Adult World News

The City of London Corporation is proposing to ban all venues from staging lap dancing from September, claiming that it has a damaging impact on women.

Charlie's Bar near Tower Hill, the only remaining club in the City to offer lap dancing, is expected to be affected.

Under new legislation, such venues can be forced by councils to apply for a licence to continue operating. Charlie's Bar, which is thought to offer lap dancing for two hours once a week, would almost certainly be refused a licence if the Corporation's ban is confirmed by its policy resource committee.

Edward Lord, chairman of the licensing committee which recommended the ban, said there was a widely held view that this kind of normally male-only social activity serves to exclude women who work in financial services firms, or worse still makes them feel harassed and under-valued .

City workers said those who visited such venues would simply go to neighbouring areas, such as Westminster, where there is no ban.

Alex Smith from Southend, said: The new rules are a good thing but a lot of men won't think so : My niece is a dancer, she is treated well and they do get choices of what they do, but I don't agree with it.

Security and Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten has scrapped plans to introduce a hustler ID for prostitutes.

The ID was to be introduced to supposedly combat illegal practices, such as underage prostitution, people trafficking and forced prostitution.

The idea received severe criticism from both the prostitution sector and parliament. Prostitutes feared the ID would force many of them underground or that their data could be misused.

MPs rejected the proposals because they say registering prostitutes would only drive them into the illegal circuit.

A group of well-known Irish men have put their names to a campaign urging the introduction of radical laws that would make it illegal for a man to buy sex but not for a woman to sell it.

The men, including singer Christy Moore, are fronting the new Turn Off The Red Light campaign which has been organised by Ruhama, the Dublin-based anti-prostitution group..

The men who spoke at the launch included David Begg, Irish Congress of Trade Unions; John Cunningham, Immigrant Council of Ireland; Eamon Devoy, Technical Engineering and Electrical Union; Theo Dorgan, poet; Fergus Finlay, Barnardos and writer/director Peter Sheridan.

Labour's 'justice' spokesman Pat Rabbitte said Labour in government would enact the legislation the Ruhama campaign is seeking.

Only two people in the past two years have been arrested in Wales for trawling the streets for prostitutes, a Wales on Sunday investigation has revealed.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act from each police force in Wales revealed two arrests, one in Newport and one in Cardiff.

But a low level of street prostitution somehow doesn't seem to keep the nutter campaigners happy. They claim the figures show a lack of police effort.

The Mean minded South Wales West AM, Bethan Jenkins, said the figures were very worrying :

My concern is that the police are legitimising prostitution by not targeting the men that use prostitutes.

There are areas of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport where citizens know what is happening with on-street prostitution and where the brothels are. These places could have been targeted, but the arrests are not happening there either. We know the police forces are having their resources cut, but it doesn't send a good signal if you aren't treating it as a crime.

But Sarah Walker from the support network English Prostitutes' Collective welcomed the figures, saying that targeting kerb crawlers actually made women less safe, and called for the wholesale decriminalisation of prostitution. She said:

We cannot tell from the figures whether there are fewer arrests because there are fewer clients or because prostitute women have been forced into more isolated and dangerous areas.

The lessons from [murders of prostitutes in] Bradford and Ipswich are that sex workers, 70% of whom are mothers, need help with housing, debt, poverty and drug use to get off the street.

Police crackdowns targeting kerb crawlers just make women less safe. If the prostitution laws were repealed -- like they've done in New Zealand -- it would allow women to work in groups or from premises, which is much safer.

The police forces insisted the latest figures showed the problem was not widespread.

A spokeswoman for Dyfed- Powys Police said that overt street prostitution does not occur and there was no intelligence to suggest it might be, while Gwent Police said it had not identified issues with kerb crawling.

Detective chief inspector Jane MacKay of South Wales Police's Public Protection Team said: We act on any information which suggests that kerb crawling offences are being committed and use this to tackle the whole issue of prostitution and its related problems, not just what is commonly called kerb crawling.

Sex traffickers and their victims are to be targeted by airline crew in a campaign to stop the vice trade hijacking this weekend's Super Bowl final in Dallas.

With more than 200,000 visitors expected to arrive for Sunday night's American Football championship game  in neighbouring Arlington, Texan officials fear that 'thousands' of sex workers, many of them under-age girls, will be working the streets.

The Airlines Ambassadors International charity organised a training day for dozens of flight attendants, pilots, boarding staff and other airline workers in conjunction with a Dallas anti-trafficking group. Among the red flags airline workers have been taught to spot include children appearing distant from travelling companions purporting to be their parents, boarding aircraft carrying few personal items, appearing paranoid, undernourished or ill-treated or unwilling to make eye contact.

The figure of 'thousands' seems to have derived from a jokey adult bar owner. John Walsh, who owns an adult bar inear Dallas, announced last week that the area needed an additional 10,000 strippers to meet demand.

The figure was denounced by a rival as bull . But the authorities are always keen on a bit PC inflated trafficking propaganda. The FBI and other law enforcement authorities in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and surrounding cities claim to 'believe' that the threat from the sex trade warranted the creation of a task force to counter prostitution, especially involving children.

No doubt all Texas will actually see, is bumper trade at the well regulated local strip bars featuring nothing but consenting adults.

The newspaper Nikkan Gendai reported on police raids of 2 massage shops. Upon investigation, the authorities learned that the two shops, named Silk and Ogi Hompo, were servicing over 100 customers a day. What amazed them was the revenues raked in by the low-priced high-volume businesses, where customers from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. paid 4,000 yen (£30, 1500 Thai Baht) for 30 minutes of ministrations. After 5:00 p.m. the price rose to 5,000 yen (£38, 1900 Baht). These bargain rates notwithstanding, the two shops averaged combined earnings of 35 million yen (£266,000) a month.

sex industry journalist Yukio Murakami tells Nikkan Gendai:

The women working there ranged from ages 21 to 51. Very few of them could be called pretty, but in a way that's a good thing. The proprietor used to point out that they 'got along well with middle-aged or older men.' He'd deck them out in Japanese kimono and their image as cheerful amateurs endeared them to the customers.

Anyway, it seems that the shops got a lot of regular patronage from retirees who received a steady income from their pensions. The main service was a hand job, but some girls who were reviewed by customer posts on the shops' web sites were willing to let customers ejaculate in their mouths during oral sex. Most of all, the places did well because the women worked hard to please the customers.

With the prolonged recession, the cut-rate shops are ever pushing the envelope — downward — as prices for sex continue to decline. Some soaplands (erotic bath houses) where the going rate for honban (intercourse) used to be 30,000 yen (£230,  11,300 Baht) or higher are now said to offer it for a third of that rate.

Some pink salons in Tokyo now bill customers 100 yen per minute, or 1,980 yen (£15, 750 Baht) for 20 minutes. And some shops will throw in a second hostess for the same low price. And you can get laid in a cheap Chinese esute (aesthetic salon) for 7,500 yen (£57, 2800 Baht).

Delivery health (outcall sex) services managed to hold the line at 12,000 (£91) yen until two or three years ago. But now some have dropped their prices to as low as 7,000 yen (£53, 2600 Baht). And the girls who once expected an additional tip of 10,000 yen (£76, 3800 Baht) to go all the way are now happy to give over their bodies for just 1,000 yen (£8, 380 Baht).

Police will soon be able to crack down on sexy fun at so called host bars, where male staff fulfill the desires of female customers .

Representative Yoon Sang-il of the  Future No Hope Alliance said that he is seeking a revision of the Food Hygiene Law, which currently defines those engaged in such entertainment as women who drink with customers or who entertain customers with singing or dancing.

The lawmaker seeks to change the word women to people to include men, establishing the legal grounds to harass bars that offer male prostitution or 'other illegalities', presumably referring to lady boy bars.

The current law only governs females, and the loophole in the law leads to the proliferation of bars with men offering illegal services, Yoon said.

The Ministry of Miserable Gender Equality and women's groups welcomed the move but the health ministry is showing a more cautious approach, saying social consensus is needed on the issue.

According to a recent report by the Seoul Shinmun, about 100 host bars are currently operating in Gangnam, attracting some 10,000 customers a day, many of which are engaged in male prostitution. The total sales in the area are estimated at 30 billion won ($26.9 million) per year, and the figure may be much higher if the illegal sex trade is included. Some 3,000 men work there serving female customers.

Swedish sex buyers too often get away with fines, according to the despicably mean Justice Minister Beatrice Ask, who has now proposed toughening penalties for those who are convicted to up to a year in prison.

The maximum penalty for buying sexual services will increase on July 1st if the government has its nasty way. The government has now proposed making it possible for the courts to impose sentences of up to one year in prison.

Ask spewed at a press briefing:

After reviewing the first year of the law against buying sex, we found that almost all the sanctions, in 85% of cases, resulted in each offender having been fined 50 days' pay.

Only a few cases have taken into account aggravating circumstances before the sanction is imposed. This is a concern because in many cases, there are reasons to look more seriously into the crime of buying sex.

In many cases, there could be a penalty value for fines that can be higher than the maximum penalty for the crime of buying sex.

Like if buying sex had similarities with sex crimes like sexual assault and when there is an element of degradation in buying sex. The penalty scale is not sufficient and there is a need for a more nuanced assessment of the penalty value.

An Australian nutter group has called for the banning of school uniform costumes from adult shops.

Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party says that the nutters are misguided and that this is a further indication that Australia was turning into the nanny state.

Kids Free 2B Kids founder, Julie Gale, has called for the ban after a Melbourne adult shop featured a window display with a back to school theme, including adult sized school uniforms and a blackboard.

Ms Gale stated that the sale of school uniforms through adult shops legitimised child pornography .

Ms Patten said that this assertion was not only outrageous but detracted from the real issue of child sexual abuse by equating adult's dress ups with the real and actual abuse of children.

Ms Patten added that the school uniform display had absolutely nothing to do with children and was aimed at adult women who enjoyed dressing up and playing with fantasy roles:

These costumes are worn to a variety of events like school reunions and office parties where there is no sexual connotation at all. But even when they are being worn by women who enjoy dressing up sexually for their partners, Ms Gale has no right to try and tell women how they should behave in the bedroom. This is the same as telling Muslim women they shouldn't be wearing burquas, nuns that they shouldn't be wearing habits or young women out for the night that they shouldn't be wearing provocative clothing. Women should be free to wear whatever they want to.

According to industry sources the three biggest sellers in adult fantasy costumes were French maid, nurse and schoolgirl and that over the last few years sales in fantasy costumes have increased by 70%.

Legislative Assembly Member Christian Porter is confident the drafted prostitution reforms will be able to completely eradicate prostitution in Western Australia suburbs.

The reforms, which Porter expects to go back before Parliament in the first half of the year, would see brothels banned from all residential areas and be only allowed to operate within industrial zones.

Under the reform, police would be given more power to shut down brothels operating illegally within suburban areas.

Porter said he was hopeful the reform would reduce the amount of customers to brothels:

One part of the legislation is that, where there is an unlawful brothel, we would target not only the prostitutes who are unlawfully operating and the owners who are unlawfully operating, but we would also target customers with criminal penalty infringement notices for first offences and then prosecutions after that, so we're targeting all of them.

However, Porter said regardless of what measures were taken, prostitution could not be eradicated completely, which was why reforms such as this were needed to be put into place.

Brothels in WA have always existed and are likely to always exist despite our best efforts and the fact is that at the moment, prostitution is in effect illegal, but we still have brothels.

What we have to do is corral them into areas where they cause the least amount of damage and destruction to average, law-abiding West Australians. We're going to mean business in the suburbs.

BeritaBali.com reports that Bali governor Made Mangku Pastika has called on regional leaders to bring into line the numerous illegal Cafes (kafes), oftentimes operating as fronts for prostitution, now operating across the island. Moreover, the governor is asking Bali regents to close those kafes not holding operating licenses.

Governor Pastika urged the regents or bupatis not to be reluctant to close or even demolish kafe operations that are found to be lack operating permits.

The governor is also offering assistance in shutting down the illegal nightspots if the island's regents encounter resistance in any form from kafe owners. We're ready to back them up; we will help if there are difficulties; whatever the problem, we'll help. The public have reacted. The (negative) impact of the kafes is being felt, claimed Pastika.

Adamant that the kafes must be closed, Pastika said that any requests for compensation from the illegal businesses should be simply ignored.

Fake teen on trial over lies to newspaper

The Romanian prostitute now 28 who claimed to be 14 so she could feature in a four-page investigation in the Daily Mail into under-age prostitution has gone on trial after a three-year investigation.

The special report by Chris Rogers also ran on ITV's News at 10 and on CNN in 2008, as well as in the Daily Mail.

It detailed how the journalists had managed to buy a 14-year-old from sex slave traders at a petrol station in Iasi, a town in north eastern Romania.

But Romanian officials incensed at the claims that the country had a flourishing trade in under age prostitutes investigated, and discovered that the alleged teenager was in fact Monica Ghinga, then 25, who had been working as a prostitute since 2006.

The indictment charging her with prostitution used the clips from the report to prove that she worked on the streets charging clients sums from 12 to 25 euros.

Iasi police spokesman Madalin Soranu said: We opened the investigation because we wanted to see if it was really human trafficking. She has been charged with prostitution as a result of this case.

The question of whether Luxembourg will legalise brothels has been raised in parliament.

Members of the Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities Committee were meeting to discuss their 2011 strategy.

They were undecided on whether to welcome brothels in the Grand Duchy.

CSV Minister for Equal Opportunities Marie-Josee Jacobs said that they will analyze what is done abroad.

A chief superintendent at West Yorkshire Police has called for a DNA database of men who use prostitutes.

Ch Supt Alison Rose, who works in Bradford South, said if DNA was taken men might think again about committing crimes against women.

Rose claimed: I think there's a real gap in the law around taking DNA from men that use women for sex. If you know that in paying a woman for sex, your DNA was going to be taken you might think again.

But Guy Herbert, from the No2ID campaign, said: This is a diversion of police resources from doing something sensible about the real problem.

Update: Limited to those charged with kerb crawling

10th January 2011. See  article from  theregister.co.uk by Jane Fae Ozimek

West Yorkshire subsequently clarified Rose's position. A spokesman told the Register: She is referring to taking the DNA of those who are charged with kerb crawling offences. If they are subsequently found not guilty, they would obviously be removed from any database. This is a call for a change in the current legislation.

In further clarification, West Yorkshire explained that Rose would also like to see the release of images of men convicted of kerb crawling.

With prostitution legal in Germany since 2002, the country's sex trade is moving towards greater specialisation, with niches including companionship for the elderly and disabled.

There are some 150,000 registered prostitutes in Germany, with another 250,000 estimated to work off the books, according to daily Der Tagesspiegel.

Stephanie Klee, spokeswoman for the Bundesverband Sexuelle Dienstleistungen (BSD) sex worker advocacy group said she is cautiously optimistic about the future of the trade. Sex work is slowly becoming more similar to other professions . Red light district jobs are becoming as specialised as those in other fields, she said.

While some prostitution has become concentrated in large high-end wellness brothels such as Berlin's Charlottenburg district Artemis, other establishments are focusing on the controversial practice of flat-rate prices.

Still other prostitutes, such as Klee herself, focus on providing sex for seniors in retirement homes or for the disabled – an area the BSD spokeswoman said she expects to grow swiftly as Germany's population ages.

One director of a Berlin retirement home told the paper she would like to create a room for intimate encounters, but is still in discussions with the religious organisation behind the operation.

Even large brothels such as Artemis have recognised this potential. It's important for us to show that Artemis is outfitted for the disabled, the company said, touting wheelchair friendly changing rooms and showers, in addition to helpful personnel.

And while such companionship isn't covered by public health insurers, the terminology, Sexualassistenz, or sexual assistance, is already well-known in bureaucratic insurance German, the paper said.

A top Russian porn producer is suing the Culture Ministry for approving the content of his adult films but then banning them for their racy titles.

The producer, Sergei Pryanishnikov, has asked the Moscow Arbitration Court to lift the ban on the 146 movies.

A Culture Ministry group of experts approved distribution licenses for the films last year, but the ministry overturned the decision in December, citing vulgar titles as the reason.

The ministry said in December that it had acted on orders from the Prosecutor General's Office, which said the titles breached decency and contained vulgar language. The titles include Anal Supremacy and Brave Female Masturbators.

Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev has praised the orders, saying prosecutors' involvement helps the ministry to deal with a sad situation where officials have no legal grounds to ban adult content.

Russian legislation provides no definition of pornography, which means that the government has no legal grounds to act against porn producers, a ministry official said.

Former Swedish national football team goalkeeper Magnus Hedman was found guilty of of paying for sex in a Swedish 'court' on Monday.

Hedman admitted to police that he had sex with a young Romanian girl in a friend's apartment in February 2010.

However, he claimed he had no idea the woman was a prostitute, an argument which the Stockholm District Court accepted when it acquitted Hedman in September.

But prosecutors appealed the ruling, and the Svea 'Court' of Appeal overturned the acquittal, finding Hedman guilty of violating Sweden's laws prohibiting the purchase of sexual services and fining him 2,500 kronor ($360).

While the 'court' accepted that no proof could be presented that Hedman had paid directly to have sex with the woman, it argued that he should have realised the women who came to the apartment were prostitutes or paid escorts on account of their clothing and make-up and the fact that they spoke English with a thick accent.

By having sex with one of them, the man took a conscious risk and he should therefore be convicted of purchasing sexual services, the appeals 'court' wrote in its ruling.

A well heeled Stockholm businessman has been fined for buying sex from a known porn star in what he calls a legal scandal. 

As part of the plea deal, the man was fined 30,000 kronor ($4,500) for violating Swedish laws criminalising the purchasing of sex.

The man was arrested in connection with an investigation into an escort service operated by the porn film actress who has starred in more than 50 pornographic films.

According to the newspaper, the porn star told police the businessman paid her 3,500 kronor for sex and that he had purchased sex from her on two previous occasions.

But the businessman isn't taking the ruling lying down, claiming calling the case a damn legal scandal and penning a letter to police in which he praises the women who work for escort services as heroes who provide depressed people with much-needed personal contact.

Sex workers in Amsterdam will be receiving calls from an unwelcome visitor this year—the taxman.

From 2011, the women will have to start paying taxes, bringing to an end to the girls' traditional tax-free status, the daily Het Parool reported.

More than 3,000 sex workers are affected by the move, most of them working in brothels or from windows in the city's red light district.

Tax inspectors will be asking the women how many clients they have a day and what their average earnings are.

From this year on, they will be treated like any other business and expected to pay taxes, the newspaper quoted a finance ministry spokesman as saying.

The Irish government is considering mean minded new criminal legislation that would shift the Garda's approach to prostitution by making it illegal for a man to buy sex but not for a woman to sell it.

The legislation would put the Garda's emphasis on persecuting clients rather than targeting prostitutes.

Minister for Injustice Dermot Ahern has asked Attorney General Paul Gallagher to examine a report on similar laws introduced in Sweden that target male clients and have halved street prostitution over 10 years.

The Swedish legislation bans the purchase of sex by men but not the sale of sex by women, thus putting male clients at the centre of criminality around prostitution.

At present the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 makes it a criminal offence to solicit on the street or any other public place for the purposes of prostitution. A woman working as a prostitute can be prosecuted, as can a man trying to buy sex or a third party such as a pimp. However, it is not a criminal offence to buy or sell sex in the Republic.

A huge portion of the Republic's prostitution trade is conducted behind closed doors in apartments run as brothels that are advertised online as escort services.

Nutters of the Immigrant Council of Ireland has welcomed reports that the Government is considering a radical overhaul of the laws on prostitution.