Even, a necessary lesson:
School girls have been propositioned by men in the UK’s first official red light district, an academy chief has warned as he says he has “grave concerns” about children’s safety.
Pupils as young as 13 have been asked whether they are “open for business” while walking to school, according to Sir John Townsley, chief executive of The GORSE Academies Trust which runs 11 schools in Leeds.
Young women are going to spend a decade or two of their lives being propositioned. True, much of it will be asking for uncompensated, unpaid, activity and sometimes they’ll even be interested themselves. Getting the lesson in early that men will ask seems a useful part of an education.
We did a long-running series of “educational films” back in the day, on just this theme. Very popular it was too.
Sounds like another useful lesson might be “do well at school or you’ll end up here”.
Another plus is that at least they’re being asked, which probably wouldn’t happen in one of the more diverse areas nearby.
No, not a pleasant or useful lesson for schoolgirls or schoolboys either but the academy chief is railing not only against the gauntlet that pupils (not students) supposedly have to run but against the principle of a “managed” red light district in the first place:
Academics at Huddersfield University (that’s a new one to me) gave the green light to “managhed” red light districts so the initiative is presumably a progressive one and any opposition to it is unwoke and should lead to immediate cancellation of that old prig Sir John Townsley, including the loss of his job for seeking to imperil the wellness of sex workers.
Another life skill is learning that, like it or not, there are parts of towns and cities that should be avoided day and night. That one goes with the one about not wandering around most areas half dressed & pissed out of your mind in the middle of the night.
If you’re going to have an “official” red light district, why the chuff would you put it near a school anyway?
Maybe someone needs to take the matter up with the local branch of the *euphemistically clears throat* “Seamstresses” Guild?
You’ve got to be a bit low IQ to be parading your ass on street-corners in this day-and-age anyway. Any half-decent prossie will have her list of regular clients plus irregular ones fed through internet referrals.
The whole “Red Light District” thing, legal or otherwise, is just asking for trouble.
I find myself a little out of sympathy with a lot of this blog, which is not ideal, and this is one of those occasions. Myself, if I had a 12 year old daughter who had to walk to school, I would prefer people not to proposition her. She may have to learn about this experience at some time. I would prefer it to be at a time and place of my own choosing or close to it. Which is to say, later.
In fact I think if someone came up to any 12 year in an obvious school uniform and spoke to them about sex, any sort of sex really, I would like them put in jail. I am pretty sure it is a crime to say to a 12 year old girl that you have a big penis and you would like to put it in her anus. Close to it anyway. Oddly enough.
This is mainly a zoning problem. Perhaps Red Light districts are a good idea. Fine. Keep them away from families. That is the point.
SMFS + 1
Any local authority which approves a red light district must have to agree it surrounding the building that houses that local authority.
“walking to school”
Your redlight district is operational at, what, 8:30 in the morning?
Purely out of interest, asking for a friend, how do people know where the zone is? How do non-involved parents know where it is safe for their children to walk? Are there signs? Is there a map?
“Purely out of interest, asking for a friend, how do people know where the zone is? ”
If there isn’t already a relevant satnav update someone might make a bit of money getting to the market first.
The school is postcode LS10 1HW, and the red light district which opens for ahem trade at 7pm or 8pm depending who you believe is centred on LS10 1HW. No way are 100 pupils walking the 1.5km to pass through there daily to get home, although obviously some will.
He’s a new head teacher. Presumably the previous head had a sense of proportion.
Buttocks – the red light district is centred on LS11 9UL
If you’re bright enough to use Google Map in it’s Satellite or Streetview modes, which SMfS obviously isn’t, you’ll see LS11 9UL is an industrial estate isolated by being an island surrounded by dual carriageway roads & a railway line. No doubt it’s not on any pedestrian’s way to anywhere. Not unless you’re into buying cash ‘n carry truck tyres. And not on a route 12 y/o girls would use to get to school.. Which is no doubt why it was chosen as a “red light district” .Since these areas have existed from the establishment of Ur & will continue to exist whatever the opinions of Brit suburbanites with their heads jammed firmly up their arses – there being such a things as a market & demand – maybe it’s better they’re not in a residential street a hundred yards from a school.
SMFS – Yarp
John Galt – also yarp. Prossies don’t have to hang around the financial district or the docks anymore, they’re all on the internet. I haven’t seen tarts standing on street corners in leather miniskirts in donkey’s.
I dunno, but reckon, that the purpose of trying to normalise “sex work” is just promoting degeneracy for the sake of devilry. Nobody in their right mind wants their daughter to be a whore, it’s as shameful and disgusting as journalism.
Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, was the street of choice to our local toms when I lived in N. London. Goods Way, back of the Cross – before it got the redevelopment treatment & Owen Jones started hanging around – for those preferring more Central London. At least that area was largely commercial.
SMFS: Thank you for this. A common sense and moral approach rather than the ‘look at me, hard-boiled man of the world’ stance.
Morality? This is 2020! Morality died with Mary Whitehouse.
@Steve, … or politics
“Purely out of interest, asking for a friend, how do people know where the zone is? ”
The 5 m p h speed limit might be a clue.
Wouldn’t go that far. Not sure which is worse: journalist, politician or cop – but they are all far less respected than whores.
Thing is, once you abandon monogamy, which the whole point of female liberation, you’re going to get lots of young men with no wives and no sexual outlet. Liberalising prostitution is the sensible course, unless you want those young men burning the place down, because, why not? They don’t have families so they have no stake in the future.
John Galt: “Morality? This is 2020! Morality died with Mary Whitehouse.”
No, just a type of English middle-class prudishness. It’s an easy mistake to make in the half-light.
bloke in spain November 11, 2020 at 10:44 am – “If you’re bright enough to use Google Map in it’s Satellite or Streetview modes, which SMfS obviously isn’t”
Well done for spectacularly missing every single point I made and posting some garbage on some other topic. Takes a lot of effort to be so clueless.
“Since these areas have existed from the establishment of Ur & will continue to exist whatever the opinions of Brit suburbanites with their heads jammed firmly up their arses – there being such a things as a market & demand – maybe it’s better they’re not in a residential street a hundred yards from a school.”
Safe Rape Zones too? We have not yet achieved the abolition of rape. There is a demand out there. Since Ur. So we should stop trying?
As I said – and you obviously did not read – this is a zoning problem. They need to zone it away from children.
“Wouldn’t go that far. Not sure which is worse: journalist, politician or cop – but they are all far less respected than whores.”
Whores get a bad rap. You turn up, you get the price, you hand over the money and they deliver 9+ times out of 10. That’s a better result than getting your PC repaired at PC World, using the NHS, expecting your endowment to pay off your mortgage, or taking a train. In-Call escorts are more punctual than Southern Rail. They generally have a more pleasant attitude, too.
To whores!
Prostitution, whatever one thinks about it, is largely carried out via the internet. Only the drug addled skanks too messed up to take a selfie and the sordid types who prefer that kind thing have any need for streetwalking or a red light district.
I’d be more than happy for the state to take a more sensible line on organised prostitution, but this isn’t it.
Roue, When I was working in Hannover, the route from one of the hotels to the office took me past a red light street. Many of the businesswomen sitting in their street level floor to ceiling windows obviously thought I needed to relax before my 8am meeting. So, yes, operations were in full “swing”.
Red light districts are an inconvenience to many. Drive prostitution online.
Theophrastus,
There’s almost no streetwalking left. What are you going to do, stand around in the freezing cold all night, or get yourself on a punting site and sort it out with mobile phones? It’s so much more efficient.
It’s relevant, SMfS, because the claim that young girls are being propositioned on the way to school due to the red light district is obvious fabrication. Sir John Townsley’s got an agenda. The claimed incident was two years in the past before it was reported.
About time your narrow minded, prissy little soul came to terms with the world not operating according to your wishes. Individuals will continue to conduct their affairs with each other in the manner of their choosing without your permission. Or anybody else’s. Which why the red light district was set up in the first place. So they could do so with out inconveniencing others. Prostitution is not going to go away. It’s not called the oldest profession for nothing. Sweden’s tried & the net result’s they’ve pushed the business into the hands of the crooks & prices have soared.
As for ” I am pretty sure it is a crime to say to a 12 year old girl that you have a big penis and you would like to put it in her anus. ” I reckon that says more about your own dark fantasies than anybody else’s.
“Safe Rape Zones too? We have not yet achieved the abolition of rape. There is a demand out there. Since Ur. So we should stop trying?”
I live in a country that’s fairly liberal on prostitution. It’s also a country where it’s common to see attractive scantily dressed women walking city streets alone in the early hours. Heading home from whatever club or bar they’ve chosen to spend a warm evening. They see little risk in doing so. Because we don’t, like the UK, suffer hoards of predatory men high on alcohol & excess testosterone making them a danger zone. (Except for the Brit tourist vermin, of course) I’d say these two things are not unconnected. Spanish blokes find better things to do with their time.
bloke in spain November 12, 2020 at 9:16 am – “It’s relevant, SMfS, because the claim that young girls are being propositioned on the way to school due to the red light district is obvious fabrication.”
Then take it up with someone who made the claim. Or with TW for reporting it. I made no comment on the value of this claim at all.
“About time your narrow minded, prissy little soul came to terms with the world not operating according to your wishes.”
Indeed. In the meantime at least I am not a pimp. You have a point?
“Individuals will continue to conduct their affairs with each other in the manner of their choosing without your permission.”
Indeed. Nowhere did I call for prostitution to be banned. Just kept away from families.
“I reckon that says more about your own dark fantasies than anybody else’s.”
Well that goes without saying. But it is irrelevant. It is, or it should be, a crime to proposition an obvious child.
“They see little risk in doing so. Because we don’t, like the UK”
I am sorry but are you claiming scantily clad young lasses don’t traipse home at 3 am in the UK? Because you must not have been back for some time.
“suffer hoards of predatory men high on alcohol & excess testosterone making them a danger zone.”
Spanish men being notorious for their lack of machismo of course.
“Spanish blokes find better things to do with their time.”
Like, oh I don’t know, hunting around Pamplona in a wolf pack gang raping women? Maybe they were some of those famous British tourists? Angel Boza? Sounds pretty British to me.
All of which remains irrelevant. We could have a discussion about whether or not prostitution laws make rape less likely. If that was what this was about. But it is not. I have said nothing on the rights and wrongs of prostitution being legal. We could talk about the role of culture in rape too – and I suspect Spain has higher rates than Britain simply because of that macho culture and the Arab legacy – but this discussion is not about that either.
All I said is that school girls should be able to walk to school without being offered money for sex. And that this town seems to have a zoning problem. What exactly your problem is with that I do not know. But I can guess.
Enough straw to stuff a scarecrow, smfs. You seem to specialise in missing the point in order to advance your odd mix of quaintness and xenophobia
Dodgy knees November 12, 2020 at 11:39 am – “Enough straw to stuff a scarecrow, smfs. You seem to specialise in missing the point in order to advance your odd mix of quaintness and xenophobia”
Is that you BiS? Pretending you got a friend are you? Well I do enjoy a good mix of quaintness and xenophobia. But in this case you are full of crap. There was no point to miss. If BiS wants to defend propositioning school girls he is free to do so. I may object. If he wants to defend his profession he is also free to do so. I may not object. At least not here.
But if he continues to assert that his arguments have anything to do with anything I have said, while attacking me personally, then I may well continue to point out he too is full of shit. I have not said anything of the things he is trying to imply I said.
All I have said is that school girls should be able to walk to school without being propositioned for sex and this place seems to have zoning issues. I continue to wonder why BiS or you have a problem with either of those. Well, with the first one in particular.
Play the ball, not the man.
SMfS
I can’t say I particularly agreed with Tim’s comments in the post. Although there is, regrettably, a certain amount of truth in it. But “red light districts”are actually created to stop this sort of thing happening. To keep the commerce away from the public. They’ll ever create themselves, if the authorities got out the way. Consenting adults engaged in commerce will arrange things to their own benefit & interests. It is in neither the girl’s not the client’s interest to adversely effect other people & draw attention to themselves.. That must be fucking obvious even to the terminally stupid.
” In the meantime at least I am not a pimp. :
And what one of them? Where would you find one? The concept’s based on there’s a shortage of prostitutes so it is possible to make money by controlling access to them. The reality is the market’s vastly oversupplied with women wanting to sell their services. Since a client seeing a girl with a pimp would be paying both girl & the pimp, they’d be unable to compete with the girl working without one. That said, there is a sizeable industry that supplies services to prostitutes, Places to work & meet clients. Marketing services. The girls do not work for them. They work for the girls. The girls are entirely free to refrain from using those services. Many do. Many find it is more cost effective to take advantage of them.
And this goes on irrespective of whether the jurisdiction they’re operating in is permissive or restrictive of prostitution. Like a lot of other things, if there are willing buyers & willing sellers there will be a market & commerce will happen. It’s just more expensive operating in a restrictive jurisdiction & the cost gets passed on to the clients.
As for Spanish machismo…that’s hilarious. You find more in England than you ever do here. OK you have the Latin culture which is more extrovert, in certain ways, than Brits. But it’s just noise. It certainly doesn’t produce the sort of violence one sees in the UK. To a Londoner, like me, this is Pussycatsville.
As a Leeds lad I’m having a Gell-Mann moment here: 36 uninformed comments.
The school is not really in Holbeck but is large and will draw girls who live in Holbeck, not just work there (and between there and the school)(and there is even a door-to-door trade).
Also, Holbeck generally is an obstacle to gentrification south of the river.