books about sex work

I have just finished reading a new book about sex work called Unashamed: A memoir by Elizabeth G. I'm not going to review it although I have reviewed other positive books about sex work, namely Paying For It by Scarlett O'Kelly and Lucky Girl by Violet Ivy. All three of these books were written by sex workers or ex-sex workers.

There is a new article on the Feminist Current site by Meghan Murphy. In this article she writes:-

"Despite my efforts over the last decade+ to explain my position, which was developed through study of various legislative models throughout the world as well as through interviewing and reading the work of countless experts on prostitution, including women who were once prostituted themselves, but had managed to exit the trade, freed to assess their situation clearly and speak the truth about the industry, the accusation remains the same."

It is commonly asserted by Radical Feminists that a women can't 'assess their situation clearly' while they are still in the sex industry. Once they have left then they are all against it. However, we can see clearly from the three books I have mentioned that this is not the truth. It is an attempt to silence sex workers.

I am not sure if these three books were written by sex workers or ex-sex workers. To my mind it doesn't matter. Dr Brooke Magnanti is an ex-sex worker though and she doesn't back the Radical Feminists. They would say that she is a 'tourist' and unrepresentative of the majority of 'prostituted' women. As I have written elsewhere, there are many different types of sex worker, and escorts are as representative as anyone is.

They might talk about 'luxury beliefs'. If you believe in the Nordic model you can accuse people who believe in decriminalisation of having luxury beliefs. Well, that's all going to depend on whether you think that the Nordic model reduces demand, reduces murder, stops women from being arrested and helps them to leave. Much of this blog is looking at the evidence for all of these things.

To my mind though whether somebody has luxury beliefs also depends on how willing people are to find out the facts. If you can't be bothered then don't accuse others of luxury beliefs. Don't pretend that your motivation is helping women. If you insist, for example, that 'the Nordic model has demonstrated that it is possible to curb demand' (see Murphy's article) despite having been told that the statistics you use are wrong, then you are the one holding luxury beliefs.

The Nordic model lobby aren't going to like Unashamed. They are not going to like Stacey Dooley's programme about Nevada prostitution. Just like they didn't like the similar programme about the Sheffield brothel. The Nevada sex workers seemed to be having a great time. They will say not all sex workers are like that. This is of course true, but the point is that it could be true of many more of them. It's our choice (or American or Nevada voters). What isn't our choice is to curb demand.

Many people think that prostitution is legal in Nevada. The fact is that individual counties within Nevada can choose to allow it. Wouldn't it be great if one county allowed a form of prostitution where the women themselves make the rules and take the profit? No mega brothels allowed, only something like the SOOBs they have in New Zealand.

more student sex workers

There's something very odd about the Melissa Farley study that I wrote about in my previous post. It stated that men who pay for sex are 8 times more likely to report that they would rape a woman if they could get away with it and if no one knew about it. Also they are 3 times more likely to report that they have engaged in 'sexually aggressive behavior'.

You wonder why they didn't just ask outright in the survey 'Have you ever raped a woman?'. Well, the answer to that question is it looks as if they were asked that. So why aren't we told what these men reported? It can only be because they did not report that they had raped a women more than the non sex buyer group of men.

In the Melissa Farley study (Comparing Sex Buyers With Men Who Do Not Buy Sex: New Data on Prostitution and Trafficking) men were asked a number of sets of questions. One set of questions was the Sexual Experiences Survey (Perpetration Version). In this survey they were asked ten questions. The last three I have shown below.

8. Have you engaged in sexual intercourse when she didn’t want to because you gave her alcohol or drugs?
9. Have you engaged in sexual intercourse when she didn’t want to because you threatened or used some degree of physical force (twisting her arm‚ holding her down‚ etc.) to make her?
10. Did you answer “Yes” to any of the questions 1-10?

It goes on to say that 'Men are classified as perpetrators of rape if they answered “yes” to items 8‚ 9‚ or 10.' This is a bit strange because questions 1 to 7 are not rape. Question 1 is 'Have you engaged in sex play (fondling‚ kissing‚ or petting‚ but not intercourse) when she didn’t want to because you overwhelmed her with continual arguments and pressure?'

Anyway, men were asked if they had used alcohol, drugs or physical force to get sex in questions 8 and 9. So it would be a simple matter to work out how many men in each group have raped a woman. Yet we are not told this, instead we are told about what men say they would do under specific circumstances, and a calculation of sexual aggressive behaviour in general. The sex buyer group had 'a mean of 1.59 types of sexually aggressive behavior'. Never mind about the mean, what answers did they give to questions 8 and 9?

The Nordic Model Now! site use the Farley study to show that 'buying sex makes men more prone to violence against women'. Punters are 'nearly 8 times more likely to rape than other men'. Then people like Libby Purves try to say that the existence of sex work affects society in general and women in particular in negative ways.

Telling young people to just say no doesn't work. Whether it is about drugs or sex work. You can invite them to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each, to themselves and society, but don't try to feed them false statistics because they are too intelligent to be taken in by that. Some will want to continue after consideration and some won't. Then if they proceed you should do what you can to help them avoid the dangers.

I don't want young people to die of drug overdose and I don't want young people to die because they were forced to work alone. Let them have drugs of consistent strength and purity, and let them work together for safety. I would send my daughter to a university that helps them to stay alive. Except that she would make up her own mind which university she wants to go to and how she wants to fund herself.

prostitution in developing nations

I know about prostitution in Britain through experience and research. I know about it in Ireland too through research. I don't know much about prostitution in developing nations. I always assumed that there must be coercion of some sort going on there because you see that in other types of work such as factory work.

I have read two books recently, one about Vietnam and the other partly about Cambodia. The first says that during the Vietnam war sex workers earned much more than other workers. In 1975 when South Vietnam was about to collapse hundreds of Vietnamese sex workers bribed their way onto evacuation flights out of the country. They were the ones who had the money and especially the dollars. It wasn't hundreds of pimps, it was hundreds of sex workers.

The second book says that about 10 years ago the American State Department was 'pressuring the Cambodian government to take a stand against sex work or else lose aid from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)'.

"What happened once the sex workers rounded up in brothel raids were unloaded from the trucks and moved to the so-called rehabilitation centres? They were illegally detained for months at a time without charges, as were others who worked in public parks and had been chased, beaten, and dragged into vans by police. The Cambodian human rights organization LICADHO captured chilling photographs of sex workers caught in sweeps locked together in a cage - thirty or forty people in one cell. Sex workers who had been detained reported being beaten and sexually assaulted by guards in interviews with LICADHO, Women's Network for Unity, and Human Rights Watch. Some living with HIV, who had been illegally held in facilities described by the local NGOs that ran them as "shelters," were denied access to antiretroviral medication. In one facility sex workers were "only able to leave their rooms to bathe twice a day in dirty pond water," Human Rights Watch reported, "or, accompanied by a guard, to go to the toilet.""

The American State Department then upgraded Cambodia's compliance ranking. In Brazil it was a different story: "The groups had been strong-armed by the US into signing loyalty oaths declaring their opposition to prostitution in order to keep their AIDS funds. Rather than sell out sex workers, the entire country of Brazil refused to sign the pledge and gave up $40 million."

The book says about Cambodian women that 'many have also worked in garment factories, and left the factories due to low wages to move into sex work'. So, again, we see that sex workers earn more than other workers. And yet the people who want to 'rescue' sex workers say they want to teach them how to operate sewing machines. Women don't do sex work to avoid starving, they do factory work to avoid starving and when they are fed up scrimping they turn to sex work. As we saw with the biography of the Duke of Westminster, the choice is to stay in your home town and be unemployed, move to a city and work for little money, or become a sex worker and have a better lifestyle.

Who are these influential Americans who are harming women in developing countries? It can only be the Evangelicals and their Radical Feminist supporters. I'm sure they, and especially the Radical Feminists, would say that they never wanted women to be locked up. They would say they support the Nordic model where prostitutes are decriminalized. But in every Nordic model country women who work together are arrested and sex workers get evicted from their homes. When Amnesty International exposed this abuse and hypocrisy they were demonized. It was said that Amnesty International works in the interests of pimps and traffickers, whereas (as I wrote in my last post) they are expressing the views of many (non-Radical) feminists.

Sex workers know what they need to escape from and how to do it. They don't need Evangelicals and Radical Feminists trying to stop fornication/objectification. There is coercion but not so much from pimps and traffickers, more from the police, the State, and neocolonialist America. It's not as if the people of Cambodia haven't suffered enough from the Americans*. It's only going to increase pimping and trafficking.

The first book is Vietnam by Max Hastings. The second book is Playing the Whore by Melissa Gira Grant. If there are any Vietnamese former sex workers who left in 1975 reading this I would like to hear from them. I'm sure they have an interesting story to tell.

This is an interesting article about Cambodia. There is a book called Sex, Love and Money in Cambodia by Heidi Hoefinger. Everything You Think You Know About Cambodian Sex Workers Is Wrong

https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/07/19/streets/arbitrary-detention-and-other-abuses-against-sex-workers-cambodia

According to this site: "Empower Foundation, the sex worker organisation in Thailand, was represented by Liz Hilton who reported that wages in other industries that commonly employ women, such as agriculture, fisheries and factories, were so low that even the lowest paid sex workers were earning twice the minimum wage."

Meghan Murphy, Rachel Moran and Rupert Everett

I had an interesting exchange with Meghan Murphy, a leading feminist in Canada. I commented on her site, called FeministCurrent. Her reaction to one of my comments was to reply "Oh gawd. You are full of shit. Stop lying. This is a waste of time if you are just going to be dishonest."

What was my comment that provoked such a reaction? She had written that her abolitionist movement was led by prostitution 'survivors' and that I (unlike them) didn't know what I was talking about. My reply was that Rachel Moran and Rebecca Mott - both 'survivors' - have said things that don't make sense to anyone who knows about the subject.

She accused me of 'saying things that aren't accurate' then of 'lying' and being dishonest.

I thought I had heard Rachel Moran on radio saying that prostitution can't be a job because anal penetration isn't part of a proper job. It wasn't on radio though, it was on a TV documentary with Rupert Everett called Love For Sale: Why People Sell Sex (episode 1). What she actually said is this:-

"You don't go into a factory and have the boss put his penis in your mouth, and the janitor put his penis up your anus. What we need to understand here is that unwanted sex  - even if you are paid for it - is damaging. And it's very flippant and I feel totally inappropriate to compare that to what goes on in a factory."

Which is interesting, because in her book she wrote that she never did anal sex. She wrote that she avoided vaginal penetration too for the first two years, by which I assume she only did oral sex. She also wrote that some fellow prostitutes disliked oral sex and refused to do it.

So it seems that I was accurate when I wrote that 'they don't have to do things they don't want to'. As a punter I know this from experience. Juno Mac and Molly Smith explain this in their book Revolting Prostitutes. Why is Rachel Moran telling people that prostitution is men abusing women in any way they want to, something that wouldn't be tolerated in a workplace, and therefore it can't be a real job? Is that not dishonest?

According to Juno Mac and Molly Smith, Rachel was 'hurt' by people not believing she had been a prostitute. "My truths do not suit them, so my truths must be silenced" she said to Meghan Murphy. Silenced? She's been on radio giving a false statistic (127 prostitutes murdered in the Netherlands after legalization) and on TV saying that prostitution can't be a real job because someone will 'put his penis up your anus'.

Which of your truths do you expect people to accept, Rachel? The TV truth or the autobiography truth? For the record, I do accept that you used to be a prostitute, but if you want people to believe you then you have to stop the false statistics and the contradictions.

When you were a prostitute, was that a real job because nobody put his penis up your anus, and they only put their penis in your mouth because you preferred that to vaginal penetration?

There are women who claim to have been prostitutes, write a book about it and change government policy (as you have done). We know for sure that at least one of them has fabricated it. In the Netherlands there was a woman called Valérie Lempereur who did just that.

Many jobs have unique features. They can still be compared to working in a factory, if you are pointing out that people do it because they need the money. You don't go into a factory and have to handle dead bodies the way an undertaker has to. You don't go into a factory and have to kill hundreds of animals the way a slaughterperson has to. People gravitate towards what they dislike least. Some people would hate handling dead bodies, and some people would hate someone putting his penis up their anus.

If you don't want a penis up your anus you can still be a sex worker, because most don't do anal sex. Can you imagine an undertaker saying he or she is only prepared to handle women's bodies, or a slaughterperson saying he or she is only willing to kill sheep but not pigs? In that sense it's not like a real job. In most jobs there's less choice, you do what you're told.

When Rupert Everett said to Rachel Moran in the documentary that factory workers too are forced into what they do by poverty, she replied that she was offended by what he said. Then she said 'You don't go into a factory and have the boss put his penis in your mouth ...'. I don't see why she was offended, he made a valid point. I am offended by her dishonesty, as we all should be.

Below I have put a transcript of my exchange with Meghan Murphy. When I first started commenting on her site I used my usual persona 'Pyramus', same as on this blog. More recently though I was on Facebook and instead of bothering to log in with Google and my usual persona, I used my Facebook persona which is 'Jennifer Shaw'. I have had this Facebook persona for years and it has been useful but I don't expect Ms Murphy will be happy when she knows Ms Shaw is really a man: she doesn't seem to like women who are really men, which is what she thinks trans women are.

This is the transcript:-

Meghan Murphy: The women leading the abolitionist fight are women who survived prostitution... Also transition house workers, grassroots activists, etc. You don't seem to have any idea who or what you are talking about. It is ridiculous to claim that either people who have lived this or women who are fighting male violence against women, for no other reason beside the fact that they care about women's lives and wellbeing, are 'seeing everything through ideological blinkers' or 'don't care about victims'. You should actually get out and talk to the people you claim to be critical of. You are the one who appears to exist in a bubble of your own making.

Me (Jennifer Shaw): How do you know that I'm not one of them? You know, when Rachel Moran comes on radio and says prostitution is not a job because what job is it when you get anally penetrated, that might sound plausible to anyone who doesn't know about the subject. But people who do know that most sex workers don't do anal, they don't have to do things they don't want to. When Rebecca Mott comes on TV and says men used to punch her unconscious to avoid paying, that might sound plausible to anyone who doesn't know about the subject. But people who know know that men always pay first, so what is she saying, that men have sex with her unconscious body? You should read some of the academics like Dr Nick Mai, Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon and Dr Brook Magnanti.

Meghan Murphy: Again, because you are saying things that aren't accurate. You don't understand the politics or activism of those you are attempting to criticize.

Me (Jennifer Shaw): So why is it that you don't seem to have any concern for the victims of other types of modern slavery? Why is it that you use false statistics? Why do you want the Nordic model when you know damn well that it doesn't work?

Meghan Murphy: Oh gawd. You are full of shit. Stop lying. This is a waste of time if you are just going to be dishonest.

There was another revealing discussion I had with Meghan Murphy on the same web page. The page is about feminists and right-wing social conservatives coming together in campaigns. What I said was that these two groups often have a hidden agenda. They say that they want to help women involved in prostitution, but really they just don't like men and women having sex - especially if it's outside a long-term relationship.

She said that I should 'engage with people's arguments with integrity, fairly and in good faith' and not accuse people of having a hidden agenda. My reply was that she had called Amnesty International as 'pro-prostitution' and having 'trafficker allies'. I then went on to say that radical feminists such as Julie Bindel, Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin believe that women are objectified if they have sex with men - even if they are married - and espouse lesbianism.

She didn't believe that she had said that about Amnesty and challenged me to say where the quote came from. She didn't believe that Bindel etc had said women shouldn't have sex with men. She wrote 'What on earth are you talking about? No one has said this. Not Bindel. Not Dworkin. You really need to try reading and listening before attempting to form arguments. You just sound dumb.'

So I gave a Bindel quote from a Guardian newspaper article and a quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about MacKinnon and Dworkin. Her rather pathetic reply was that I just didn't understand their theories.

She didn't know about their theories. When I told Murphy about them she didn't believed me. When I gave quotes that proved I am right she said I didn't understand their theories! Years ago I wrote a page about the various theories of objectification from Kant, through MacKinnon and Dworkin, to Nussbaum. And she says it is me who sounds dumb!

And she says her site is "Canada’s leading feminist website"!

I have put on my blog a page with a previous conversation with Meghan Murphy. I gave lots of evidence that the Nordic model isn't working and harms women. I also have a page where I criticize what Rachel Moran has said.

Taken: Hunting the Sex Traffickers

On Monday there was an interesting documentary about trafficking on Channel 4 called 'Taken: Hunting the Sex Traffickers'. I don't know why the first word of the title of the documentary is 'Taken' because it is quite clear that none of the sex workers had been coerced.

They didn't explain that the internationally accepted definition of trafficking as stated in the Palermo Protocol involves coercion. According to this definition none of these women were trafficked. I am aware that British law says something different. Documentaries like this don't intend to inform the public about trafficking, just make good TV.

Women from Brazil come to Britain on tourist visas. There are three set-ups (this was news to me). The first is that there is a 50-50 split between the sex worker and the management in the money handed over by the client.

The second is that the management get £10 for every client sent to the sex worker (or is it 10%, I can't quite remember). That's for answering a phone call and directing a client to the flat. The rest of the money she keeps for herself.

The third is that the sex worker pays rent then the rest of the money she keeps for herself. Even if the money from the first three clients goes in rent she will still be making lots of money. 10 clients a day is the figure mentioned.

None of these scenarios seem like exploitation to me. A police officer said that it may seem a good deal to a Brazilian street girl to come to Britain but it is still exploitation. She's in a bad situation and this is a bit better. However, very few will be street girls.

British street girls are usually drug addicts and are not accepted in brothels. It could be different in Brazil though. It could be that they are just poor. If that's true then working in Britain could be a permanent step up for them. Many of these women will be other types of sex workers and many of them will be ordinary women wanting to save money for a special reason, which could be paying for university.

Do you not think that for an 18 year old the prospect of coming to Britain on a tourist visa and making a lot of money having sex with men is an attractive one? Yet if the police find them they deport them, then pretend they are treating them as victims.

We heard the words of 'Sylvia' who was one of these women. I don't think it said in the documentary that she was deported back to Brazil. 'Sylvia, who now lives in Brazil after being deported, has given up sex work.' it says here.

Sylvia said “I was robbed by men with knives, which was very traumatic and left me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Sex workers are not allowed to work together. So whose fault is it that sex workers are robbed by violent men? The clients? Men like me? Or people who stand in the way of any change in the law which allows sex workers to work together? I'm quite prepared to believe that Sylvia suffers from PTSD. They say that sex workers often do. If that is true then it's because of robbery, rape and other violence against them. All of it easily preventable. None of it a necessary part of sex work.

Sylvia was raped by a man without a condom who then told her he had HIV. She had to go to hospital and take drugs for 28 days. This could not happen in a well-managed brothel or a Soho walk up where there are always two women in the flat.

“We can’t let vulnerable people be put into dangerous situations. These are lives being ruined. We have to stop this and the way you do that is to take out people like Mark Viner.” says Detective Inspector Peter Brown (not his real name). No. It is the law that puts vulnerable people into dangerous situations. Stop prosecuting women who work together for safety.

He also said “We all know drug dealing is a crime but a lot of trafficking takes place much more in the public eye, not just in brothels but in nail bars, car washes or the exploitation of workers in food factories,”. Does he intend to 'take out' the owners of nail bars, car washes and food factories? Why not help the workers in nail bars to work for themselves - without deporting them.

two girls in Soho

A couple of weeks ago I was in Soho but I didn't intend to see a prostitute. I was sitting in Soho Square, a pleasant little park near to Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road. I thought to myself that, if I wanted to, in a couple of minutes I could be in a flat with a naked girl.

I had a particular girl in mind. I won't say her name. I have seen her several times before and I know that she doesn't like publicity. We have discussed the issue. She doesn't have any reports on her on PunterNet.com. Also I read something recently by a prostitute where she wrote that she and others don't like that kind of publicity.

If I say that she's the chubbiest sex worker in Soho that I know of, that could be anther reason why she might not like it if I identified her. She's the sort of girl I think I will see sometimes for years into the future so I don't want to annoy her. Someone might tell her that I've put stuff on the internet about her.

I knew that she was there that day because I had walked past her doorway. Then I remembered that someone had written that he had seen her recently and she had lost a lot of weight and was more attractive. I wanted to see what she looked like now, so I went to see her.

We lay on the bed together and we had a cuddle and she played with my willy. She remembered me and we had a nice chat. She told me she had just got back from a holiday in Romania. She had eaten lots of food and had put on weight. She looked just the same as I had remembered her.

She said that when she is in Romania she is a good girl, but when she comes to London she is very naughty. I wasn't in the mood to do anything with her that day. Other times I have been to see her she has given me oral sex without a condom. I would like to do that again, and I would like to fuck her too. I like the idea of being on top of her. I wouldn't say she is fat, but nicely rounded.

She asked me what my sexual fantasies are. I couldn't think of anything to say to her then but I have thought about what I want to say to her and what I want to do to her in the future. I have thought up a little game that men and women can play together based on a pornographic video I saw. I call it 'mermaids'. If I get to play mermaids with her I'll tell you all about it.

As I was leaving I saw she had a little collection of pornographic magasines. I thought it would be good next time if we lay on the bed together and looked through them to give us some ideas and get us in the mood.

I have also seen Alena recently. What would have been nice would have been if she had smiled when she saw me, said "Daddy!", and put her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. Last time I saw her she called me 'Daddy', which I liked. I hadn't asked her to put her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist but I had wanted to.

While I was taking my clothes off Alena got onto the bed on her hands and knees naked. She had her bottom facing me and she started moving it around, like a leopardess on heat. She had done this the last time so I think this is a routine of hers.

I stood next to the bed and asked her to stand up. She put her arms around my neck and then her legs around my waist. I carried her around and then sat on the bed with her on my lap. Then we lay on the bed and she played with my willy. She didn't remember me from last time and I had to prompt her to call me 'Daddy'.

Alena looked even thinner than the last time I had seen her. She looks a bit anorexic. She is definitely the skinniest girl in Soho that I know of. So I went from the chubbiest to the skinniest. I like different types of women, fat or thin, young or older.

I enjoyed being with Alena and I think I will see her again. I can see why other men like her so much. She seems a bit mechanical to me, however. She seems to be following a routine. I wonder what is going on in her mind. She seems quite intelligent. Sometimes I think it would be interesting to say something to make her angry. I always like to be pleasant to them, though, and I like Alena too much.

Vice Squad in Soho

You may have seen the documentary on Five about the work of the Metropolitan Police Vice Unit in Soho. It was on Thursday (24 September 2009) at 9 pm. They started with something about a clip joint and ended with something about two under-age girls out drinking. Neither of these items was to do with prostitution. It was in the middle part of the programme that they showed some Soho walk-ups and this was what interested me and may interest readers of this blog.

I learned that technically these Soho walk-ups are not brothels. A walk-up is legal if only one woman works from the premises. The walk-ups shown in the programme were in Lisle Street and Greek Street. The one in Greek Street is the one that I have mentioned previously in this blog.

They interviewed a young woman from Romania called Amy. I saw Amy once this year and twice last year. This was before I decided to see the two older women who work at the same place. Amy said that she had come to Britain and began working in prostitution. She did not say if she had been trafficked into the country. Romania is now part of the EU and Romanians here are not illegal immigrants. She did not say if she had been deceived by anyone organizing her movement to Britain. It has been said that traffickers tell women that they will work in a normal job, and it is only after they get here that they are expected to work in prostitution.

Amy said that she was working as a prostitute somewhere where she was not happy. She was not making enough money for herself there, and so after a couple of months she found 8 Greek Street and was told by a woman she could start work there. She did not say that she had a problem leaving the place were she was before. It has been said that traffickers tell the women that they have to repay debts of thousands of pounds. One of the police officers said that one of the women working at 8 Greek Street had said that she earns a thousand pounds a day. The officer said that because sex costs just £20 they must be getting a lot of customers. However, £20 is a minimum and many customers will be spending more than that.

I do believe, though, that there are places – in Soho and elsewhere – where women are suffering. I have mentioned in a previous post that there is somewhere else in Greek Street that was called the Slaughter House. I think I may have been there once but left before paying because I did not like the look of the place. There are only three walk-ups in Greek Street.

A couple of months ago I went to 11 Brewer Street. I went up the stairs, but when I saw that the women's names were not displayed I turned to leave. A woman came out of one of the flats onto the landing and tried to entice me in. This has never happened to me before. She was small and thin and looked like a refugee. When I said I wasn't interested she shouted a couple of swear words at me at the top of her voice, walked back into the flat and slammed the door loudly. I could tell that there were men further up the stairs.

I went onto the Crimestoppers website and I reported the place as a potential place of trafficked women. It's still open.

The reason why I don't go somewhere where the women's names are not displayed is that I can find the best ones using the PunterNet website. I can use PunterNet reports and the Soho thread in the PunterNet forum. I can take into account what they look like (I don't go for big-breasted blonde types), attitude, price and the services they provide. I would not want to be with a woman who is unhappy.

The most popular girl in Soho as I have said is Paris. She is from Essex, so there is no question of trafficking there. There are other British girls, like Ritzy. Lily, one of my two current favourites, is from the south of France. Ivy, my other current favourite is from the Philippines. I don't know if there is any trafficking from the Philippines but I do know that Ivy went on holiday to the Philippines for a few weeks recently. If she had been trafficked into Britain then she would not have been able to leave the country in the normal way. She would have to have been trafficked out of the country and trafficked back in again, which I don't think is very likely.

Vice Squad didn't find any trafficked women in their inspections, or any women who wanted to be rescued. I would have thought that if they had found illegal immigrants then they would have told us about them. They didn't find any pimps there either. It has been said that pimps take a lot of the money from Soho prostitutes. The only men who are probably making the money out of prostitution in Soho are the property owners, probably the Duke of somewhere-or-other like so much of inner London. Each prostitute has to hand over a couple of hundred pounds a day in rent.

I hope that some of the women save up some of their earnings and buy the property themselves. Then they don't have to pay rent to anyone. But I don't know if the Duke of somewhere-or-other would want to sell; maybe he knows what a good thing he's onto. I hope that older women who have made a career out of prostitution can help younger women who may not want to pursue it as a career but need to get money sometimes. I hope that Paris makes her fortune, the dirty little minx.

I'v got a couple of photos of Paris that you might like to see. I don't have any photos of any of the other girls in Soho, I got these from the internet.



The Vice Squad did find a girl who looked under-age but wasn't. They checked. So now every punter in London knows that if they want a girl who looks under-age but isn't, all they have to do is to go to Lisle Street. If you go on Google street level you can see the doorways shown on the programme. There are only 2 or 3 places in Lisle Street, and I don't think it is number 2.

a nice surprise in Soho yesterday

The first thing I did when I got to Soho yesterday was to go to Bar Italia, an independent coffee shop in Frith Street. I had not been there before but I have heard JoAnne Good go on about it on her BBC Radio London show. I had a latte and it did taste very nice. When I want to buy a coffee I usually only have Pret A Manger latte or their 99p filter coffee. I shall go to Bar Italia again, although it is a bit expensive.

I decided I wanted to see Alena again. I have mentioned Alena in a previous post. I said that it had been a soulless experience being with her, and how it had reminded me of when I had tried prostitution in Soho in the 80s but given it up.

I went to 26 Wardour Street a while ago looking for a girl called Alina. Someone had given a description of her and recommended her. She wasn't there and somebody told me she didn't work there anymore. I decided to go to nearby Romilly Street to see if Meena was there. She wasn't, but a sign said there was a girl called Alena. I thought maybe Alena and Alina could be the same girl. I knocked on the door and the maid opened it.

She encouraged me to take a look at the girl. Alena was sitting on the bed, a small skinny girl with dark hair. She gave me a big smile. She seemed to fit the description of Alina, but I didn't think it was the same girl and I decided not to stay.

As I was walking along the road I remembered that I had been with a woman called Alena at Romilly Street before, but that this woman had had blonde hair. I don't especially like blondes and she hadn't been that pleasant. I remembered that she had held up one finger to emphasise that she only did one position for the money I had given her. And yet I kept hearing good reports about her on PunterNet.

So yesterday I decided to give it another go. And it was one of my most pleasurable experiences in Soho. I paid 20 pounds for 10 minutes with Alena. I asked her to give me a hand job. While I undressed I said to her that I thought I might have been with her before, but that the girl I had seen had blonde hair. She said it was most probably her, she had had blonde hair but had changed it.

I lay on the bed and she started playing with my willy. She had a nice smile and seemed very relaxed. I asked if I could see her pussy and she got onto all fours with her bottom sticking up in the air. She had an all over tan. I gently pinched her buttocks and held her labia apart to get a good look inside her pussy.

I said that she looked like a teenager. She had small breasts and they were lovely. She smiled and thanked me for the complement. I said that she looked like a schoolgirl. I asked her if she had a schoolgirl uniform and she said no. I gently smacked her bottom. I didn't want to do it too hard or she might have wanted me to pay extra. Paris charges extra for spanking.

Then she did something that no other sex worker has done for me, something I hadn't asked her to do, something that I would not have asked a sex worker to do. She looked deep into my eyes and said "Fuck me, Daddy", and then "Let me see your sperm, Daddy". She wasn't doing it as a joke and she wasn't doing it in the bored mechanical way that some sex workers do. She was playing a role.

I expect that there will be some people who will be shocked by this and will see it as evidence of my depravity. I can imagine a radical feminist or a police officer reading my blog, not because they think like me but because they want to find out what is going on.

People can have sexual fantasies without wanting those sexual fantasies to come true. I am not interested in having sex with teenagers either above the age of consent or below it. I have never had children and if I did I would not want to have sex with a daughter. I saw a documentary once about feminists and women said that a group of them had discussed their sexual fantasies and had been surprised that a common fantasy for them was rape fantasy.

I was immensely excited by Alena but I only had 10 minutes. Not enough time for me to orgasm. As I was leaving I said to her "I liked it when you called me 'Daddy', I'll remember that for next time". I want to see her again. Now I have seen how willing to please she is, I want her to put her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. I want to carry her around he room and then sit on the edge of the bed with her on my lap. Like I did with Meena (in the same room).

Sometimes people say "Would you want your daughter to be a whore?". To which I could reply "No, but sometimes I want a whore to be my daughter".

Seriously though, it would not bother me if I had a daughter and she became a prostitute. Better than being a banker or a journalist, more honourable. I don't have the old fashioned contempt for prostitutes. I don't define people by what they do to make their money. It's a question of alternatives. Is it better to have your house repossessed or go on the game? Is it better to be evicted for being unable to pay the rent or sit in the dark because you could not pay your electricity bill?

The best thing in life is to find out the thing that you are good at and that you enjoy doing. Prostitution must always be second best to that because I don't believe any woman actually enjoys the work. She may enjoy the company of other women and obviously the money. But even a nymphomaniac would get tired of doing it so frequently. And they say you should not make a job out of your hobby.

If you can't find something you enjoy and are good at then find something that you dislike less than other types of work. Or something where you can earn the same amount of money in a day as in a whole week of something else. Not everyone enjoys working.

Most women would just hate to do it and many women are tempramentally unsuited to prostitution. They shouldn't do it. Also I worry about things like National Insurance contributions. If these are not getting paid because you are outside the normal system of employment or benefits then it can be difficult to get benefits or a pension. I don't know much about it. I don't like the idea of a woman continuing to be a prostitute when she wants to give it up.

Some women want to make a fortune from prostitution or pornography and they do. Some women want to get a few thousand pounds in the bank to finance what they really want to do with their lives. This happens, but you wouldn't think it if you listened just to radical feminists.

I have been reading the blog of Rebecca Mott who I mentioned in my last post. I found a link on the OBJECT site on the testimonies page. What I was hoping for was her testimony, even though I knew it would not show the reality of prostitution for most sex workers. What I found was a lot of ideological claptrap. She refers to some of the things that supposedly happened to her but gives no details.

I have copied and pasted a few paragraphs to give you a flavour of the sort of rubbish she writes and women in OBJECT seem to belive in.

Know to be a prostitute is to rape to almost dead, but to continually be an open vagina, anus, mouth and hands to be fuck again and again and again.

There is no space, rest, time to remember you are human in those conditions.

Many of you may be fighting against factory farming.

But what about prostituted women and girls inside industrial rape factories named brothels, clubs, outdoors prostitution, massage parlours and whatever label hides the male violence.

and this

Tidy away the violence, don’t see the millions of dead bodies, refuse to know the hate and contempt that the sex trade has for the goods – never given permission to be real women and girls.

and this

Any women who named herself a feminist and thinks that is unimportant, or that for some reason prostituted women and girls don’t mind – they choose it don’t they – should think very carefully what is their definition of being a feminist.

It cannot be throwing women and girls under the train.

Feminism need to listen and learn from the voices of exited prostituted women, not to continually go to academia, and to meetings without their voices – the voices of exited prostituted should have a place of honour in feminism, not be a footnote that is sometimes remembered.

That's just the problem with people like Rebecca Mott. They don't listen to women involved in prostitution. My advice to them is to go and talk to prostitutes in Soho. Get to know them. Learn their story. Clayton Littlewood and Juliet Peston have done just that and they tell the truth. Clayton is a gay man and so no one can suspect him of being a punter with a vested interest in keeping it going.

Rebecca says she is an anarchist. She also says she goes to church. I didn't think anarchists went to church or supported using the police and the legal system to ban all kinds of things (prostitution, pornography, lap dancing, beauty contests etc). I don't really understand why anyone takes these people seriously, and why they seem to have influence on key members of the Labour party.

I have found out that Caroline Lucas, a leading member of the Green Party, is trying to change the current policy on prostitution from the sensible New Zealand Model to the Swedish Model, which will ban men from paying for sex. She has started believing all of the false statistics put about by radical feminist organisations like OBJECT, and all of the silly ideas such as the idea that prostitution is 'the buying and selling of human beings'. see this blog

There is an argument that Britain is becoming more like America in that there is a shift from public spending on benefits to public spending on prisons, the police and the military. In America they are very keen on humiliation as a means of control. It doesn't work, has never worked but it is part of their culture.

Harriet Harman is cutting benefits for mothers at the same time as criminalizing prostitutes even more. Prostitutes are also being humiliated by being 'named and shamed', with their photographs and names published in newspapers. For example, Michelle Lyn Smith. How can anyone believe that the aristocratic Harriet Harman cares about poor women in general and those of them who choose prostitution in particular?

Is this really what people call being progressive? Radical feminists sometimes get the criticism that they are puritans. Is that true?

Some people have always hated prostitution and tried to stop it. In previous centuries they justified their dislike through religion. We have listened to the justification of radical feminists, and it is dependent on statistics that academics have shown to be false and people like me who have experience of prostitution can see is wrong. They have been told their statistics are all wrong but they don't want to know.

I have been looking into the theory of objectification, which they use to justify their hatreds, and it doesn't make any sense. I might write more about this in another post. I am not against feminism but I am against the radicals. They are the reason why so many women don't want to call themselves feminists.

Their views are dangerous because they harm women. They stop women from being safe. It's not the punters who create the conditions where women are harmed, it is the radical feminists and the ignorant who support them.

Yes, they are puritans. Their personalities are deficient in the qualitites that we would expect of people in authority and with influence.

happy ending

I have been exploring the periphery of Soho recently, parts that most people would think are Chinatown. I wrote in the PunterNet forum ('Soho walk up' thread) that I thought the Lisle Street walk ups would be Chinatown not Soho. Someone responded that they are Soho.

I have found two walk ups that I had not seen before. One was in Little Newport Street. Number 10. Uniquely, there is a little photo of the girl displayed in the doorway. There is only one girl there. Sometimes it is an oriental girl and sometimes it is a blonde.

I have been aware of another walk up nearby at 18 Newport Court. I went there once a couple of years ago because someone had said there was a nice girl called Chloe there. I waited with the talkative maid to see Chloe but decided not to stay after I caught a glimpse of her. She wasn't as pretty as he had stated.

The other walk up I found is at 26 Wardour Street. This is an unusual walk up in that you have to go up a spiral staircase to get to the flats. It doesn't seem as grotty as most Soho walk ups. I am wondering if this is the one that has been mentioned in the media. The one they tried to close down but failed.

I went to this walk up because someone had recommended a girl called Alina. When I went there I could not see her name displayed. There was a woman on the stairs with a dustpan and brush. She was quite young and attractive. I asked her if she knew if Alina was there. She said Alina didn't work there any more. She didn't know where Alina was.

Later that day I saw Victoria in Lisle Street. Upstairs from Natalie at number 2. She had had a couple of good reports so I thought I would give her a try. She is young and beautiful. She looks very 'Mediterranean' with black hair and a swarthy complexion. She has an impressive cleavage.

I couldn't really communicate with her as her English is not so good. She wasn't interested anyway, most of these young girls aren't. I had asked her to turn off the radio, as I always do, and she said something that didn't make any sense and didn't do it. I'm not going to go back to Lisle Street. I've seen a few young-looking girls there but they're not that much fun. Older women are better for me.

You might ask how can I be sure that Victoria is really Greek, or that Alice is really Italian. It is difficult to be sure. An Albanian could be fluent in Greek or Italian. She could have lived in Greece or Italy or be familiar enough with basic geography to answer a question like “What part of Greece/Italy do you come from?”.

I remember a couple of years ago I saw a Greek woman in Lisle Street called Katie. She was young, tall and slender as so many Soho prostitutes are. Usually the maids who look after the prostitutes are middle-aged or elderly women. But Katie's maid was in her 30s or 40s and beautiful. She was Greek too. While I was waiting to see Katie she was sitting in front of me talking on her mobile and positioning herself so that I could see her cleavage.

When Katie became available she asked me what I wanted, and when I said I wanted to play with her breasts she said that for another 20 pounds I could play with the maid's breasts too. I thought she was joking at first. I lay on the bed, with Katie playing with my cock, one of my hands on the inside of her thigh and my other hand touching the maid's breasts. The maid had taken her top off, but would not take all her clothes off.

This seemed to be something they did sometimes. Katie's breasts were quite small, so maybe she felt inadequate. However, the arrangement is against the rules. Two women cannot work from the same flat at the same time or technically its a brothel. A walk up is not a brothel but a private flat, which is why the police cannot close them down or even enter without permission.

A few years ago I saw a documentary about Soho walk ups. It showed Sandra/Sandy of 4 Old Compton Street and her maid. Sandra spoke on the show but her face was not shown. The maid spoke a lot and her face was shown. I have been with Sandra and I have spoken to the maid. Ritzy, another prostitute, also spoke. I saw Ritzy and this maid last year at 2 Green's Court. Some days they are at Green's Court and some days at Old Compton Street.

The maid has an important security role at the walk up. She protects the girl if there is any trouble with a punter. She opens the door and sits with the man if the girl is busy with another one. The maid will prepare food for the girl or go out and get her take-away food or anything she wants. In Soho there are many types of food available.

What you often find in Soho is a restaurant or shop on the ground floor and walk ups on the first and second floor. Two flats to each doorway. Or maybe it's second and third floor. Sometimes it seems a lot of stairs to climb. So sex is not the only pleasure that people go to Soho for. Food is too.

The other documentary I have seen was 'Vice Squad'. In one of the episodes Soho prostitutes and their maids talked about what they do. It was here that I learned that a walk up is not a brothel.

Soho walk ups usually look quite squalid. The ones in Lisle Street do. The stairs are usually unpleasant and often the rooms are too. Not every walk up in Soho is like that though. In Shepherd Market there are 3 or 4 walk ups. They seem to be much nicer, but they also seem to be more expensive. Shepherd Market is a different area from Soho, to the north of Green Park. It is a nice area, quite posh.

I didn't tell you what I was doing in Little Newport Street. I saw another PunterNet report for one of the Chinese herbal/acupuncture/massage establishments. This was for a different one than the last one. It was for Everwell Massage/Chinese Medical Centre at 7 Little Newport Street. The report was for a girl called Coco.

I decided to go even though I was short of money and I thought I might not have enough money for both the massage and the 'happy ending'. This was last Tuesday. I went in there and it looked very pleasant and professional. I said I would like a massage and I asked “Is Coco here today?”. A Chinese woman said she would be available in a few minutes and I could sit and wait for her. I had intended to pay 45 pounds for an hour massage but decided to save a bit of money and have a 45 minute massage for 35 pounds. The woman took the money and put it in the till.

Coco came into the room and the woman explained what I wanted. Coco introduced herself to me and asked me to follow her upstairs. She was pretty with long hair. She looked as if she could have been 18 although I think she is in her 20s. She is small and slender. I could see up her skirt as I followed her upstairs. She was wearing a short black skirt and black tights. I think I glimpsed another pretty girl similar to Coco.

We went into a small room with a massage table in it. She locked the door. Coco asked me if I wanted a medium or firm massage and offered me water from the water cooler. He English was poor. I took off my clothes and lay on the table on my tummy. The table was covered with paper and there was a hole for me to put my head.

It was a proper massage and felt almost painful at times. When I turned over I could see her face. I talked to her and smiled and looked at her lovely face. She smiled a lot and seemed happy. About 10 minutes from the end she pointed at my willy and asked me if I wanted her to do that. I said I did. She said I could pay another 20 pounds for topless and/or another 20 pounds for allowing me to touch her. I only had another 10 pounds in my wallet. She gave me a bit of extra massage till my time was up. No happy ending today.

I told her I would come and see her again next week, and this time I would bring more money and have the hand relief. I intended to do this, when I had more money. There had been a couple of things about Chinese massage that had made me a bit reluctant to try it again after my first experience of it. I didn't like the idea that you wouldn't know who would be giving you the massage, she might have been unattractive or unfriendly. She might not offer hand relief. You don't know how much she would charge.

The hand relief bit seems to be a private arrangement between the woman and the client. Nothing to do with the establishment. Maybe they don't even know that it goes on. Probably they just keep quiet about it. A couple of weeks ago I was wandering around Soho and I stopped outside one of these places. There are quite a few. A young Chinese woman in a white coat behind a counter beckoned me in. I asked her the prices for massage. She told me, and then I said quietly “Does that include a 'happy ending'?”. She looked surprised and gave an embarrassed smile, showing that she knew what the phrase meant, but then composed herself and said something like “I'm sorry, Sir. I don't think we can help you with that”.

Now that I know that I can ask for Coco and I know how much money I will be paying I would like to go back.

The same day I saw Coco I thought I would go to the Wardour Street walk up again and see if Alina was back. Her name wasn't displayed outside either the lower or the upper flat. As I was going down the spiral staircase four or five young men passed me going up. They looked as if they might be Eastern Europeans. I wondered what they were up to. I paused and saw that they had knocked on the door of the lower flat. The sign said it was an Italian woman called Nelly.

I was further down the spiral staircase and I could look up and see between the steps to the doorway. The door opened and I saw a tall dark-haired woman. I wasn't expecting this. Usually it is the maid who opens the door, although I have seen prostitutes do this before. She was wearing white lingerie that was a bit like bra and panties. She was like my idea of an Italian woman, shoulder-length curly black hair, not too skinny.

I could have waited to see what they said to her and what she said to them, and if she invited them into her flat. I was worried though that if they noticed me they might get angry. So I went out, but I waited in the street outside to see if they came out. They did not.

I was intensely curious about what they were getting up to. Were they all in her flat taking it in turns to go into the room and fuck her? Did she make them wait on the stairs and only let them in only one at a time? She hadn't turned them away or they would have been back on the street.

I was tempted to go and see Nelly the week after, when my financial situation had improved. It would be a pleasurable experience, and I could have asked her about these boys. As so often with me, I am motivated by lust and curiosity.

So on Tuesday this week I got lots of money from a cash machine and headed for Soho. But what to have? Chinese or Italian? (And I'm not talking about food.) But before I went to either I decided to go and see if Ivy was back in Greek Street. I didn't have much hope because she hadn't been there for a few months. To my surprise and delight her name was there, along with Amy. I could have seen Ivy that day, but I decided to wait a couple of days. I wasn't feeling too good. I hadn't slept well the previous night and I was feeling a bit grotty. It's important to be in the right mood. Also, I have found that if I refrain from masturbating for a couple of days then I am more likely to be able to orgasm.

So yesterday I went to Soho again, paid my 40 pounds for my 20 minutes (plus a 2 pound tip for the maid). We started with a bit of a massage and then she gave me some oral sex without a condom. She had given my willy a wash before we got onto the bed. Then the important bit started, the hand job.

She sat on the bed between my legs and used lots of lotion to wank me. I said, as I always do, “Can you talk dirty for me, Ivy?”. She said things like “Fuck the pussy, darling. Fuck my wet pussy. It's wet for you, darling. Oh, fuck the pussy. Fuck it.” over and over again in that lovely oriental accent of hers. I don't know what it is it just gets me going. I look at her lovely face and her lovely brown body and I have one hand touching her leg.

It took some time but eventually I could feel that I was coming closer and closer to orgasm. When I knew that I was past the point of no return I opened my eyes and watched my semen spurting out white against her brown skin. I got my happy ending.

We had some time left and I asked her if I could look at her pussy. She encouraged me to play with her clit, and then showed me her anus too. She does anal, and I might give it a go one day. Then we lay on the bed and cuddled. She told me she had been in the Philippines for the past 3 months with her family. She said she would be in Greek Street till the 31st of this month. I want to see her again before then.

There are younger, taller and slimmer women than Ivy in Soho, but I will always go back to her. Her flat is nice and warm, and the stairs up to it are not off-putting. These two flats are different from most Soho walk ups. The women seem to work every day for a few weeks and then are not there for a few weeks. Maybe when Ivy is not there I will see Coco or Nelly.