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 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.

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.

saw Paris in Soho yesterday

I read in the Soho walk up thread on the PunterNet forum that Paris is back. I didn't expect Paris to come back to Soho; people had written that she had retired or was working elsewhere. I have mentioned Paris on this blog before. I said that she was the most popular prostitute in Soho. I said that if I had known she was going away I would have gone to see her, I would have liked to have seen her as a brunette.

I was in Soho yesterday so I went up the stairs at 4 Old Compton Street. When I saw her name I went to the door and rang the bell. The maid said she would be 5 minutes and asked me if I wanted to wait. When Paris was ready she took me into the bedroom. She looked prettier than I remembered and she had a lovely sweet smile. I asked her if I could spend 10 minutes with her for £25, and I would like a handjob.

I gave her the money, she said she would a couple of minutes and went out of the room. I took off my clothes and lay on the bed, looking at myself in the mirror above the bed. When she came back in I asked her if we could have more light so I could see her better. I had thought about asking her to turn off the radio, but she might not have liked that.

She got on the bed with me and started playing with my willy. It didn't take long before I got erect. Next time I want her to put on a condom and get on top of me. I also like the idea of carrying her around the room with her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and my cock in her pussy.

The hand job could have been better. If I had asked her to use some oil it would have been better. I could have asked her to sit between my legs instead of sitting next to me. This is what I do with Ivy. I don't know if there is a name for this position. The woman is sitting on her bum with her legs apart and her thighs over the man's thighs.

I was happy just to look at her and talk. I said that I could smell cigarette smoke but that I liked it. I said that I thought she had retired. She said lots of people thought that but she had just been on holiday for a couple of months. She has been to America and spent some time in Miami. I asked her if she had been naughty while she was on holiday. I know that girls on holiday do things they wouldn't normally do at home.

I asked her if she had sucked any cocks while she was away. She said she had. I asked her if she swallowed or spat. She said she normally swallowed, but sometimes a man's semen can be just too salty to swallow. I said she could always have a glass of champagne if it doesn't taste nice.

When my time was nearly up I said I wanted to look at her pussy. She lay on the bed and played with her clit and opened it for me. She pushed her tongue out the side of her mouth and opened and closed her mouth as she pleasured herself. She said she is in her early 20s but she looks like a teen.

As I was getting dressed I asked her if it was really her who had posted on the Soho thread on the PunterNet forum a couple of months ago. She said that it really was her. I asked what days she works and she said Thursdays and Fridays, but if you want to see her you should phone the flat first to see if she is there. She says at the moment her boss texts her early in the day to tell her to come in, so she can't be sure that she will be there every Thursday and Friday.

I left her flat feeling very happy and planning to see her again. I am glad that these girls make loads of money for themselves and use it for extended holidays and stuff like that. Ritzy is another one who had an extended holiday. I don't mind my money going towards that. No one can say she's being exploited.

I wonder who her 'boss' is though. Sandy said she has a boss, who is a woman. Why do they need one of those? They could make more money for themselves if they worked for themselves and not a boss.

have spoken to Nicky today

People who have followed my blog for a while may remember someone I have written about quite a bit, a woman called Nicky. Nine-fingered Nicky. She was one of the two or three worst addicted women that I saw on Tooting Bec Common. I have just spoken to her. I was in the centre of Croydon and she was walking towards me. I could easily have not recognized her.

She said hello to me. I said "Hello, how are you?". She looked quite healthy, still looking older than her years, but much better than the last time I had seen her. She said that she was fine. I wanted to know if she had given up drugs, but it seemed impolite to ask. She said "I've stopped all that messing about".

I don't know if she blames herself for the situation she was in. I would have liked to have said to her that she had been in the grip of a powerful addiction, and it was admirable that she had been able to overcome it. I used to think that nobody could overcome crack addiction, especially when it has become so strong.

She asked me how I was, but she didn't want to talk for long. I can think of a number of reasons why she might not want to have a proper conversation with me. I would have liked to ask her if she knew what had happened to Katy and Chrissie, the two other most addicted women I had seen on Tooting Bec Common.

I have often thought she could write a book about her experiences. People would want to know about her life. She is quite an intelligent person. Chrissie told me she usually has a book with her, although I'm not quite sure if that was the other Nicky. I would have liked to interview her for this blog.

I used to ask Chrissie if she knew how Nicky is. Chrissie said to me that she told Nicky that I was always asking about her. Nicky might have been the first girl I encountered on Tooting Bec Common in 2000. For some reason I avoided her for years. Then she disappeared from the Common for a while and when I saw her again I asked her if she had a flat we could go to. I saw her twice in her flat, and had hoped she would come to my flat, but got no answer when I phoned and texted her.

Then I saw her once more on the Common. I was shocked by her appearance. I didn't want to do anything with her. Then many months later I saw her in a supermarket and a couple of weeks later in the street. She told me she was going to do some rehab.

The thing I always notice about her is that she is such an ordinary person. An ordinary nice chatty person. She probably just wants to get on with her life. She's put all that behind her. She's probably in a relationship with a man. She might have a baby; someone told me that she was pregnant and was giving up prostitution.

I was pleased to see she is happy now. She deserves to be happy. She was always a nice person. Despite being a crack addict I don't think she ever lied to people or stole from people. I felt a bit sad, though. I could tell that now there was nothing that she could ever want from me. I guess one thing I liked about street girls is that they wanted something from me, either money or something to eat or a cup of tea or a hug.

a new experience

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

lots to do in Soho on Saturday

There were a number of things I had planned to do in Soho on Saturday. I wanted to visit the new food market that had opened the previous Saturday in Rupert Street and Winnett Street. It's only open on Saturdays.

I also wanted to participate in the Soho Street Food Fair on over the weekend. I needed to buy a voucher from Hummus Bros in Wardour Street as I hadn't bought one over the internet. Once I had bought my voucher I would be able to go to the eight different food outlets and sample their delights. Hummus Bros didn't open till midday though so I had time for a coffee and something to eat, visit the market, and visit Nina.

Having had a coffee and seen the market I headed for Chinatown. When I got to Little Newport Street there was a woman I hadn't seen before standing in the doorway of the Chinese Medical Centre at number 7. She wanted to give me a leaflet and to invite me in.

I asked her if Coco was there that day. I didn't expect her to turn around and tell Coco I was asking for her. Although I have been tempted to see Coco again for a massage with a 'happy ending', I didn't want that today. I had to say something to her so I said I might come and see her later.

A few doorways along the street was the doorway to the walk up. I could see that today it was an oriental girl and so I went up the stairs and rang the bell. The maid opened the door and asked me to go into the bedroom.

I had not been in that flat before. The bedroom was small but nice, with a basin and a bidet. Looked quite clean. The girl came into the room and introduced herself. She wasn't Nina but a different oriental girl called Nicky.

When I knew that it wasn't Nina, and also that the minimum price was £25 and not £20 as at most places, I could have left. However, this girl was reasonably pretty and had a nice smile. I asked her if she could give me a hand job and she said yes.

We only had 10 minutes so I didn't try for a 'happy ending'. We lay on the bed together and I flirted with her, telling her how pretty she was (she had lovely big eyes), holding her in my arms and touching her all over including her pussy. She smiled and giggled a lot and pulled on my erect cock.

When my time was nearly up I knelt between her legs and held open her pussy and had a good look. We got off the bed and she gave me a big hug and said I should come back another time for longer.

I had wanted to ask the maid what days Nina was there, but I didn't get a chance. As I went out the doorway back onto the street I looked around and the Chinese woman was still standing outside the medical centre. She was looking at me so she must have known what I had been up to. Maybe she told Coco what she had seen.

Back at Hummus Bros I bought my voucher for £12, and got some takeaway food. Next stop was Moolis where I picked up an Indian wrap. I sat in Soho Square and ate both. The map that we were given with the voucher wasn't that accurate, but I managed to find the hummingbird bakery for my vanilla cupcake. The next place was somewhere I had not seen before. They gave me some mini meringues.

The whole point of the Soho Street Food Fair was that people would come to know some of the smaller food outlets in Soho and what they have to offer. Also to raise money for charity. I won't be going back for more meringues, though. The map led me off in the wrong direction and, after some confusion, I returned to Rupert Street and the new market. I hadn't realised that the next two items were from market stalls. I had a pork sandwich and then some strange meatballs.

Finally an ice cream cone in Old Compton Street and a coffee from the well-recommended cafe in Winnett Street. It was when I was in Old Compton Street that I noticed a short middle-aged woman with cropped hair. I thought she might be Pam the fag lady as mentioned in Clayton Littlewood's book Dirty White Boy: Tales of Soho. I have mentioned this book in previous postings. I watched her and she was asking people for money outside the French House and another pub.

I asked her if her name was Pam and she said it was. I told her I had heard about her in Clayton's book. She asked me if I could give her some change and I gave her some. I can't remember if Clayton said that Pam lives in the hostel at the northern end of Dean Street. I used to think that there is a hostel at the northern end of Greek Street but there isn't. I thought maybe the woman I met a while ago in Greek Street lived there. The building in Greek Street I was thinking of is the House of St Barnabas, which was a hostel at one time: it is marked as such in my street atlas.

I like the new market in Soho but I hope it isn't the beginning of gentrification of the area. Rupert Street is right next to Tisbury Court and Walkers Court.

Tisbury Court must be the seediest alleyway in Soho. It has the only peep show in Soho that I know of, and a couple of walk ups, and a porn DVD shop. It also has a couple of establishments that I suspect are clip joints, and there are women in the doorways trying to tempt men in.

At the junction of Tisbury Court and Rupert Street are diverse people hanging around asking tourists if they are looking for a girl. These people are called pimps but really they are trying to get money for nothing.

Walkers Court is an alleyway leading to Berwick Street and the established street market there. It has two or three sex shops.

I can imagine that the authorities might think that the new market is part of their vision the future of Soho, and that the sleazy side of Soho is incompatible with this. However, food and sex have always lived side by side in Soho, and I hope they always will. Soho is about the pleasures of life.

I hope that the new market continues to be what it is. It provides seasonal local produce (local to South East England) for a reasonable price. I bought a punnet of English cherries and some free-range eggs. I hope that the rents for stalls are kept reasonable so that we don't end up with something only tourists and the more affluent appreciate. Expensive meats and cheeses, olives and olive oil are good, but we need fresh, local and seasonal produce too.

If the authorities wanted to get rid of the seediest of the walk ups in Soho, that might not be a bad thing. As long as it isn't the the thin end of the wedge. The two flats in Greek street next to the bookies are seedy, as are the six flats in Lisle Street and the four flats near the market in Berwick Street. The flat in Little Newport Street is a nice one, as are the two flats at 8 Greek Street.

There are two or three walk ups outside Soho, in Shepherd Market. They seem to be clean and are unobtrusive. They are more expensive, though. I hope Soho continues to be the earthy lived-in place it has always been and doesn't end up like Covent Garden.