Punter Net prostitutes thank Harriet Harman for publicity boost
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Independent Minds
Prostitutes who use a website to advertise their services to punters have thanked Harriet Harman for giving them a free publicity boost when she called for the site’s closure earlier this week.
During her speech to the Labour Party Conference on Wednesday the equalities minister challenged California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut down Punter Net, a US-based website that allows British prostitutes to advertise themselves and the men who use them to rate their experiences.
Her calls received thunderous applause from inside the conference hall but some organisations that represent sex workers, such as the English Collective of Prostitutes, have argued that any attempt to ban such sites would simply push the sex industry further underground and make the buying and selling of sex more dangerous.
Now a number of independent escorts who use Punter Net – which is one of just a many online forums for prostitutes and punters – say they have been inundated with new requests from clients who were previously unaware of the site’s existence until Ms Harman publicly named them.
Laura Lee, an escort who works out of her flat in Glasgow, was just one of a number of sex workers who said the call to ban Punter Net had actually led to an increase in business. Speaking to the Independent today she said: “Harriet Harman has managed to do in one day what I’ve been trying to do for six months, which is increase the traffic to my personal website. Normally I would expect about two to three hundred hits a day but now it’s more like 820. The vast majority of gentlemen contacting me had never heard of Punter Net until this week.”
Another escort, who goes by the name of Dollymopp and entertains clients at a luxury flat in the Borough area of London, wrote on one of the Punter Net forums: “Just back from a [shopping] trip?logged in to mail, was wondering why I had so many hits, requests to meet up, and definitely more than my usual. Fabulous. Thanks HH!”
The creator of the website, who uses the name Galahad and is thought to be a British expat living abroad, also said Punter Net had benefited from the deputy leader’s comments.
In a statement posted on the website he wrote a personal letter to Ms Harman which ended: “I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused. I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the Punter Net community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never have found them.”
He also said his forum encouraged punters to report underage or trafficked women to the authorities. “One of the missions of PunterNet is education - to provide information and guidance in hopes that the commercial sex scene is limited to consenting adults and those who choose of their own free will to engage in it,” he said.
The Minister for Women and Equality, however, firmly disagrees, calling Punter Net a “sinister” and “truly degrading” website which represented the “ultimate commodification of women”. Because the website is hosted on an American server based in California, she has turned to former Hollywood actor turned state governor Schwarzenegger to close it down – although bloggers have questioned whether he would be able to or even whether the site is breaking US or British law.
A number of sex workers writing on the site have also defended online forums, which they say have allowed working girls to advertise without the need for pimps and allow sex workers to warn each other about abusive clients operating in their area.
Inna Suomi, a Finnish escort who works out of her home on the outskirts of West London, said: “[Punter Net] actually enables women to work without pimps because we can make ourselves available without having to use an agency or club. We control where and when we work and we control who we agree to see. Without PN and sites like it we would have to use systems and environments that lend themselves to abuse and exploitation.”
Laura Lee added: “I think what Ms Harman has found particularly objectionable is the way our clients are able to review us. But what she has failed to understand is that these reviews are incredibly useful to the girls. A good review on a website like Punter Net results in a marked number of people requesting our services. It is to working girls what a Michelin Star is to a restaurant.”
Other working girls, however, are critical of Punter Net and chose not to post on the website. One professional escort who contacted The Independent but askled not to be named said: “Quite a few of us simply won’t use Punter Net, there’s a lot that goes on behind closed doors on the website that we don’t agree with. I would also question how seriously they really take the whole “report a trafficked girl” ethos.”
Last night Ms Harman said she remained determined to try and shut the website down. “I am against exploitative websites such as Punternet,” she said. “They should be ashamed of themselves for boasting about how they degrade women and I am determined to shut them down”.
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Comments
for god sake women, change the record, you're obsessed. There are plenty of obsene
things to see on You-Tube and is being watched by the under sixteens, probably as I
write . But I suppose you can't do anything about this...........
I asked Kirkbride over 8 years ago, to force web sites to strict regulation, but oh no, " we
couldn't possibly do anything , it's not technically possible ", she retorted. There must be
parents out there that assume because a site has an age restriction it matches the
standards as all Uk broadcasters.
Lots of holes everywhere, but no Harman just keep doing what your best at...................
" looking out of one eye only "
It's only now, thanks to Harriet Harman that I have this opportunity to get out and have a little pleasure now and then. This information should have been made available at my local library or local authority recreation listings. Thank you Harriet !
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipe
I think the phrase Harriet needs to memorise is "be careful what you wish for".
Millie Tant
Has the Independent become a pimp?
I use PN to advertise myself, but do not use the message forums since they are a mix of decent people and absolute loonies. They discuss the sex scene in a banal fashion, and choose to ignore the more distasteful elements of the sex industry and certainly do not want to address the most distressing issues such as trafficking.
In showcasing these two particular ladies, you have enabled them to advertise! I can't believe you have done this!
The ladies who post on the message board only do it for one reason and that is to increase their profile.
I don't see any one of them campaigning for anything other than their own fame.
There are some of us who care about the weaker, more vulnerable workers in this industry, and these two are a fine example of those who glorify the industry, and keep it in the gutter.
If you had taken the time and trouble to read that thread on the Punternet forum that sparked the above article you will have seen that it was actually me that started the thread. I am retired, have not worked for quite some time and will not be working in the forseeable future, so you see I could not have gained anything whatsoever personally through starting that thread. I am however, unlike you it seems, still concerned about the well being and safety of the ladies still in the industry.
I can't believe that you saw this article as a chance to attack other ladies who are in exactly the same position as you are, there are enough people out there trying to make the working environment more difficult and dangerous for working girls as it is, why join them by pulling other girls down instead of supporting them? I have to say that your post is coming across as nothing but pure jealousy because these ladies have managed to gain more exposure and therefore the likelyhood of more work than you have.
I would also like to address the point that you made about trafficked girls, and this is the very reason I dount you are an established independant escort. If you were a genuine working girl then you would have known that the very ladies you saw fit to slate have all without exception gone out of their way to help others especially new and vunerable ladies coming into the industry. There are people on the forum that have met and helped trafficked/pimped/drugged working girls myself included. Have you or our friend Hariet Harman?
I'm sure if you were an established escort you would have been mentioning the many excellent internet outlets that the ladies themselves have put into place to help ensure others as well as their own safety. Sites like www.saaafe.com and schemes like the brilliant buddy scheme that Penny has put into place, are all supported by the ladies that you saw fit pull down.
I agree at times there are some (as you put it loons) that frequent the punting forums, but it really doesn't take long to work out who they are and that in itself is a good thing, because the girls then know who to avoid, but also as you said there are also a lot of good people who thankfully far out way the bad and these sites do a go a long way to helping ensure working girls safety.
I don't see how infighting is going to help those that need the help, including yourself, the girls within the industry, the very clients through which you earn your living, those that may be pimped, trafficked or suffering drug abuse. All it does is prove that there are some like you that are in the industry purely to further their own needs and care very little about those of others sadly.
Now saying all that may I also say that although I have not personally met the lovely ladies that are featured in this article, I have had the pleasure of getting to know most of them for almost a decade now through the internet and sites like Punternet and would personally like to thank the ladies featured in the article and others like Penny and the ladies that run Saafe for taking time out of their very busy lives to think and care about others, something that both you Val and Hariet Harman could both do well to think about.
I suspect her tirades are fuelled by her own personal morals rather than consideration for women working in the sex industry. She is despicable, but what more should we expect of a politician?
For me it summed up the Labour party in a nutshell.
You started with every good intention, then through your own stupid kneejerk incompetence you have managed to screw up, resulting in the complete the opposite of what you wanted.
Did it not even cross your mind that by giving the name of the website you want to ban, you would increase it's hit rate? Obviously not! ...Doh!
So there you have it, The Labour Party.. got the best of intentions, but unfortunately not the brain power to carry them out!
Hello! 1995 called and they want their frames and popup windows back!
It really could do with a makeover. Surely there must be some kid in a tech somewhere doing a web/IT course who could give it a decent makover on an internship kinda basis.
It'd be a win-win: PunterNet gets to look like it's in the 21st century and the budding technologist gets a high-profile success story for his/her portfolio.
Before anyone objects and says "who'd care to have their career associated with such depravity?", please be aware that few folk in the biz, employers included, really gives a toss. When it comes to website and back-end design, the key questions are:
- Is it attractive?
- Is it easy to navigate?
- Is it stable?
- Is it secure?
- How does it cope under heavy load?
- Etc...
The propriety or otherwise of the site is a long way down the list...
The removal of/in criticism in all things Labour under the guise of whatever excuse is convenient is becoming uncomfortably regular, particularly when political lightweights have the opportunity to spout ridiculous & often inaccurate analysis of all & everyone whilst going completely unchallenged themsleves.
Freedom of the press is the heartbeat of this country & its independence/freedom is probably the most important discussion anywhere.
Punternet does degrade women - Galahad himself compares our ratings to restaurant ratings in his explanation/ apology to Harman.
And yes, Laura Lee uses the forum on a daily basis for some serious advertising. Will she still be harping on when she ages and the punternet reports become less favourable?
p.s I've only had good PN reports, but read bad ones that have caused girls to be fired (gorgeous girls who upset the insecure men for not kissing their rossette mostly) every day. The ignorance towards street prostitution is palpable. And trafficked under aged girls are advertised in forums as young teenaged girls, age not mentioned but you get the picture.
Other than the Field reports, PN is overrated as a site (by its own members). There are others like it - none is much cop.
Methinks, as ever, HH doth protest too much.
Whilst some mightn't like it, Punter Net facilitates an exchange of cash for sex, neither side is exploited (in fact if any the client ends up with the short end of the stick.) This exchange is accepted in society so long as it isn't explcit e.g. drinks, meals, and presents, but when the true nature of the situation is revealed, all of a sudden it becomes to much for some to swallow?
I would suggest that Harriet Harman turns her hand to the real issues rather than engaging in needless self-publicity. Whenever she decides to squander time on these faulty campaigns, it is the public's money she wastes.