Street-girls, escorts and cocaine

I have been criticised by some for suggesting that large numbers of prostitutes who are not street-girls take drugs. I need to clarify what it is that I have said and explain why I think it is so.

My guess is that half of all prostitutes who are not street-girls, even the higher-class escorts, take cocaine on a regular basis. It is my belief that no matter which form of prostitution a man may indulge in, the money he pays is likely to be spent in part on cocaine.

Cocaine use is so common in our society now, and is becoming more common. It is accepted in some circles, especially among people who can earn large amounts of money.

Women who take up prostitution have crossed a line that most women would not wish to cross. A woman who is willing to cross that line would be more willing to also cross the line of trying drugs. Trying a drug like cocaine is an easier step to take than trying prostitution, more women have taken it, and more middle-class women.

The sort of men who pay prostitutes are more likely to take cocaine. The sort of men who associate with prostitutes socially are more likely to take cocaine. This will influence many women who take up prostitution.

Any man who pays prostitutes and who thinks that his money will not be spent on drugs is fooling himself. Any woman who takes cocaine and looks at a street girl and thinks "That could never happen to me" is fooling herself. Street-girls in my experience do not become street-girls because they are forced into it by pimps, or been forced onto drugs, or because they have recently emerged from a childhood in care.

They have become street-girls because they have been willing to cross lines, to transgress boundaries. This is because they are fun-loving and don't think that it can happen to them. They don't think. In some cases they will have had some kind of psychological disturbance and have always had a chaotic lifestyle. In most cases that will not be true. It is in the nature of drug addiction that people loose control.

Cocaine by itself is enough of a problem. People who take it think that they can control how much they take and that they will not go on to take crack cocaine, crystal meth or heroin. In most cases people can control it, but you can never tell if it will be you who ends up on the streets.

You may think that it is hypocritical of me to say this when I give money to street girls. I'm not criticising people, I just want people to be clear about what it is that they are doing. If two or three times a year I give a tenner to a street-girl to feel her tits or something else I don't feel that I should be criticised by other punters or by escorts who feel that they are better than me.

I am aware that money paid for cocaine and crack cocaine ends up in the hands of criminals who plant land mines that kill and maim innocent people in South America. Are you? What I have been looking for for a long time is an unmarried mum on a council estate in south London who needs the money to pay rent and bills and Xmas presents for her kids. I would be one of her regular clients and I would be more confident than nearly all punters that my money was not going on drugs. I would stop seeing street-girls and I would stop going to Soho too.

pictures of street girls

I found some pictures of street girls on the internet. I thought that they are interesting. Five pictures of each of five street girls. I have included one picture of each of the women, the one that showed the face best. It is the faces I find interesting. I have cropped and resized the pictures so that it is only the face that is seen.

These pictures were taken by the same man in the King's Cross area of London. This has a reputation for prostitution. I used to go to Argyl Square next to King's Cross years ago. I saw large numbers of women selling themselves on the street. I have not seen street girls anywhere in the King's Cross area in recent years.

The women in these photos look very sad. They look different from the women that I have met on Tooting Bec Common. I have always thought that the women getting into cars late at night inhabit a whole different world from the one that I am familiar with. The most addicted street girls don't come to Tooting Bec Common because they can't make enough money there.

BBC report: prostitutes on Tooting Bec Common

Amanda Austin is a liar

Yesterday evening there was a report on prostitution on Tooting Bec Common on BBC 1 at 7.30 pm. It was one of the reports on 'Inside Out' presented by Matthew Wright, and it is one of the shabbiest examples of journalism I have ever seen.

The presenter started “Imagine, though, having pimps and prostitutes doing a roaring trade right on your doorstep”. I know that there are no pimps on Tooting Bec Common. I know this because I have been going to Tooting Bec Common for 8 years and I have seen what goes on there (at least in the daytime), I have talked to the girls frequently, and this programme offered no evidence that there are any pimps there.

The journalist Shini Somarathne then talked about “evidence everywhere of sex and drugs irresponsibly discarded where kids come out to play”. It is true that you can find lots of used condoms and condom packets but not on the paths that most people use, only the paths in the dense undergrowth. People don't just have sex in the open where people are likely to walk past, even at night.

I have never seen drugs equipment there ever. The programme showed what looked like it might be part of a syringe, but I have never seen anything like that before. Addicts don't use syringes to take crack, and I doubt very much if anyone is going to inject heroin out in the open, they prefer seclusion.

It is Amanda Austin, a local resident and member of Neighbourhood Watch, who annoys me most. She said “Residents have been concerned that they've seen girls who've been beaten up, that we really don't want children in the area to have to witness that – and residents have also said that they've been propositioned when they are walking through the park in broad daylight with young children”.

She went on to say “We want to have this somewhere safe and free of rubbish and free of drugs equipment and needles and condoms”.

In the 8 years I have been going to the Common I have never seen an injured girl, or anyone propositioned when children have been anywhere around. I have never seen any drugs equipment like needles there ever. And if you don't believe me, I can prove what I say. You just have to go there yourself and see it for yourself.

I wasn't going to publicise the precise location of where the prostitution occurs on my blog (Tooting Bec Common is a large place). However, the residents of the area seem so keen to publicise their problem in the media (unwisely, I feel) that anyone who has seen the programmes about it will now know where to go. If you walk westwards along Becmead Avenue from the centre of Streatham and cross the road into the park, that's where it is. If you get to the railway line you have gone too far.

Later Amanda Austin said “I've heard more alarming stories, perhaps, about one woman who had a bloody face and was out on the common still working”. I would suggest, perhaps, that this is exactly what she says it is – a story. If not a story then a one-off incident. It sounds to me like middle-class people trying to protect their property prices and making a lot of stuff up, and a journalist who is just interested in a good story and can't be bothered to check the facts.

Most amusing was the attempt at secret filming. They wanted to show that prostitutes were returning to the area. My understanding is that at night girls do get into cars on the roads around the Common. But the best that they could come up with was showing a young woman in jeans walking along a path by a road talking into her mobile phone.

They also showed what they said where 3 policemen approaching a man at night standing at a bus shelter. They said that this was a pick-up point. No it is not. It is a bus shelter. They then showed the man getting onto the bus leaving the 3 men there. So much for this “sting”.

They talked about people 'loitering'. It's a park. What do you expect people to do in a park? It is enormously difficult to work out who is a punter or an ordinary man, or who is a prostitute or an ordinary woman. It's not a simple as lifting their skirts up to see if they are wearing any knickers.

I remember early last year I was sitting on a park bench where often punters sit. I was a bit annoyed because I had been there several times that year and I had seen no prostitutes at all. This just goes to show that – during the daytime at least – it is not an enormous problem. A man came and sat next to me and after a while I asked him if he had seen any. I don't normally talk to other punters. Turns out he wasn't a punter at all, just some ordinary bloke.

The programme also talked about Marissa Mann who, 11 years ago, was beaten up by prostitutes. Not very nice, but it does show that they are not the timid victims that people like to portray them as. They don't need pimps. The only men they are going to hand their money over to are the drug dealers. I have occasionally seen men on the Common who I have thought might be drug dealers. Men on bikes who have a certain look about them.

The police should go after the drug dealers. If police action can't get rid of the dealers, then how do people think that police action will get rid of the prostitutes or their clients? As I have said more than once on the punternet.com forum, get rid of the dealers and you get rid of addiction. Get rid of the punters and the girls just do more shop lifting and other anti-social activities.

My understanding is that girls go to the Common in the daytime when they no longer wish to get into cars at night (either on the roads next to the Common or at Brixton Hill/New Park Road). They feel safer there, although they can't make as much money.

I often think drug dealers are not criticised as often as they should be because so many people hand over money to dealers. I don't. People don't want to criticise anything that they are involved with or may one day become involved with.

Much better than the confrontational approach of people like Amanda Austin or Marissa Mann is to try and talk to and help the girls. I admire people like the workers at St Mungo's (mentioned on the programme) who offer them an alternative. Doesn't always work because they don't want to quit until they are ready, but they are doing what they can with limited resources.

I think the reason why people always want to think that pimps must be involved is because they want to think that girls are forced into this way of life. They like to think of them as victims. Also they want to believe that it could not happen to them. Any woman who takes drugs like cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin and crystal meth are in danger of one day ending up on the streets as a street girl. You may not believe it can happen to you, but then that's always the way with drug addiction.

recent publicity about Tooting Bec Common

There has been a lot of recent publicity about Tooting Bec Common in the media. A couple of days ago there was a BBC local news report about it. There have also been newspaper articles. About 10 years ago there were many prostitutes who got into cars late at night on the roads around the eastern end of the common. The police had a big crackdown, but the problem has been getting worse. Residents have been complaining.

I didn't go there 10 years ago and I have never been there at night. I didn't like the BBC news report because it was trying to make it sound worse than it is. It showed women it short skirts, some of them hanging around doorways and neon signs showing illicit services. None of this has anything to do with what happens on Tooting Bec Common. It also said that 'drugs paraphernalia' and condoms are found near to paths. I have never seen any drugs paraphernalia. Sometimes you do see used condoms and wrappers but in secluded places far away from paths. So I think the BBC is being untruthful here.

I have been to the common 3 or 4 times this year. There was mainly older women there. I have not given money to any young women, and have seen only a couple of them. One of the older woman I met was quite unpleasant. She was slagging off one of the street girls (C.), saying that she lets men shag her up the arse without a condom. She told me that she herself comes from a criminal family. She described herself as a cripple, because she has a pronounced limp.

I met another older woman who was very chatty. She told me that one of the girls that I knew (N.) was pregnant and was giving up prostitution. She told me that it often happens that a street girl gets pregnant and gives it all up.

Another older woman was telling me about K. but I don't know how accurate her information was. She told me that K. looks like an old woman now and was injecting heroin. She said that K. is still quite young and had been involved in prostitution since she was 13. That doesn't seem to fit in with what K. has told me about herself, but then K. might have been telling me a load of rubbish.

I have seen N. twice this year. First was in a supermarket. She said hello to me and smiled. She looked much rougher than I had ever remembered her. Then a few weeks later I saw her in the street. I asked her if she had had rehab. She said that she was about to. I hope she gets off the drugs because she is a nice person. Although I was sad to see her looking so rough, I was pleased to hear she may be getting out of it. I was also pleased that she remembered me and did not think that I was like an abuser. She didn't offer me sex and I didn't offer her money.

I have also seen, but not spoken to, T. twice this year with a baby. She looked OK but older than I remember her.