Officers report shows that the number of women trafficked is less than thought. Last year Dr Nick Mai produced research that showed some migrants prefer to work as sex workers because they earn more money and work fewer hours. It has recently been revealed that no men have been convicted and only 3 men cautioned since the introduction of the new law in Britain banning men from paying for sex with a coerced woman. The recent Pentameter 2 police operation failed to convict anyone of trafficking.
In October last year Nick Davies wrote two articles in The Guardian Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution (about Pentameter 2) and Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic that seem to have caused quite a stir in the anti-trafficking world. The second one shows how the statistics on trafficking have been grossly inflated by some feminist and religious groups. Politicians such as Harriet Harman and Jaqui Smith who have used these false statistics to support bad legislation have now been removed from power.
Amid all the bad news for the prohibitionists was something that at first sight might seem a boost. In July of this year Julie Bindel wrote an article in The Guardian Legalising prostitution is not the answer that says a new report on the effectiveness of Swedish anti-prostitution laws shows that banning men from paying for sex is a good thing. The report said that the number of women involved in street prostitution in Sweden has halved whereas the number of women involved in street prostitution in Denmark and Norway have seen a 'sharp rise'. However, Norway has very similar laws to Sweden, so how can such laws be regarded as a success?
Now it turns out that the figures for Denmark are false. There has not been a sharp rise in street prostitution in Denmark.
The fact is that if we introduce a law to criminalize men who pay for sex in this country it could result in a sharp rise in street prostitution as it has in Norway. The best that could be hoped for is that half of street prostitutes will abandon their traditional red light districts. That is the message of the report on Swedish law.
Also, I would expect the number of women involved in street prostitution to have decreased by a lot more than just a half before the law could be judged a success. Just because street prostitutes aren't seen in their traditional red light districts doesn't mean they aren't still working. I have written more about this on my 'the issues' page on this blog.
Julie Bindel doesn't mention that Norway has similar laws to Sweden. She seems triumphant, but I think she is trying to bluff it out. She says there is no evidence that prostitution has been forced underground in Sweden, but it seems obvious that the lives of Swedish prostitutes has become more unpleasant and dangerous.
Looks like the 'academic consensus' of opinion on the subject that Bindel writes about in her article was correct after all.
To take the emotion out of the issue, it would be good to compare sex slavery to domestic slavery.
If it was true that most women who work as child minders or cleaners were trafficked into the country and coerced into doing this type of work, then it would make sense to ban people from having having child minders or cleaners. The people who use them could be criticised for encouraging a trade that causes misery. We know that there are some trafficked women in domestic slavery and yet it would seem absurd to want to ban people from having domestic help.
Much better to regulate it. This would be the best way to avoid abuse. To want to continue to criminalize many aspects of prostitution to help a tiny minority is wrong for two reasons; not only does it stop lots of women from being able to feed their families but it doesn't help coerced women. In fact it harms the coerced women. The prohibitionists are harming women. So to say that we need to continue to crack down on prostitution to help a tiny minority is wrong.
If you did believe that most women involved in prostitution are coerced, then it would be the traffickers and the pimps who make the profit from the sex industry. Cracking down on prostitution would harm their profits and make Britain less attractive for traffickers. Trafficking would decrease, and in time possibly stop.
If you believe that it is the women themselves who are making the money then cracking down on prostitution means they have to work harder for the money they need; working longer hours, having sex with more men, doing things they wouldn't usually do and don't want to do - such as oral sex without a condom.
That is why it does matter how many women are trafficked. It does matter what proportion of prostitutes are working for much the same reason as most of us are working or coerced into doing it. If you get it wrong, you harm some of the most vulnerable people in society and increase their problems, making worse the things you say you want to cure.
If you are opposed to prostitution, in the past it was possible to say only that you are opposed to trafficking. Who could have a problem with someone being opposed to trafficking? No one likes to think of sex slaves being raped 30 times a day (prostitutes don't have sex with 30 men a day - brothels just don't get that many customers). If prostitution=trafficking then you will get a lot of public support. They know that most people don't want prostitution banned. That is why their false statistics have always been so important to them.
Some people have an ideological opposition to prostitution, even if it occurs between consenting adults. Some feminists and some religious people. Ideological opposition is usually an attempt to justify a visceral hatred. Some feminists and some religious people have a visceral hatred of paid for sex just as some religious people have a visceral hatred of homosexual sex. I think that feminists should think very carefully about who they ally themselves with.
There was a very amusing article in my local free paper this month. Another local paper had had a front page article with a headline something like 'Sinister Brothel Uncovered'. There is an organization called CCAT - Croydon Community Against Trafficking - that pointed out that the paper had been advertising this brothel. This to me shows that concern can be manufactured by the media and politicians to get publicity and support for themselves.
The paper advertises lots of brothels and independent sex workers. CCAT, described as 'an anti-sex trafficking charity' have campaigned against 'adult advertisements'. They are an alliance of feminists and 'church groups'. They call for a boycott of this paper, saying that it is 'making a profit from the exploitation of women'.
I don't know what they are hoping to achieve, men will just look on the internet to find women. I'm sure that CCAT would call for the internet to be censored. Harriet Harman has already called for the PunterNet site to be closed down. That's how dangerous these people are. They want to censor the media and deny freedom of speech. No doubt they would love to be able to censor any attempt to expose their deceptiveness.
They don't care about truth, all they care about is getting their own way, by fair means or foul. All they care about is their weird obsessions yet they pretend they care about the vulnerable. In many countries of the world these types have the upper hand, now they seem to be on the run. That makes me happy.
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