Ash Regan's bill and evidence from France

Ash Regan's bill has been rejected by Scottish MSPs. So now there is no chance of having the Nordic Model in Scotland for the foreseeable future, not that there was much chance to begin with. I have been finding out what she has been telling people, and this document shows it more than any other that I have found. It is a transcript of a committee meeting from late last year.

"We can look at Sweden. After the buyers were criminalised, the share of men paying for sex fell by almost half, and Sweden now has one of the smallest prostitution markets in Europe."

This is not true. She may be referring to the surveys in Sweden that showed a drop from 12.7% to 7.6% between 1996 and 2008 in the proportion of Swedish men who had paid for sex at some time in their life (not 'men paying for sex'). Or she may be referring to the drop in the number of street-based sex workers. I have dealt with this extensively on other parts of this blog so I won't go over it again.

There is something new that I wish to talk about. Many people are saying that the reason why the Nordic Model failed in Ireland, both North and South, is because of lack of enforcement. Ash Regan has been telling people that France is different, France has enforced the law and it is working there.

"Other countries are not having trouble with enforcement. The latest statistics that I saw from France, which has not had the law in place for nearly as long as Sweden has, show that it has convicted 5,000 men. I know that France is a large country in comparison with Ireland and Scotland, so the context is different, but it shows us that enforcement of these offences is possible."

Again this is not true. There may have been thousands of fines but there haven't been thousands of convictions. If a man pays the on‑the‑spot fine there is no conviction. If a man doesn't pay the fine he often gets away with it. Many buyers simply ignore the notice. Enforcement agencies often lack the resources to chase non‑payment.

Then there is the question of increased violence against sex workers in France since the Nordic Model was introduced in 2016. It does look as if violence has increased. Ten sex workers were murdered in France in 2019. All of them were street-based sex workers (working on the street or in a park but not indoors), even though outdoor sex workers are a small minority of all sex workers.

It seems that the police in France have been going after men in Paris who pay for sex with street-based sex workers, leaving the men who pay for sex with indoor sex workers untouched. In any country, street based sex workers are only between 10% and 20% of sex workers.

"Most of the arrests take place in the public space (and not online) within the scope of street prostitution."

It seems that women are being forced off the streets and into flats. This is what happened in Ireland in 1993. I don't like street prostitution, I don't have anything to do with that, so I would not get arrested in France especially outside of Paris. The one advantage of street-based sex work and the reason why some women chose it is independence.

Before 1993 in Ireland there were many street-based sex workers. They were nearly always independent. When they were forced to work indoors many of them needed pimps. If they couldn't afford to rent a flat or to advertise they had to go to work for a pimp who could. So the 1993 law increased the number of pimps in Ireland.

You can read about this in Rachel Moran's book Paid For and in the research done in the 1990s by Ann Marie O'Connor and her colleagues. What you can't read in the book or the research is anything like 'They lose most of their earnings to the pimp who is controlling them and become addicted to mind-numbing substances simply to endure the disassociation and develop complex post-traumatic stress disorder'. Or any of the other unrealities of prostitution outlined by MSP Michelle Thomson in the last few days in this debate.

I believe that this happened in Sweden in 1999, was made worse in Ireland in 2017, and would happen in Scotland too if Ash Regan managed to get her way. The pimps are benefitting from the Nordic Model. Pimps like it when women can't be independent.

I don't want to see more pimping. I want to see more women working without pimps, working together for safety, making the rules for themselves and keeping the profits for themselves. That can't happen with the Nordic Model, the only way it can happen is with decriminalisation. Or just stop arresting young women for 'brothel-keeping': you'd think that we could all agree on that.

"These fines "are very unevenly distributed across the territory," notes the Observatory led by the Interministerial Mission for the Protection of Women against Violence and the Fight against Human Trafficking (Miprof). A majority of them (58%) were issued in Paris, while over the same period no fines were recorded in 36 departments, he said.

For the secretary general of Miprof, Roxana Maracineanu, "it is clear that the victims of "prostitutional violence" are "still largely invisible, going under the radar of the security forces and the public authorities in general"."

Pimping is spreading over the Internet, as it says below. Prostitution of minors is on the increase.

"However, in some parts of France, the law continues to be only partially implemented: the criminalisation of 'clients' remains largely inadequate and too heterogeneous across the country, and pimping is spreading over the Internet."

"The digitalisation of the prostitution system goes hand in hand with the increasing digitalisation of society. As a result, the victims of prostitution are increasingly invisible, as are the "clients" and the pimps. All stages of prostitution are now dematerialised: recruitment of victims on social networks, advertisements published on specialised platforms, appointments arranged by SMS and encrypted messages, etc. This new reality is forcing associations working in the field to adapt by developing digital outreach services. At the same time, while France ranks as the 2nd country in the world in terms of pornography consumption, FACT-S observes that pornography has become the most commonplace and violent form of online prostitution."

The above two paragraphs come from a report called The impact of the abolitionist law in France: Report by FACT-S 2025. It came out less than a year ago. It is not an official government report but put together by different NGOs. You would expect it to be biased in favour of the 2016 law change but it points out many of the problems.

It starts by saying that many women have been helped out of prostitution, although migrant women are not getting the same help. Sex workers are less visible now because of the increasing use of the Internet. Prostitution of minors has increased.

This is the core tension: The law targets demand, but enforcement targets visibility. Those two don’t line up well in a digital, indoor market. A relatively small, visible slice of prostitution absorbs most of the policing pressure. The larger, online-based part of the market is hard to touch without major surveillance powers that France (like most democracies) is reluctant to use. Much of prostitution is effectively untouched by fines, even though it is formally illegal to buy sex anywhere.

The majority of French sex workers who work indoors are unaffected. The minority of French sex workers who work outdoors have been harmed. Either they continue to work outdoors but in more difficult and dangerous conditions - earning less money. Or they begin to work indoors, often for a pimp. Or they can try to use the exit programme which seems to be a trap for migrants who end up deported*.

Why is Ash Regan telling people that France is not having trouble with enforcement? Why is she so keen to say that prostitution cannot be forced underground? She doesn't seem to have read the report. Nobody would want what has happened in France to happen in Scotland. The MSPs were wise to vote against it just a few days ago, although they have enraged many.

---

* According to the official circular implementing the exit programme in January 2017 (DGCS/B2/2017/18), the organisation that applies on behalf of the person must provide the following documents: a request form to begin or renew the given exit route, evidence of the administrative, family and social situation of the individual, and a ‘sworn statement to cease the activity of prostitution’. Considering the fact that sex workers will lose their earnings, the law proposes quite modest financial assistance (see above). This support is allocated when the individual cannot benefit of any other form of social assistance. This means that French nationals and regular residents are not beneficiaries since they can obtain better financial assistance through other programmes. Financial support is supposed to be complemented by a priority access to social housing, yet this is almost never the case due to the dearth of supply of social emergency housing in France. Furthermore, applicants are requested to cease sex work as soon as their request for the exit programme starts, but the procedures usually take several months. This implies that during this waiting period the person remains without an income. from here

review of the year 2025

This year started with me seeing a local Japanese woman. I saw her three times but decided not to see her again. In March I went to stay in London and saw eight different women in Soho. I intend to do the same in 2026.

I looked in Vivastreet and saw a Chinese place. I went there every fortnight from May to October. There is a different woman there each fortnight. I have seen 14 different women, although I saw one of them three times. So I've been there 16 times. Lily was so lovely I wanted to see her again.

Apart from Lily, the two best ones were the last two I saw there. There was a younger one who was wearing a maid's uniform. She wanted me to pay extra so that the oral sex would be without a condom. I declined because oral sex isn't especially enjoyable to me. Later I asked her what else she does for extra money. What about kissing? She said yes and we had a proper snog.

The last one was an older woman. She offered sex without a condom for another £60. I declined, even when a bit later she said I could do it for £40. There has only been one other who offered that, and she was an older woman too. One of them wanted me to wear two condoms, one on top of the other.

They all have smartphones with an app that translates between Chinese and English. Most of them have little English. I paid £60 to each of them for a half an hour. When I want to go there I don't have to speak to anyone on the phone, I text and someone texts me back with the details including the codes for the security gates to get into the block of flats.

As far as I can tell there is no one else in the flat when I go there. One of them told me that the air is cleaner here than where she is from.

I have been reading Invisible: Britain's migrant sex workers by Hsiao-Hung Pai. She writes about Chinese women and also Eastern European women in Soho. I am reading the chapters about Chinese women and I shall read the chapters about the Polish woman later.

Hsiao-Hung Pai worked as a maid in a Chinese brothel. The information she provides is anecdotal, unlike the information in Professor Ko-lin Chin's book that I reviewed. Ko-lin Chin said that 15% of the Chinese women he interviewed had problems although were not necessarily exploited.

It is always possible to find a woman from that 15%, although I wouldn't say these women were especially exploited, compared to cleaning or working in a clothing factory. On page 18 of Invisible the author said that the sex worker had worked 18 hours. Then the reader has to wait till page 79 before being told that they are only actually having sex for a fraction of that time.

Four, five or six men each day seems to be the usual amount. Most of the sessions will be half hour sessions. One woman said she makes £1,200 per week and had sent home around £70,000. Robbers not punters are the biggest risk to their safety. They had a strategy though, the sex worker would not open the door unless she had received a phone call from her boss and she would shut the door quickly if more than one man was there.

Recently I have gone to a Thai massage establishment. The woman I saw was called Maya and she doesn't do anything sexual. She told me though that Kim would come into the room and give me hand relief if I wanted. I didn't.

The next time I went Maya wasn't there, only Kim. So I had a nice time with Kim, massage then hand relief. She also does body-to-body. I said that next time we might go further, perhaps I could look at her pussy. She pulled down her pants and showed me her hairless pussy. I will probably go back to see her again. I gave her £35 for the half-hour massage, another £30 for the hand relief and an extra £10 for showing me her pussy, even though she hadn't asked to be paid for dropping her pants.

What happens to women who sell sex?

In my previous post I reviewed Modern Slavery by Kevin Bales and a couple of other people. I was interested in Chapter 4 because it is about prostitution. There is something interesting in Chapter 7 too. They write about a study that followed 130 prostitutes in London (I don't know why they write 'nearly 150', the number is precisely 130). The study is called "What happens to women who sell sex? Report of a unique occupational cohort" by Helen Ward and Sophie Day.

The title is misleading, because it is suggesting that if a woman begins to sell sex certain things will happen to her. Such as higher rates of murder, death through AIDS, death through alcoholic liver disease and intravenous drug overdose. As Kevin Bales et al state, this cohort did suffer from a higher mortality rate. They also had other health problems such as STIs.

What Bales et al don't point out though is that the authors of the study state quite clearly that 'The women followed up are not representative of sex workers in general or even the baseline cohort.' When you consider that '46 (of 72, 64%) reported previous or current addiction', it is obvious that they cannot be representative of sex workers generally. Only about 20% of sex workers are addicts.

There are two paragraphs in the study that put sex work in a completely different light from that which Bales et al intended. This takes some explaining, but it seems to me that we are talking about two different groups of women, the drug addicts and the non-drug addicts. The outcomes for sex workers in these two groups are very different.

Two points. 48% of the women owned their own homes, for women where household details were available. They found no major difference in health outcomes between those who left and those who remained in the sex industry. This suggests that structural factors (like addiction, housing, and social support) may be more predictive of long-term health than sex work itself.

I have quoted these two paragraphs below, adding emphasis for the most important points.

"The most significant problems related to mental ill health and substance misuse. The relation between these health problems and sex work is complex, and despite the longitudinal nature of this study, we are not able to determine causation. Multiple factors predispose sex workers in general to chronic ill health, including poverty and poor education. We were unable to control for these because of the relatively small numbers followed up, and limited baseline information on chronic health problems. However, it is clear that prejudice towards the sale of sex and legal penalties marginalised sex workers both during and after their time in the industry, and the majority of respondents attributed their symptoms to this burden of disrespect and the difficulties they faced in hiding what they did."

"Women also combined jobs within the sex industry with work, education, and training outside. Research participants reported that sex work created the opportunities for such initiatives (qualitative data not shown). However, on completing training, many women stayed in the industry. Given the new possibilities offered by higher education and vocational training, sex work must therefore be considered a positive choice, preferable to alternatives. In other words, sex work is not simply a form of social exclusion but a conduit to social mobility and opportunities such as home ownership and a family wage. Therefore, policies that emphasise ‘‘exiting’’ strategies are likely to have limited impact. Governments may sponsor training schemes for sex workers, but as we have shown women may well train but then combine new skills with sex work in order to retain the economic advantage and flexibility that the occupation can offer. In this study, sex work was a choice for the majority who were followed up, and for many a route out of poverty rather than a vicious circle of social exclusion."

review of Modern Slavery by Kevin Bales

This book isn't just about prostitution. There is one chapter on prostitution. The first sub-heading is Forced Prostitution in the West. Kevin Bales writes "The women and girls are commonly tortured if they  do not comply". The reference for this statement is for a 2004 paper by Gijsbert Van Liemt. This paper does not mention torture once. It does mention violence and the threat of violence without specifying the nature of this violence. It does not mention girls. So there is no physical torture.

Is there psychological torture? The paper mentions isolation for sex workers and domestic maids. It says that women are moved from brothel to brothel to prevent them from 'establishing relations of trust'.

There are two things wrong with that statement. Firstly women are moved to another brothel because some men don't want to see the same sex worker again and again. Secondly women in brothels often work with other women and are not isolated. If they do work alone then it isn't really a brothel and it will often be because it is illegal for women to work together.

Also they all have smart phones so they are in contact with anyone they choose either here or in their home countries. They have an app which means that even if they don't speak English they can have a conversation with anyone.

There is no doubt that some women are coerced into prostitution and some forms of coercion are subtle, but it's a bit of a stretch to call that psychological torture. In any case Kevin Bales isn't calling it psychological. Then to tack onto women 'and girls' seems deception to me.

The second sub-heading is Forced Prostitution in Africa and Asia. Kevin Bales writes about Japan as a destination for migrant sex workers.

"But another part of Japan's slavery problem is its euphemistically titled "Entertainment Industry," which includes brothels, strip clubs, bathhouses and street prostitution. The government has a special "entertainer visa," supposedly given to singers and dancers that will be giving performances in theatres and nightclubs. If this were true, then Japan would have more professional entertainers than the rest of the world combined.

In reality, the visa is used to import large numbers of foreign women to meet the demands of Japanese men for sex and "entertainment." Between 1996 and 2003, the number of visas issued each year more than doubled (see table 10).

In 2003, approximately 80,000 "entertainers" came from the Philippines and, over the years, around 40,000 women have come from Latin America on entertainer visas. Under intense pressure from human rights groups and other countries, Japan agreed to better police the entertainment visa system from March 2005, but no figures have been released showing a fall in the number of "entertainers" brought to Japan."

Kevin Bales has got this completely wrong. These entertainers were not prostitutes. Sociologist Rhacel Parreñas worked among them, interviewed them and saw the reality of their lives. She put it all in her book 'Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo'.

70,000 out of 80,000 Filipina women have had their livelihood taken away from them. They were not prostitutes but some of them will now be. These do-gooders have forced women into prostitution. If Japan chooses to classify women who serve drinks and sing karaoke in nightclubs as 'entertainers' that is up to them and that shouldn't be a subject of sarcasm.

Professor Parreñas knows how to help these women. They should be paid during not just at the end of their contract. Middlemen brokers who take much of the profit should be removed from the system. This goes to the heart of the issue, do you avoid what exploitation there is by improving their conditions, or do you take away their livelihood? If you take away their chosen source of income they will be poorer and more likely to engage in actual prostitution. Whatever you do, you must be willing to try to understand the reality of their lives. Not making assumptions based on your (American conservative) world view.

The third sub-heading is Prostitution. In this section Kevin Bales states that some people believe all prostitution is slavery. For example, CATW. He mentions legalization but not decriminalization. He doesn't mention the Palermo Protocol.

He mentions the Nordic model in Sweden and writes that there is little evidence that it is working. He writes that there is no evidence that prostitution has been pushed underground in Sweden, which is odd because if there is just as much prostitution but it is now illegal then it is underground.

This is an interesting paragraph:-

"Ann Jordan, director of Global Rights' Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons, also points out that while "current federal law enables prosecutions of all enslavers and provides protection for all victims," the broad scope of the law "equates prostitution with trafficking, and is redirecting resources to end prostitution rather than to end trafficking." She suggests that the investigative and prosecutorial arms of the federal government are being diverted from their primary goals of eradicating all types of slavery, in order to pursue a war on prostitution."

This is something I have believed a long time. If we apply it to the case of the Filipina women who have been stopped from working in Japan, not only is there no evidence that they were prostitutes, even if they had all been prostitutes there is no evidence that they were forced into it. "If no one is forcing her to engage is such an activity, then trafficking does not exist." This is what one group of NGOs said in 1999, according to Bales.

This is the clearest case that we're not just talking about the desires of men here, we are also talking about the needs of women. The need for poor women to earn money. Having said that, it must be true that a few of these women might have chosen prostitution while in Japan. A few might even have intended to engage in prostitution before they applied for a visa to Japan.

Modern Slavery is not a good book about the subject. A much better book is The Truth about Modern Slavery by Emily Kenway.

It was John Miller of the American State Department who put pressure on the Japanese government to severely restrict entertainment visas. I have written about him here.

three attempts to introduce Nordic model

There have been three attempts this year to introduce the Nordic model into Britain. Ash Regan is a Scottish MSP. She has introduced a bill that will punish men who pay for sex. She caused much hilarity in social media when she responded to a question about prostitution being driven underground.

"If you had a lot of women in underground cellars with a locked door, how would the punters get to them?"

People thought that she didn't understand what 'underground' meant and thought that it meant literally moving to underground cellars. I don't think she actually meant that though, her point was that if a punter can find a prostitute then so can the police. Therefore the police can find prostitution and put a stop to it. I have heard this argument many times.

If that was her point, which she failed to get across, then she is wrong. A drug user can find a drug dealer but the police can't. People can buy drugs easily and the police can't put a stop to it. Also, even if the police could locate prostitutes that doesn't really help them because the prostitutes aren't doing anything illegal. All the police could do is to try to observe their clients but they still have to prove that the man has paid for sex or agreed to pay for sex.

"The data that we have shows that in Sweden [where prostitution is illegal], prostitution has reduced to a very low level," she said."

"It has not extinguished it completely but it has reduced it to a very low level. But fundamentally, sex trafficking is almost non-existent in Sweden, if not non-existent."

This is complete nonsense. Does she not know that the review of the Irish Nordic model law published this year shows that there has been no decrease in demand? There is also the 2020 interim review and the review of the Northern Ireland Nordic model law.

How can she believe that prostitution in Sweden has reduced to a very low level and that sex trafficking is non-existent or almost non-existent? The data we have does not show that.

Claims are being made that if the bill passes it will decriminalize prostitutes. That is not true. It is not illegal to be a prostitute but it is illegal for two or more women to work together for safety. Regan's bill will not affect that. Women will still be arrested. They talk about safety but if they want to make women safe they should stop arresting them for so-called brothel-keeping.

Prostitution is dangerous under certain conditions but in Soho no sex worker has been murdered since 1947. That is because there are always two women in the flat, the sex worker is never alone with a man, and because they are not drug addicts. A minority of sex workers are drug addicts and their world is a violent world.

Ash Regan's bill is called the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill. She is also calling it the 'Unbuyable Bill'. Which is odd, because I have never bought anyone. Another attempt to bring the Nordic model to Britain is an amendment to a bill passing through the House of Commons called the Crime and Policing Bill. There are a few amendments proposed. The one that is of interest to me is "This new clause makes it an offence to pay for, or attempt to, pay for sex either for themselves or on behalf of others".

It seems to be Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi who proposed the amendment, but she is supported by over 50 other MPs and UK Feminista. They don't seem to care that help for women to exit prostitution and decriminalizing prostitutes were always regarded as an integral part of the Nordic model. You can't just take one part of it and forget about the others.

Also, you have to have surveys so that you can tell if a change in the law is working. One survey before the law change, and then regularly after that, asking both men and women all of the important questions.

I have no reason to believe that Ash Regan or Tonia Antoniazzi will get what they want. There is someone else who seems to be getting what they want though. Police in Bristol have been issuing 'community protection warnings' to men who they think are committing anti-social behaviour. This restricts the areas where he can go and he could face criminal action if he continues to go into them.

According to this newspaper article, they are saying they want to implement the Nordic model. There are some good things about what they are doing but they don't have the right to decide that 'anti-social' means anything that they choose it to mean. Especially when they don't have proof of what they allege.

It is for Parliament to decide if Britain adopts the Nordic model or some aspects of it. Parliament hasn't voted for the Nordic model and it seems that after the review of Irish Nordic model law published recently (see previous post) they are even less likely to accept it. We can't have police forces adopting aspects of the Nordic model haphazardly.

review of Ireland Nordic Model law

There has been a review of the 2017 law in Ireland that criminalised the purchase of sex. This review was long delayed. There was interim review in 2020 by Dr Geoffrey Shannon and a couple of unofficial reviews.

go here to see the press release

go here to download a pdf file of the review

These are the three key paragraphs from the press release:-

"Among its findings, the review highlights challenges to the effective enforcement of the legislation in its current form, with An Garda Síochána and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions noting significant barriers. These include limited power of arrest for detention and questioning, the requirement of an admission of guilt, and challenges in prosecution due to the necessary ‘proofs’.

It also finds that the ability to successfully support and protect is hindered by a lack of culturally appropriate support services including healthcare, social welfare, gender specific housing for women, and clear exit routes.

The review also notes that the prevalence of human trafficking among those involved in the sale of sex in Ireland is not fully known, and the lack of reliable data is cited by both advocates for and opponents of section 7A."

It is saying that the police in Ireland find it difficult to prosecute men, it seems that without an admission of guilt nothing can happen to them. There have only been 15 convictions. It is saying that that exit strategies for women involved in prostitution are not there. It is saying that they have no idea whether trafficking has increased or decreased.

When it comes to demand, the key issue, the review does not say that demand has decreased. The nearest the review comes to answering this question is this paragraph:-

"Demand reduction and enforcement
The measurement of demand continues to be challenging due to the lack of official and/or independent statistics being consistently and uniformly collected. This is evident across all jurisdictions and is driven by the nature of conducting research in this area."

There may be other information about whether demand has increased but I haven't found it yet. I did find this though on this page:-

"Minister O’Callaghan added: “My key focus on this issue is to seek to reduce demand, protect those involved in the sex trade, and support those who wish to exit. “Regrettably, the Review highlights that despite the criminalisation of the purchase of sexual services, demand has not decreased. The Review points to recommendations to address this around awareness raising; these are mirrored in the Programme for Government and the Zero Tolerance Strategy. “In addition, certain recommendations will be considered in respect of law enforcement, and my officials are consulting with An Garda Síochána in this regard.” According to An Garda Síochána, the DPP had directed 161 prosecutions for the offence of ‘Payment etc. for Sexual Activity with a Prostitute’ from January 2017 up to August 2024. Over that period, our police service recorded 15 convictions under the legislation."

So it looks as if the introduction of the Nordic model in Ireland has been a failure.

go here to see Irish Legal News on the review
Demand has not decreased in the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland the ban has had “minimal to no effect” on the market.

go here to see another legal view

go here to see Sex Workers Alliance Ireland on the review

go here to see my page on Ireland

my trip to London (2025)

I had another trip to London. So many of the walk ups I knew have closed. My favourite was 8 Greek Street. Last year I saw Sabrina there. Fortunately, I found her in the walk up in Romilly Street. I had sex with her again and she told me that the Greek Street premises have been sold. There seems to have been a lot of development around there, they have opened up the back of Greek Street so that you can walk around there.

I asked Sabrina if she would be there tomorrow and she said yes. The next day though she was the maid and it was Julia who was the sex worker. Julia is much younger and more attractive than Sabrina so I had sex with her. Julia has straight black hair and looks very Mediterranean. I think she is in her 30s and she is not slender but not fat either. Just the sort I like best.

Julia is a bit bossy which I don't mind. It's better when they tell you that you're too heavy on top of them and you need to lift yourself up a bit.

The Romilly Street walk up has two flats and is right at the eastern end of Romilly Street not far from Charing Cross Road. How many people walking along Charing Cross Road know that in a couple of minutes they could be shagging a beautiful Spanish woman for £30? There is a pub on a corner with lots of people standing outside. How many of them pop up the stairs for a quick shag, hearing all the people talking outside the window and the traffic passing by?

After I had seen Julia I wanted to see another woman. I had told Julia she must be the most beautiful woman in Soho apart from Sonia. Julia wanted to know who she is and where she works. I thought I would find Sonia, but the maid said she wasn't there that day. The woman who was there was a nice Brazilian woman, very friendly. I think the maid said she was called Vivien, but when I asked her in the room she said her name was Fifi or something.

She looks about 30, is of average attractiveness and a darker skin. Slender. The Lisle Street walk ups seem to be unaffected, with numbers 2, 3 and 4 still open. Number 3 has only one flat and number 4 has two. The flat where I saw Sonia last year is the upper flat at number 4, although the maid told me on Tuesday that she works in the lower flat.

Two days later I was back in Soho. There is only one walk up in Greens Court now. I saw Bianca in the lower flat. She is a lovely young blonde. Very friendly. Even more friendly was Brazilian Katarina at 4 Lisle Street upper flat. She was very encouraging and the best I saw that day. Almost as good was Samantha at 3 Lisle Street. Samantha is quite pretty with a smiley face. She wanted me to shag her fast and hard: this might have been because she liked it that way or maybe she knew I would come sooner. She said she is half Russian.

So that was three nice ones. There was another one who was a disappointment. Laura is in the Greens Court walk up in the upper flat. She is not pretty and an odd shape. I asked her to lie on the bed and let me look at her pussy. She stared at me with a puzzled expression on her face. It was not conducive to me getting an erection. There was another one like her at 4 Lisle Street lower flat.

So I know who to see next time I come to London. Julia and Katarina were the best. Julia because she is so attractive and Katarina because she is so friendly. Bianca and Samantha are worth seeing. Sabrina and Vivien/Fifi are good. Laura and the other one best avoided.

The walk ups now are Romilly Street, Greens Court, the three in Lisle Street and the Thai one in Little Newport Street. There is also the other one in Greek Street. That is still open but seems to open later and works differently to other walk ups now. Romilly Street has the names of the women in the corridor but it seems the other places don't have that.

When I go to London I'm not just interested in women. I was staying in Pimlico and I found Tachbrook Street street market. It must be a posh area. I have never seen a fishmonger selling sea urchins and razor clams. I have never seen a greengrocer selling mangosteens and rambutans. Not everything was expensive, I bought a halloumi wrap for £5.

academics versus liars

I have been reading two interesting books about prostitution. The first one is by an academic, Dr Ko-lin Chin. He is a Professor at Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. The second one is by Sarah Forsyth and Tim Tate (who has a degree in Theology).

The book by the Professor is called Going Down to the Sea. He interviewed 149 sex workers in different countries, all from mainland China. The book recounts the interviews of 18 of these women. In the epilogue he sums up the information given to him by these 149 women.

The vast majority of them were not deceived, coerced or forced into the sex trade. Only 1% were, although 15% were not free to move around or quit sex work because their travel documents are kept by their employer or debtor. There are various definitions of 'sex trafficking victim'.

He says there are different problems in different countries. It is better for them in the USA than in Asian countries. In the USA none of them were underage, in debt to sex ring operators, financially exploited, or denied freedom of movement (or forced, coerced or deceived).

The women had no contact with organised crime except within the Geylang red light district of Singapore. What Ko-lin Chin has found is consistent with what Elizabeth Pisani and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas have found in South East Asia. They are also academics who have conducted research in the field. Heidi Hoefinger is another.

The book by Sarah Forsyth and Tim Tate is Slave Girl. There are many reviews online, some people don't believe it is true. Below is part of one review.

"The fact that her description of the Red Light District in Amsterdam is actually highly inaccurate, and anyone who has been there should be able to verify the author has greatly distorted this for sensationalist purposes. I have been to the RLD as a tourist (naturally this book had me feeling ashamed at having done so, and while I question its accuracy I have no intention of going there again) and the girls in the windows appear perfectly healthy, fit, attractive and seemingly happy there. It is quite likely that the latter point is an act they have mastered in order to keep drawing punters in, but even so it is not an act that a hopeless junkie would be physically or mentally capable of pulling off convincingly. In short, there is no way that these women are simply 'living on a diet of drugs and m&ms' as Sarah claims; her description is more akin to the disease-ridden and drug-addicted prostitutes you are more likely to find walking the streets of any big city. Likewise Sarah is extremely demeaning of the punters who visit the girls and even the tourists who pass through the area, she basically says they are all evil and feelingless, knowingly raping the girls."

That's not the only inaccuracy. There are 3 RLDs in Amsterdam, not 2 as she states. The two she mentions don't adjoin each other and form 'one large drug-dealing flesh market'.

Some of it doesn't even make sense. On page 103 she wrote that she was working in a window in Amsterdam and she wanted to open the door because her co-worker was a chain-smoker. She couldn't though because the pimp had locked them in. So how did they let the punters in to the room, if they were locked in? On page 147 she wrote that each sex worker handled hundreds of punters a week.

In the afterword there is a lot of false information about Operation Pentameter and Gatwick Airport, similar to the sort of stuff Evangelical Christians tend to believe.

Tim Tate wrote a book called Children for the Devil: Ritual Abuse and Satanic Crime. This is how it is described: 'The ritualistic abuse of children in satanic ceremonies is increasingly coming to light as children in the UK, USA and Europe disclose identical experiences involving torture, cannibalism, animal sacrifice, live burial, murder and the use of drugs snakes and insects in sexual abuse'. Tate was sued in 1992, shortly after the book was published, for defamatory accusations against a police officer. Tate could not substantiate the accusations and agreed a settlement. It was pulled by its publishers and pulped.

No doubt the Evangelicals will think that the Devil has managed to stifle their free speech.

I don't usually come across books like Slave Girl, libraries and bookshops tend not to stock them. I might have been looking in the wrong places though. It seems that there are many books in this genre. I was surprised when the book popped up on the Nordic Model Now! site. This is what Megan King ('survivor and abolitionist') wrote.

"Within the book she describes the reality of the sex trade there, including witnessing the murder of a fellow prostituted woman, as the brothel owners created a ‘snuff porn’ video, which for those of you who are unaware of this, means it is pornography depicting real homicide. She witnessed someone being murdered in the name of pornography in front of her eyes."

According to Forsyth (or Tate) she had a gun held to her head. Funny that, none of the women in South East Asia interviewed by Professor Chin had a gun held to their head, not even in Singapore. Yet we are supposed to believe that in North West Europe this happens.

On the same Nordic Model Now! page by Megan King there is a false statistic that I want to address. "In Sweden from 1999 to 2008, there was a 76% reduction in the number of prostituted women." There is a reference for this statistic which is Not a choice, Not a job: Exposing the myths about prostitution and the global sex trade by Janice Raymond (page 73).

I can't get access to this book so I'm not sure where this statistic comes from. I think it comes from here though.

"In 1995, a national government report published estimates that there were approximately 2500 to 3000 prostituted women in Sweden, of whom 650 were in street prostitution. In 1998, street prostitution was estimated even higher, at 726. By 2008, a study estimated that approximately 300 women were prostituted on Swedish streets, while 300 women and 50 men were identified in Swedish online prostitution advertisements. Prostitution increased in Denmark and Norway during the same period, gauged using similar measurements as in Sweden."

We have two different estimates, one from 1995 (not 1999) and one from 2008. Both flawed. Not all indoor prostitution relied on the Internet in 2008. The 300 figure for indoor prostitution is way too low.

2500 decreased by 76% is 600. However, according to surveys in 1996 0.3% of Swedish women stated that they had been paid for sex. In 2008 the figure was 1.1% and in 2017 it was 1.5%. So I would say that it is a myth that there was a reduction in the number of sex workers in Sweden between 1999 and 2008.

Below is an extract from the Skarhed report of 2010. It shows that the 650 figure for the number of sex workers in Sweden in 2008 is not to be trusted. I have emboldened what I think is the most important.

"In the research report ―Prostitution in the Nordic Countries, Charlotta Holmström’s article summarizes the available knowledge about the situation in Sweden in 2008. It shows that approximately 300 women were involved in street prostitution and that about 300 women and 50 men were involved in prostitution on the Internet. However, the article points out that this does not mean that we can estimate the number of people in prostitution in Sweden to be 650. As described above, people in prostitution may be active in several arenas at once, for example both on the Internet and on the street, which would mean that the same person was counted more than once. On the other hand, Holmström felt that the estimate could be rather low, as it was dependent on how social work was organized and what surveys were conducted. Thus, rather than providing a reliable picture of the actual situation, the estimates might in fact say more about the resources and priorities of the police and social services. In summary, she states that the number of women in street prostitution in the three major cities in Sweden appears to be relatively well-defined and that knowledge about women who offer sex over the Internet is somewhat more limited, but under development, while the knowledge of men who provide sexual services and people who offer sex in other arenas than on the street and the Internet, as well as our knowledge of the incidence of prostitution outside the big-city areas, is very limited. Holmström also states that ―at the same time, authorities believe that the majority of prostitution activities occur in less visible arenas."

Clearly she is saying that the 350 figure for men and women advertising on the Internet is not the total number of indoor workers.

Belgium grants labour rights to sex workers

I had heard that Belgium has decriminalised sex work a while ago but I couldn't find out much about it. Now there is a new law there that entitles sex workers to employment contracts, health insurance, maternity leave and sick days.

My first thought was that it's a good thing but one of the attractions of sex work for many women is that usually they don't have to work fixed hours. Most sex workers don't want to work 40 hours every week. They might want to work 20 hours one week and none the next.

Sex workers who choose to work in brothels don't have that flexibility and can benefit from these new laws. How many women will choose employment contracts is another matter. They say that in Germany women can have employment contracts but few have chosen to do this. Germany certainly isn't the way forward in these matters: I have read so many bad things about what happens in Germany.

A great benefit to brothel workers is that they will have the right to refuse clients, choose their practices and stop an act at any moment. This is something that independent sex workers have always been able to do and is very important. If a sex worker dislikes old men she should be able to refuse them. If a sex worker doesn't want to provide oral sex without a condom she should be able to say no.

I was listening to The Global Story on BBC World Service. One issue discussed was the issue of panic buttons. The new law states that employers must provide them. A critic said "In what other job would you need a panic button?". However, in many professions women especially need to be protected.

 There are many ways that estate agents protect themselves from attack. First on this list is Screen Clients Prior To Meeting  (it also says that half carry self-defense weapons). Third on this list is Have a “Panic Button” in Your Pocket.

In the programme someone from Canada called Andrea said that she used to be a sex worker. She decided to set up her own brothel and run it on ethical lines. Having tried this, she stopped doing it because she realised that it is impossible to avoid harm. She apologised to the women.

I wanted to find out more about Andrea from Canada. She is Andrea Heinz and she has numerous writings on the Nordic Model Now! site and the FeministCurrent site. They are too numerous for me to go through but I read one of them. In it she wrote that she sold her brothel to somebody else. So she was a pimp and she sold her brothel. Nothing about apologising to the women.

The example that Andrea gave in her writing of harm is 'I saw a girl come out of a room crying because her client was in his 70s and had been “touching her like an incestual grandpa.”' This is odd because if this 'girl' disliked old men why didn't she decide not to accept this client? Why did Andrea not tell the 'girl' that she didn't have to accept any client she disliked? If she was being so ethical.

Why did Andrea not understand that in Belgium women now have the right to refuse clients? Why is Andrea telling everyone that the new Belgian laws won't protect women? She's on YouTube too, being interviewed by Christian bigot Benjamin Nolot - who doesn't believe in abortion rights or gay marriage.

In the book Paid For by Rachel Moran she says that a 'madam' she worked for told her she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to. Rachel didn't have anal sex when she was a sex worker. So I'm not inclined to believe Andrea Heinz when she writes she was 'violently sodomised' with 'my genitals and anus were left torn and bleeding'. She also wrote that she has been raped numerous times without condoms.

It could be that prostitution in Canada is different from prostitution in Ireland (especially before 1993). Maybe Canada is like America in terms of violence whereas Ireland is like Europe. If that is the case why are we asking a Canadian ex pimp what she thinks of new laws in Belgium?

There is a contradiction in this piece. She wrote that she specialized in domination because she would not need to have intercourse as often. Yet later in the same piece she wrote "The day I received my first legitimate paycheck I broke down sobbing because it was the first bit of money I’d earned in the previous seven years where I didn’t have to lay on my back and spread my legs". Not only had she previously earned money as a dominatrix, she had also earned money as a pimp.

She wrote that she earned (in seven years) over $1.2 million. That's interesting, because the abolitionists are always keen to tell us that the women see very little of the money handed over. While she was a sex worker she 'pursued post-secondary education and was on owner of a comfortable starter home (as a single woman under 30)'.

'I now had a large mortgage, tuition costs, and vehicle replacements.' This is what 'trapped' her in prostitution. Apparently being violently sodomised on a regular basis isn't enough of an incentive to forgo the house, cars etc. Or maybe she had moved on by this point to letting other females be violently sodomised for her money. Or maybe this is just some kind of sick fantasy dreamed up by an Evangelical based on what they think happens in prostitution.

I think that the Evangelicals like Benjamin Nolot (founder of Exodus Cry) and Radical Feminists like Meghan Murphy (founder of Feminist Current) would have preferred it if she hadn't mentioned the $1.2 million, or the house, college and cars. Also, 'what I earned in two weeks could have been earned in four hours through prostitution'. I'm assuming she means being a sex worker and not being a pimp, but it can be difficult to work out what she really means.

The funny thing about the Andrea Heinz story is that it isn't going to discourage women from entering prostitution. They would quite like the $1.2 million, the house, the cars and the college fees. They know that under certain circumstances they won't be violently sodomised. They can turn away clients, choose what they want and don't want to do, and stop a sex act. They can have security.

Andrea Heinz doesn't want them to have labour rights. She might say that panic buttons and security guards won't stop them from being raped anally. Yet Rachel Moran never had anal sex once. If you don't want it you can not do it. Unless someone tries to stop you having rights. Maybe someone who doesn't want you to have the right to a same-sex marriage or an abortion.

I can understand that some people will say it would be better to eliminate prostitution. That's not going to happen. If anyone says that it has happened in Sweden, they are not telling you the truth.

Archbishops morality and abuse

The Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned. He had the opportunity to protect children from abuse but he didn't take it. There may have been other abusers but John Smyth is the most prominent. He was the barrister for Mary Whitehouse (a morality campaigner in the 1970s and 1980s). They were both Christians and Smyth ran Christian summer camps for young boys and men.

In Victoria Smith's book 'Hags' she quotes Helen Joyce and Louise Perry. She believes that older women like Mary Whitehouse protected younger women and children from predators like Jimmy Savile.

Not only did Mary Whitehouse not protect young people from abusers like John Smyth and Jimmy Savile (she presented Savile with an award) her type of older woman did great harm to young women. In Ireland they were insisting that pregnant teenage girls were sent to mother and baby homes or Magdalene Laundries. Unmarried pregnant girls weren't welcome in the community because they set a bad example to the others.

It wasn't that bad in England but this type of older woman smothered the happiness of young women in many different ways. They took a dim view of sex education and contraception (although Mary Whitehouse herself taught sex education that she believed should be taught with strict moral guidelines). They were happy for young women to enter early marriage or work in a menial job as a factory worker, typist or servant.

They think that pornography must have harmful consequences and are always looking for evidence for them. They think that sex workers must be coerced, deceived, drug-addicted or dirt poor. Having sex with several different men each day seems so disgusting to them they cannot believe that any woman could choose it the way that people choose other jobs.

It's interesting that Victoria Smith doesn't think that pornography causes anal pain in young women. I can't find anything in her book that states young men are demanding anal sex from young women because of pornography. Instead she goes back to the older idea that young women are forced to shave their pubic hair because young men never see it in pornography.

She doesn't state this clearly though. On page 188 there is this: "our aversion to pubic hair". On page 160 there is this: "Female pubic hair was still legal". Anyone who has looked at pornography knows that there is lots of pubic hair there. Despite its supposed ubiquity it seems that so many people haven't even looked at porn. She might not want people to think of her alongside 'conservative housewives, moral majority pearl-clutchers and no-sex-before-marriage fundamentalists'  (page 161) but they are obviously the congregation that she is preaching to.

Louise Perry doesn't believe in sex before marriage.

It was Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols who tried to expose Jimmy Savile. The Punk movement might have favoured promiscuity but they didn't accept abusers. Unlike the Archbishop, Mary Whitehouse and her supporters. Here, that's an idea. Why don't we get John Lydon to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury?

review of Eve Was Shamed by Helena Kennedy

I am reading 'Eve Was Shamed' by Helena Kennedy QC. She is one of Britain's most distinguished lawyers and public figures. In chapter 5 (The Whore) she has some interesting things to say about sex work.

page 162 "Off-street sex workers usually operate from massage parlours or saunas or in accommodation where there are other women, or a 'maid' who keeps an eye out for oddballs and acts as a doorkeeper. Many 'maids' are women who were themselves at one time 'toms', as the police call prostitutes. Off-street sex is much less risky but unfortunately the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 criminalised the role of maid, making life for sex workers far less safe; it is also increasingly the venue for paid sex because arrangements are made on the Internet."

"The jury is still out on whether it [criminalising the purchase of sex] works or whether it simply drives the sale of sex underground with consequent higher risks for women. Unless there is better evidence from the places where this change has operated for a number of years, I remain very sceptical about the criminalisation of the male purchasers."

This is interesting because so many people believe that prostitution cannot be driven underground. In a debate in parliament the former MP Gavin Shuker said that if a punter can find a sex worker then so can the police. That's like saying that if a drug addict can find a drug dealer then so can the police.

As for evidence that the 'Swedish experiment' actually works, I have a lot of information on this blog including here.

page 163 "The laws against brothel-keeping still prevent two or three women sharing a flat for their work, which would reduce the risks of assault and provide companionship."

page 165 "I come at it as a feminist lawyer and would want to see evidence from a reliable source about the Swedish experiment and those in other jurisdictions to see if criminalising the purchase of sex actually works.

We must always look carefully at how law can be misused. The government's antisocial behaviour orders are now being used to bar women from certain streets or from associating with each other, although the original public rationale for the orders was about protecting the public from gangs of boys or bad neighbours creating a nuisance. Breach of an order can attract a maximum sentence of five years which means the reintroduction of imprisonment for prostitutes which had been removed in the Criminal Justice Act 1982. So while the rhetoric is all about helping women, England and Wales are fast becoming the most punitive countries in Europe for prostitutes."

page 169 After writing briefly about sex workers expecting poor treatment in courts particularly concerning the welfare of their children and the fact that mothers can find prostitution a convenient way to make a living she goes on to write about how the law affects their family life.

"Charges of living off immoral earnings were introduced to reach the pimps who exploited women and forced them into sexual misery. However, many women complain that in fact they make their own choices about how they earn a living, and the law is frequently used against boyfriends and husbands or family members who exercise no control over them at all. The effect is to prevent these women having any semblance of a home life. Taxi drivers, particularly minicab drivers, are sometimes charged with living off immoral earnings if they provide a regular service for prostitutes and facilitate their work. The same is true for landlords and massage-parlour and sauna owners if the police take against them."

Later in the chapter she writes about the Sexual Offenses Act 2003, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Police and Crime Act 2009. She doesn't mention that the Police and Crime Act 2009 was intended  to amend the definition of a brothel so that two or three individuals may work together (whatever happened to that?). She also mentions the National Referral Mechanism.

She finds persuasive a book called Illegal and Illicit: Sex Regulation and Social Control by Joanna Phoenix and Sarah Oerton. They show that the law operates to the detriment of some women who choose prostitution voluntarily.

On page 163 she writes about the case of Margaret MacDonald who was sentenced to four years imprisonment. 'These are women who would rather be sex workers than cleaners or care workers, as they earn much more money doing it, and until women's work is better paid, they want to carry on without interference.'

On page 177 she looks favourably on reforms in the Australian state of Victoria and in Holland.

There are a couple of things I am unhappy about though with her book. On page 161 she writes 'Three-quarters of those involved in prostitution in Britain entered street prostitution before their 18th birthday'. She doesn't give a reference but it seems to come from a 1995 study 'Street prostitution: Ten facts in search of a policy' by Benson and Matthews. This is clearly about street prostitution and not prostitution in general but even so I don't believe it.

On page 162 she gives more statistics including '68% met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder' (whatever that means). Helena Kennedy should realise that the 'research' of Melissa Farley is flawed. Overall though, I think it is a good book. She makes a lot of sense.

On page 170 she writes about women getting deported after police raids and mentions other forms of trafficking such as trafficking for cheap labour or domestic servitude 'doing back-breaking agricultural jobs or cockle picking or poultry cleaning and packing, living in inhumane conditions and being paid well below the minimum wage'. This is important because these issues tend to be ignored by people who support police crackdowns on prostitution.

On page 178 she also writes 'Saving women from prostitution must also mean removing sexual and economic inequalities, providing job opportunities, training and equal pay - in other words by recognising the economic realities which drive most women to the streets'.

I wasn't aware of the cases of Vishal Chaudhary and Tatiana Shmyrova, two traffickers who exploited their victims terribly. It just goes to show that some trafficking is heinous. She doesn't seem to be aware though that some people are convicted of trafficking who have never coerced anyone. In the case of Mark Viner for example there is no suggestion that he coerced the women involved.

Instead the police say that women were raped or robbed, although it is not clear whether this happened in somewhere set up by Mark Viner: "That is the very dark world traffickers like Mark Viner are bringing women into and it's why it's so important we continue to break the cycle".  Also, the present law is part of the problem: "They do this because they know we will not call the police because they know we work in brothels which is not legal".

You might wonder why I am sticking up for a trafficker, but we need to create a system where women don't get raped or robbed. Women come to Britain on tourist visas to get money for things like university fees, get deported (not rescued), then try to get back to Britain to continue as sex workers. This is all in the television series about Viner.

The law has to be able to distinguish between someone who has not coerced anyone and who protects them from rape and robbery, and someone like Vishal Chaudhary. I'm not saying that Mark Viner should have been allowed to get away with what he did. The law needs to be able to distinguish between a pimp who makes money from sex workers, and two or three sex workers working together for safety. Trafficking and brothel keeping-keeping are not always what they seem to the public.

meet Asami

I have had a video for a couple of years, part of my collection. It shows a young Japanese woman acting as a tour guide on a coach. She has sex with several men on the coach. She is wearing the uniform of tour guides in Japan, with a yellow jacket and hat.

I found out that her name is Asami and if you buy the DVD there is another video of her having sex at a hot spring or spa. I found out that there are other DVDs, one where she is a nurse. This is not soft porn, you see her having full sex and seeming to enjoy it.

In none of these films is there any slapping or strangling. At least, in none of her pornographic films. I found out just recently though that in Japan she is a well recognised and well respected mainstream actress of horror and action movies. Many of them extremely violent.

I found out that her full name is Asami Sugiura, in Japanese 杉浦 亜紗美. She's not as pretty as some of the women in Japanese pornographic videos, such as Kotomi Asakura, Iori Mizuki and Aika in her early days. Kotomi has also made the move from hard core pornography into mainstream movies.

Perhaps Asami's most violent movie was The Machine Girl which 'is particularly famous for its over-the-top violence and gore, featuring scenes with extreme action and bloodshed'.

I was listening to a radio programme last night which said that teenage boys are watching pornographic videos featuring slapping and strangling. Teenage girls are suffering because they are getting slapped and strangled. Yet most pornographic videos do not have slapping or strangling. So how is it that teenage boys will see it as normal?

It reminds me of a forum where people were saying that pornography is causing a rise in popularity in anal sex leading to pain and bleeding for girls. They cited some research which they thought would back their claim. Yet if you looked at the research, the recent rise is said to be due to 'TV shows including Sex and the City and Fleabag'.

So do we need to ban Sex and the City and Fleabag? As well as horror and action movies? They're not going to want that. Even though it might save teenage girls from sore bottoms and other places.

I am showing you a picture below of Asami in the film 'The Machine Girl' and another from the film 'Gun Woman'. There is another picture from Gun Woman that shows her naked and covered in blood and shooting. I'm not showing that one because I don't like it. I won't be watching any of her horror or action movies. I don't like them.

What really annoys me is that when I tried to find out about Asami on Microsoft Bing Copilot (AI) it wouldn't let me. I could find out about her co-star in The Machine Girl, Minase Yashiro. So it doesn't have a problem with extreme violence. That must be a bit confusing for any horror or action fans who aren't aware of her coach excursions.

I have got more than one blog, all with Google Blogger. Most of them are not controversial. When I try to look at these blogs I can see them no problem. When I try to look at my sex blog it will not let me and often say something stupid about security certificates or something.

It annoys me because if you are going to censor you should at least have the decency to say that you are censoring and not tell a lie. It isn't moral to tell lies. It isn't moral to stop people from seeing information that could help them make an informed choice about social and moral issues.

Asami

Mona Kimura

How about this girl? If you want to see her kicking people in the head you can, nobody will try and stop you. She is a Japanese kickboxer. Just make sure you Google her full name because you wouldn't want to get Tsuna Kimura up instead. No violence in her videos, what a disappointment.

review of The Wisdom of Whores

review of The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani

Elizabeth Pisani is an expert in AIDS and has advised governments. She has a lot of knowledge about prostitution in many countries.

The most interesting chapter for me was chapter 6. She was working in East Timor for the health ministry. She was on a flight to the capital Dili and she decided to talk to two Chinese women who she suspected were sex workers.

"I found out that a local businessman was offering girls three-month stints selling sex to the Chinese community in Dili. 'We were really lucky to get in,' said one girl. They got the nod from a friend who had done the run six months earlier. 'She bought a car when she got home.'"

She goes on to write that most women sell sex for the same reason they do other jobs, to make money. Sex work though can earn them sixteen times more. It varies from country to country. Slavery is 'relatively rare'.

"For many women, selling sex is a job with a fair degree of freedom and for some there's job satisfaction, too. Many clients want far more than just a quick orgasm. They want companionship, advice on how to cope with girl trouble, pampering to help them forget a lover's death or a business deal gone wrong. They want their confidence boosted or their scars healed, they want to learn new tricks in bed or they just want a massage or a cuddle. A skilful sex worker will read and fulfil her client's needs, and many will be well rewarded for doing so."

When she was talking to sex workers in China, even though she was talking to women from the Bai ethnic minority who are 'on the bottom rung of the prostitution ladder', she found that they turned away many clients because they didn't offer them enough money.

"The 'all sex workers are trafficked' ideologues may damn me for saying so, but these ethnic minority women, working at the bottom end of the sex trade in one of the poorer areas in China, did not seem to be driven by desperation.''

Conservative Christians in the United States find this impossible to accept. Brenda Zurita for example stated 'Prostitution and sexual trafficking are inextricably linked and abolition is the only answer to end the horrors of both.'

Brazil did well in its fight against AIDS, but they were refused funding by the US because they wouldn't sign the loyalty oath against prostitution.

"The loyalty oath is based on the belief, no, the absolute conviction, that anything that improves work conditions for prostitutes serves only to bind them to slavery. The High Priestess of this view is a US academic named Donna Hughes, who pontificates on the evil of commercial sex from every available pulpit. In an op-ed titled 'Aiding and Abetting the Slave Trade', she railed at a programme that taught Cambodian sex workers to negotiate condom use with their clients."

This programme helped reduce new HIV infections in Cambodia from 42,000 a year to 6,000 a year.

"'The Bush administration needs to ... shut down unethical "interventions" with women and girls in brothels. Those who lack the moral capacity to know that slaves need freedom should never get funding again,' preached Hughes."

Pisani goes on to write about the International Justice Mission. They are an Evangelical Christian NGO that raids brothels to free slaves (as they see it). The women who are 'rescued' end up deported or detained. They often try to escape. They don't want to make T-shirts for small change, which is the sort of alternative offered to them.

This book was published in 2008, and it seems that IJM has changed its methods since then.

In chapter 4 Pisani writes that some sex workers have 5 or 6 clients a night, but most have fewer than that. In Thailand, Cambodia and some Indian states they averaged 20 clients per week - although it is lower than that now. This is more than in East Timor (3 per week), the Philippines (2 per week) or China and Indonesia (5 or 6 in a good week).

There are people who will tell you that sex workers are raped 20 or 30 times a day. Some of these people are Christian Evangelicals, some of them are Radical Feminists. There are others who should know better but who have been told lies by the Christians and the Radical Feminists. I don't believe them, I believe the experts such as Elizabeth Pisani.

election results in central Bristol

It just goes to show how little the Nordic model is important to the British public. We've just had a general election and it wasn't an issue at all as far as I can see. Even though an active supporter of the Nordic model has been displaced by someone who (possibly) believes in decriminalization. So I'm not worried that the Nordic model might come to Britain as it has in Ireland.

Thangam Debbonaire is not only a supporter of the Nordic model she has called on Bristol City Council to stop issuing licences to strip clubs in the city. She was Labour MP for Bristol Central and has been replaced by Carla Denyer of the Green party. Carla Denyer opposed the strip club ban. I don't know what her views on the decriminalization of sex work. I do know that leading  members of the Green party believe in it eg Natalie Bennett, and Caroline Lucas too.

Thangam Debbonaire was vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group 'Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade'. They all believe in the Nordic model there.

Curiously, I have just been looking at some research in Inner-city Bristol. I read in one study that in the UK up to 46% of female sex workers report anxiety or depression. This study gives as reference another study, of sex workers in Inner-city Bristol. However, I can't find this 46% figure here, not about anxiety or depression. All I can find is 'When asked the reasons for going to a GP, the commonest reason was depression or anxiety, given by 34% (24/71)'. So the figure is 34%, not 46%. They were a small group (71) of drug-addicted street-based sex workers ('Those sex workers who work on the street, rather than in premises such as massage parlours, appear to be the most at risk.'). They are not representative of sex workers in Britain.

I can't understand how this mistake has happened. It might be because 46% had been screened for sexually transmitted infection in the previous year (somehow this number got used instead of the correct 34%). It might be because 46% is a figure used for the general population. "A Eurobarometer survey conducted in June 2023 revealed that almost 1 in 2 people (46% of the EU population) had experienced emotional or psychosocial problems, such as feeling depressed or anxious, in the previous 12 months."

So sex workers have less anxiety or depression as the general population? No, of course not. It just goes to show that there's a lot of misinformation out there.

That doesn't mean that the first of the two studies was rubbish. I shall quote the important conclusions below. It is saying that the Nordic model harms women.

"How effective are different international approaches at addressing any harms associated with buying and selling sex?

As mentioned above, studies highlighted that in Sweden and Canada, criminalisation of clients did not improve access to services nor reduce sex workers’ experiences of violence. Evidence included in our qualitative synthesis clearly shows that criminalisation of clients does not facilitate access to services, nor reduce violence against sex workers. This is supported by the epidemiological evidence from Vancouver that showed that the introduction of more severe laws against the purchase of sex alongside fewer sanctions for sex workers (modelled on the Swedish Law) did not result in reduced violence from clients.

Despite the fact the Swedish Law was motivated by a desire to end the demand for sex work, findings from our qualitative synthesis suggest that these enforcement strategies that seek to reduce the numbers of sex workers or clients are unlikely to achieve these effects, since the economic needs of sex workers remain unchanged, resulting in sex workers having to work longer hours, accept greater risks, and deprioritise health. There is no reliable evidence from Sweden that the numbers of sex workers have decreased since the law changed in 1999.

In New Zealand, following decriminalisation, sex workers reported being better able to refuse clients and insist on condom use, amid improved relationships with police and managers. However, migrants continue to be excluded from this system. Studies in Guatemala, Mexico, Turkey and Nevada, US showed how regulatory models exacerbate disparities within sex worker communities. They enabled access to safer conditions for some, but excluded the majority (including the most marginalised).  Under these models non-compliance with regulatory systems including working in tolerance zones, regulator venues and/or mandatory registration at a health care facility and mandatory HIV/STI testing results in criminalisation.  

In conclusion, the public health evidence supports decriminalisation, when coupled with inclusive policies to protect the safety and health of sex workers, including the funding and scale-up of specialist and sex-worker-led services that help address the multiple and diverse health and social care needs of people who sell sex."

I think I spoke too soon. Jess Phillips is now Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Home Office. She is a supporter of the Nordic model and has been a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group 'Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade'. Diana Johnson is another one to look out for.

This Guardian article makes so many mistakes it is difficult to know where to start. It is about prostitution and the murder of women. Curiously, there is a link at the side of this page to a page about murdered women. I say curiously, because none of them seem to have been murdered by a pimp or a punter. Fifty women killed by men this year so far and not one was a sex worker. As far as I can tell, I haven't bothered to read it through.

Soho is a hotbed of prostitution yet no sex worker has been murdered there since the 1940s. That's probably because each sex worker has a 'maid' which means they are never alone in a flat with a man. So if you really want to reduce murder of women then change the law so that women can work together.

I've just been looking at the Jess Phillips new book. I looked in the index for 'prostitution', 'sex work' and 'Nordic model' and it seems there is nothing in there about any of them.

Pink Lane

I had a little holiday in Newcastle upon Tyne and I hadn't planned to have any sexual adventures. I hadn't taken my viagra with me or my thin condoms. Looking on the Internet I could see that there was an alleyway called Pink Lane where there are three massage establishments. So of course I decided to wander along Pink Lane to have a look at what was going on.

I hadn't realised that there are two parts of Pink Lane on either side of a main road. The part that I found was short and had two Chinese massage establishments next to each other. They looked quite professional and I went into one of them. The woman was middle-aged to elderly. While I was having the massage on the massage table she asked if I wanted anything else.

The problem is she couldn't speak English. She used her smartphone to translate. It seemed that the only thing on offer was hand relief (also known as 'happy ending'). I didn't want that so I said I would have just massage.

Two days later I went next door to the other Chinese massage place. This time the woman wouldn't take no for an answer. Full sex wasn't available but I ended up paying £90. I can't remember what we did because I'm not sure if I'm confusing her with another woman I saw the next week in Pink Lane but it probably involved her taking her clothes off and me touching her.

Later that afternoon I decided to try to find out about another Chinese massage establishment. This is in Low Friar Street, another alleyway not far from Pink Lane. It seems to have two names. Shanghai Massage and Secret Massage Centre (I think the latter is the old name, no longer used but it can still show up on the Internet).

This might have been the same day I explored the other part of Pink Lane. It has a Thai massage establishment. The front of the place was unusual, made to look like a Thai building. It is called No 1 Thai Massage. I rang the bell and someone who looked like a ladyboy opened the door and told me they were fully booked till later.

Shanghai Massage was a very enjoyable experience. I saw a young woman who was very attractive. She is called Emily and she looks like Myleene Klass. I ended up spending £90 with her too. This time I really enjoyed it. We didn't have full sex but we had a lot of fun. At one time I asked her to lie down on the massage table and I had a look at her pussy. When I left I promised that I would see her again, which I fully intended to do.

The next week I wanted to go back. I wanted to see Emily again but even more I wanted to see another woman who I had glimpsed when I was there. She was beautiful, even more beautiful than Emily. I could have booked to see Emily but I thought I would take my chances. However, I had forgotten where it was. I went to Pink Lane.

I went into one place where there was the same woman I had seen before (Yoyo?). I didn't want to see her again so I went to the other place next door. A woman I hadn't seen before was there and I ended up handing over lots of money to her. No full sex but she took off all her clothes and let me touch her. I would have given her just the £30 for the massage alone but she wouldn't take no for an answer. She lifted up her top and moved  my hand to her breast. That's how it started. I won't tell you where my hand ended up or at least my fingers.

Then I remembered where Emily worked. I made my way to Low Friar Street. The other woman I had noticed was there and she gave me my massage. I glimpsed another pretty woman. Coco massaged me then offered to take her clothes off and let me touch her. She also suggested I have a two girl massage. She was very persuasive and so another woman came in and took her clothes off. It was Emily.

Emily didn't stay for long though. While she did I enjoyed being massaged by two very attractive naked women. They didn't just use their hands. After the massage I saw yet another attractive woman there. Coco explained that she had just come over from Shanghai. She seemed to be very helpful, she held the door open for me. So there are at least four attractive young women at Shanghai Massage.

I spent a lot more money than I had intended but I don't regret it.

Pink Lane is also known for a bakery and for rare and unusual coffee. According to some sources, Pink Lane used to be the Red Light District of Newcastle.