Journalists and Articles

During the week I had a phonecall that every escort dreads, even those of us who choose to speak to the press.

"Hello Laura, my name is ************ and I am a journalist with the Highland News. Please don't hang up."

Now if you're wondering why he said "Don't hang up", it's because the HN have an appalling track record on "outing" ladies, a record of which I am acutely aware. As the gentleman concerned has promised not to out me in any way and as I do not have his permission to use his name then I shan't.

He went on to explain that he is writing an article about why Inverness is such an appealing place for ladies to tour. He wanted to concentrate on the new breed of independant escort who is a million miles away from the traditional depiction of a sex worker. Fair enough. He went on to say that he had been on the Punternet tour calender and had pulled details of ladies who were touring there, using their working names and pictures.

I asked him why I should help when the paper has ruined lives by publishing the pictures of ladies. He said that in those cases, those were ladies who it was felt were working against their will and with some coercion involved. "Fine, but then surely it is better to expose the scum who organise these rings than add to the ladies misery by outing them ?" His reply was that the leaders are shady characters who are diffcult to catch. Hmmm. Be that as it may, he had the information he needed for the basis of a story from the touring listings, so it was clear he was going to run the story one way or the other.

So, I gave him a couple of quotes, that I am an independent escort who is not pimped, drug addicted or coerced in any way and that I love my job. I added that I pay my taxes, national insurance and run my business like any other. From memory I think we spoke about the type of clients I see too, so it was all fairly standard stuff.

In return I have his WORD that he will not out any of the ladies, publish pictures by which they will be recognised or place their personal lives in jeopardy in any way. Having since spoken to him on the phone, I believe him, he read the article back to me and I'm happy with the content. He sounds like a man of his word, although I did finish by saying that if he compromises my right to privacy in any way I will drag him through every court from here to Dingwall. We both chuckled at that and the whole coversation was very amiable. So, Thursday will tell.

Mean while, this little beauty appeared in "Scotland on Sunday" today ;

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/ITV39s-call-girl-show-39damaging39.6450685.jp#5444789

I won't go into it in depth, but this quote from Ann Hamilton got me in particular;

"People tend to think that prostitution is dead sexy, very liberating and that there is nothing harmful about it. It's portrayed as very attractive women having lots of sex and enjoying it, when in actual fact that's about 0.005 per cent of women."

I have challenged the good lady to provide a source for that particular statistic, since as one poster on Punternet said, if there are 80,000 sex workers in the UK and I am one of those "happy hookers", then where are the other three ?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address please. *sigh*

LL xx