THE CHANGING FACE OF PROSTITUTION

Attitudes have moved on

The sex market has exploded in the last decade.
It has also become more diverse due to a number of internal and external factors. Gone are the days when the only choice a client had was seedy, unsatisfying and dirty. Years ago, the game was mainly for the desperate, the drug addicted and those who were forced into working (mainly on the streets). Today many more sauna / massage parlours, private flats, and agencies exist, where security can be in place and a more professional environment is on offer, but unfortunately this is still not always the case and will not be until legal reforms take place. Yet as working conditions have generally improved, so has the standard of women entering into it.

Who enters into prostitution has changed. The most beautiful intelligent professional women can now step easily into the top end of the market. So-called respectable women, who would never previously have considered it a viable ‘career choice’: are now lured by the lucrative fast cash it has to offer.
For many years, women in every day jobs have been paid much less than their male counterparts. When escort agencies started to boom in the eighties women such as nurses, teachers and clerical workers were offered the chance to dabble anonymously, part time - tax-free. An exercise that frequently netted them ten times per hour than their average income. For it is sad to say that I have known many class whores earn more in one night than a nurse earns in a month. A very tempting cherry in a society which works to pay off credit cards and even more recently, university tuition fees and related debt. Even ‘bored housewives’ who had no formal qualifications but plenty of life experience, were now drawn to it. It provided the sort of income they had only previously dreamed of earning, without the need for several years of university or retraining. Some of the women from professional backgrounds held on to their ‘day jobs’ mostly to retain the double life they had created. Why was such secrecy necessary? Because people’s attitudes to prostitutes; are still one of the most damaging issues surrounding the game.

When the mobile phone became more accessible in the late 80’s; even more women found that they could get involved part-time and anonymously. For the first time they could be in control of who they saw and what they charged. Thousands of escort and visiting massage agencies also emerged.

The films and the media have enforced stereotypes for years. I’ve spoken to and met the Leeds born writer Kay Mellor, writer of the phenomenal series Band of Gold. In which Kay shows a graphic, realistic portrayal of Bradford’s red-light area; complete with drugs, violence and pimps. Unfortunately such programs can also have a negative effect on more ignorant people who think all levels of the industry are like this. More recently a number of cutting edge, fly on the wall documentaries have emerged showing quite another side. In the producers desire to net viewing figures (sex sells, blah) and break with taboos they have finally succeeded in attracting viewers to a fascinating other world where all is not what they imagined.

Advertising sex services has also changed. Thank god for ‘The Sport’!
At last a paper that doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not! It was the first national to openly advertise the industry and continues to have a reasonable policy on wording. Most regional newspapers, dress up such columns as to hide their true nature.
Because they reach a family audience, I understand that appropriate wording has to be taken into consideration; but policy-making executives make advertising much more difficult, hypocritical and expensive insisting on making the ads look like health services - which can be confusing for the reader. Yet the same executives know the ads are harmless and are also aware of the revenue the columns make.

Some papers refuse the ads altogether, no matter how discreet.
When BT banned postcard ads in their phone booths (a practice most prevalent in London), I thought the London Evening Standard might allow carefully worded ads but sadly it never happened.

Should advertising stop altogether, the number of hookers soliciting would increase.
Banning advertising does not stop prostitution it pushes it further underground.

The Internet has also played its part in the expansion of services.
As with most businesses, it has connected many clients with more unusual or specific requests that might have previously been difficult to locate. Unfortunately it is also a major contributor to the increase of child pornography and prostitution. Under age girls is not a new problem - but it is an increasing one. I feel most strongly about this issue and if there were any (genuine) filmmakers who wish to make an investigative documentary about the evils of it, e-mail me, I’d gladly be your presenter!

Immigrants are fast becoming the new hot topic in the industry. I first noticed a wave of Thai ladies, for whatever reason mainly in Northampton. They were here legally and were either married or sponsored* by British men.

Thai ladies are very popular yet curiously the ones I mention were charging cheap inclusive rates. Someone must have been a catalyst to bring so many together in the area, for had it have been London I would have hardly noticed.

I’ve met few oriental ladies but the ones I did were hard working women who worked day and night, sending a lot of money back home to much poorer relatives but in some cases they also had a sponsor to pay back. (*Thai government insist ladies pay a lump fee to obtain the required paperwork, or marriage to a foreigner).

Then the influx turned to eastern European women. A lot of these women some of who come over for asylum. Many were brought over by organised gangs and mostly to London, which has the largest group of foreign women on the game. But as London became more and more saturated the ladies started to move up north. As individuals, these women are mostly vulnerable, needy and scared but they are also carrying much heavy baggage. I knew better than to mess with customs and excise or immigration; they’re definitely to be respected if you want to survive in the industry and they have more powers than the police.

If anyone has a pimp an illegal girl will. I have a big problem with pimps. My sister-in-law once asked me, if I considered myself one. At first I was shocked but then I realised that as a parlour owner it’s probably a common public misconception. To me a pimp is someone who extracts money from prostitutes using menaces or by manipulation. Women who have pimps are exploited and mistreated. They sleep with one man to give most (or all) of their money to another.

I provided a safe and secure environment, for women who had made an informed decision to enter the industry. I actively encouraged ladies to make their time in the industry as short as possible, with the emphasis on saving - so that the time was not in vain.

Inevitably when any business market saturates and demand does not match the supply competition is usually a healthy by-product yet not so it seems in the sex industry. Manchester is now one of the leading sex capitals of the north. It has so many parlours that to compete many set cheap prices and insist the ladies ‘specialise’. Some women chose to specialise in milder forms of harmless domination. But some of the less scrupulous places (mostly run by men for men with women workers) insist ladies specialise in condom free practices and even anal sex. It’s a practice that’s unfortunately on the increase and seems to be spreading to other areas – just another reason why brothels should be decriminalised and monitored.

Only a thoughtless, selfish man would want to encourage these dangerous practices. Are clients really stupid enough to put the extra pleasure before safety?
Obviously so! - These places are booming and they’re also a hot bed for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and other unseen nasties!
This is outrageous - women should refuse to accept these conditions!

In this country, it is time that we took a more sensible approach to the sex industry. It may never be completely morally acceptable, but whilst it is tolerated by most, the hypocrisy or ignorance of others ensures it remains underground and unaccountable.
I believe that decriminalisation and monitoring of brothels will not clean up the streets, but it would clean-up most problem areas.

Street prostitution is NOT going to go away.
(Brothel owners don’t want the street girls working for them and the street girls enjoy the ‘flexi hours’ of the streets).
Therefore the only safe way to deal with this, is to move the red-light areas to specified industrial areas where it will be tolerated and come down very hard on kerb-crawlers and girls who continue in residential areas.

Child prostitution is an evil menace. Those who provide young girls or boys for sexual acts should be put away for life, for they surely take it away.