Whilst in Britain we argue over the pros and cons of the sex industry – personally I can’t find any pros – Iceland has passed legislation to ban stripping and lapdancing – it’s time we followed suit.

Brooke Magnanti, her book and Billie Piper who plays Magnanti the TV Series

Reading the blog rmott62 I couldn’t help wondering why the Belle de Jour blog by former prostitute Dr Brooke Magnanti became so popular. The answers obvious it’s a glossy, titillating tale of the happy hooker and its fiction whatever the protestations of Brooke Magnanti, whereas rmott62 is an all together more uncomfortable and illuminating read. Personally I wish for a world where we don’t have prostitutes and certainly not the stylised glorification that is Belle de Jour. I know some hope

A man and a woman have been jailed after threatening an undercover policeman at a so-called clip joint in Soho, central London. Had he been a genuine customer, he would have been another victim of what is a well-established scam.

…

The scam involves customers, often foreign tourists, being enticed inside hostess bars with false promises of “adult entertainment”, Westminster Council explained.

The bars, known as clip joints, employ women to stand outside or near their premises and bring the customers in for a small charge, in much the same way as other licensed bars and clubs employ staff to hand out leaflets promoting their offers.

Once inside the clip joints, customers are served soft drinks, usually by a pretty young woman.

But when the customer goes to leave, they will usually find themselves faced with a charge of several hundred pounds for having been in the woman’s company.

If they refuse to pay, the customer may be threatened with violence by bouncers or frog-marched to a cash machine and forced to hand over cash.

The authorities believe it is a greatly under-reported crime as many victims are too embarrassed to admit they have been caught out. Sarah Bell, BBC.

I can’t help thinking they got what they deserve, inside they expected to find abused women to satisfy their needs instead they found a woman who abused them to satisfy her need – I can’t feel a lot of sympathy – but no I don’t condone their behaviour.

Alan Turing

Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology last night on behalf of the government to Alan Turing, the Second World War codebreaker who took his own life 55 years ago after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay.

Describing Turing’s treatment as “horrifying” and “utterly unfair”, Brown said the country owed the brilliant mathematician a huge debt. He was proud, he said, to offer an official apology. “We’re sorry, you deserved so much better,” Brown writes in a statement posted on the No 10 website.

Turing is most famous for his work in helping create the “bombe” that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man.

He was given experimental chemical castration as a “treatment”. His criminal record meant he was unable to continue his work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) because his security privileges were withdrawn. Two years later he killed himself, aged 41. Caroline Davies, The Guardian.

I’m not a fan of retrospective apologies by the Prime Minister – however if he is to issue them then in this case he shouldn’t limit himself to Turing but all convicted under the misapprehension that being homosexual was a mental illness. What on earth is chemical castration? No wonder Turing committed suicide,

Clip of The Sun's Pornification article

A Sun headline reads Pornification of our kids – which is like the kettle calling the kettle black. As you can see in the clip of the The Sun website above the article uses an accompanying picture of a women in black underwear with the description “Disturbing … internet images” – nothing compared to page 3 of the paper. However, apart from the papers typical sensationalism there’s an important point – perhaps as a first step The Sun could put its own house in order by removing page 3 stop chasing women celebrities in the hope they’ll flash a part of their anatomy and the like.

I don’t know the facts regarding Alfie who became a father at just 13 years of age but then neither does Daily Mail pundit Melanie Philips who blames the madness of sex education, there’s madness here but it isn’t sex education it’s the lack of sex education and not just children but adults too – education doesn’t hurt it’s the lack of education which does. Why do people read such tawdry rubbish; come to that why on earth do they buy it?

Hat Tip: Hagley Road to Ladywood.

1,044 UK adults aged 16+ were interviewed by ICM Research in September 2008 for The Observer. In answer to the question “Do you think that gay sex should be made illegal?” 24% responded “YES” – words fail me – let’s hope that those 1,044 adults are a homophobic lot and aren’t representative of the rest of Britain.

Hat Tip: Liberal Conspiracy.

I know you shouldn’t laugh, but

In The Times, a reader writes to the Sex Advice column.

I spank my wife for her pleasure, not mine. But I got excited when she was spanked by a friend as a joke. Should I ask if we can involve someone else?

Suzi Godson speaks for us all in her reply.

I am trying to think of the last time I was spanked by a friend in front of my husband as a joke. Hmm. Nope. Not a sausage. It’s just not the kind of thing that crops up in the circles I move in. When my husband and I get together with friends we have drinks, dinner, even a bit of middle-aged dancing if we’re at a “do”, but no public spanking, jokey or otherwise. I don’t wish to cast aspersions on your wife’s good character but, between you and me, to lie across a person’s lap and have them rhythmically beat your posterior is an act of such great intimacy that I wonder whether you have considered the possibility that the incident might not have been a joke at all?