Nice and sleazy does it (original) (raw)

Kimberly Kay Hamilton looks impossibly beautiful in her internet ad: like many of her peers, she sports lengthy stilettos and a glossy mane of hair. Everything about Kimberly is discreet; there are no naked breasts, no itinerary of sexual services, no euphemistic reference to massage and absolutely no mention of the word prostitute. Instead she tells us she is "a well dressed and intelligent lady with natural conversational skills". For £250 an hour, she offers a tête-à-tête at her home, evenings out or cosy-sounding visits to a local pizza parlour.

Welcome to the world of the escort agency. Of course, not every agency offers sex but, after investigation, it appears that the majority employ at least some women who do. And if the government's official regulator, the Independent Television Commission (ITC), gets its way, ads for these services could for the first time make the leap from the internet, downmarket tabloids and contact magazines, into our living rooms. This is a world in which women are always ladies or girls, in which Oxbridge degrees are boasted of alongside the command of languages, a horsey hobby and, most importantly, a high-class pedigree.

Like so much else relating to the British attitude to sex, this latest proposal from the ITC is mired in hypocrisy. To sell sex is legal, to buy sex is legal, but to solicit or run an escort agency where women offer sex rather than platonic companionship is illegal. As usual, cash is the bottom line. The ITC has realised that there is a lot of money sloshing around in the higher echelons of prostitution and sees no reason not to tap into that, arguing: "It is not clear what is specific to such businesses, or what mischief there is to be prevented that would justify banning these companies from advertising on television." As long as escort agencies advertise in U certificate code and keep the sex furtive and discreet, everyone is happy.

But while detente is wafting through the higher end of the market, where ads are always a tasteful fudge, war is being waged on the women who advertise sex for sale rather more bluntly at the cheaper end of the market. Westminster Council, BT and the government tut in unison at the sleazy cards Soho sex workers place in central London telephone boxes and have pledged to purge this eyesore once and for all - a move likely to drive this group of women into further financial hardship and more dangerous working practices.

The inconsistencies of the argument are not lost on Hilary Kinnell of Europap (European Project for Aids Prevention in Prostitution). "Any change that increases sex workers' control over their situation and reduces stigma is welcome," she says. "But this proposal suggests discrimination in favour of those at the top end of the industry, while street and brothel workers suffer controls that increase their vulnerability to violence and exploitation."

According to criminal lawyer John Blandford, the anomalies surrounding the legal and illegal sale of sex are down to the mixing up of the law and morals. "We need to unmix them. As it stands, the law is a hypocritical farce."

The women who sell escort sex pride themselves on their moral and financial superiority over the street sex workers, while the men who buy into this high-class hooker fantasy place themselves above furtive old men in mucky macks. An hour with an escort costs around four times as much as straight sex with a street worker and the price fuels male fantasies about buying a "nice girl". This is designer label rather than supermarket shopping.

Former escort agency boss Lesley Fernando divides the business into clean sex and dirty sex. "At least 90% of the girls on the streets are being fed crack and heroin by pimps. It's not like that with escort girls - they might put a bit of charlie up their noses but they're not drug addicts.

"Escort agency girls know how to conduct themselves and you are not ashamed to walk down the street with them. The girls who worked for my agency were often nurses or air hostesses or were in the middle of doing a degree. Or they might have been going through a divorce and needed a bit of extra cash. For the top few, it's possible to make a fortune. I know of two girls who live in £500,000 houses provided for them by rich clients, but most earn a few hundred pounds a week, at rates of £150-£250 an hour, of which their agency takes a cut of about one third."

One major difference between escort and street work is the absence of men in charge at the upper end. "It's a girl power thing," Fernando says. "Most agencies are run by women and both the escorts and the men feel more comfortable knowing that. When I started an agency, I saw it as just another business venture. I don't like those dirty pimps who control the girls who work the streets and when someone pointed out that I was pimping, too, I decided to get out."

Melanie Rose, who works for Annabelle's escort agency in Brighton, agrees that it is the women who call the shots in her line of work. And she is quick to shrug off the qualms of the moral majority. "A lot of men don't want to fall in love with a woman, they want uncomplicated sex, so what's wrong with putting things on a business footing? If people knew what really went on, they wouldn't be so judgmental. I get taken on lovely holidays and charge the men £250 a day for the privilege, get thousands of pounds given to me to buy clothes and have lovely evenings out. My clients don't want 20 minutes of sex for £60. They want a nice, elegant, well-spoken girl to go out with."

Many clients view her as a friend and sometimes call just for a chat. "I've got all their details on computer, so that if one rings, I can call up his name and ask the right questions about how his dog is and how his son is getting on at university.

"To the man, it's like a blind date with the sexual uncertainty taken out. If a man spends an evening clubbing and chatting up a girl, he doesn't know what he'll get at the end of it. This way he knows the sex is guaranteed and if he's married, he doesn't need to open that can of worms. When Jack Nicholson was asked why he paid for Heidi Fleiss' girls, he said he paid them to go away. That's what it's all about."

She gets angry at tabloid exposés about nice middle-class girls whose self-esteem plummeted after they entered the world of vice. "I used to be a legal secretary and when I started escort work, my self-esteem went through the roof. It made me feel like the next best thing to Claudia Schiffer, to be paid all this money by men who wanted to spend time with me.

"Everything I do is very safe. Clients are checked out and we call the agency when we arrive and when we leave so they know we are OK. And the only thing we do without a condom is say hello. Of course, no woman wants to have sex with a man she doesn't know but the condom is always there between him and me, and I just switch off and think about what I'm going to be doing later. That condom could be attached to a chest of drawers for all the difference it makes to me."

If the opening up of escort agency advertising goes ahead, it will undoubtedly boost revenues for some of the key players and continue to raise the hackles of conservative lobbying groups. But while escort workers are keen to attract the punters, not all are happy about the move. "There's already too much competition and TV ads will just make things worse," Rose says. "The whole allure of escort agencies is that men enjoy the thrill of them being secret and hidden. TV ads will take that mystique away from us."