I’ve spent this afternoon transcribing an interview that I did in London last week with a male escort, which will form the basis of a story I’m currently looking at. One interesting aside that came up during our discussions was one of the main jealousies that can arise between men and women working in the sex industry: namely the issue of pay.
Now it should be said that this guy works in the upper echelons of the business…he has a lovely flat in Covent Garden, in London’s West End, is educated and middle class, has made a lot of money through escorting and did this work completely out of choice. He now works as GMB union branch secretary, supporting members who work in the sex industry. I’m not really sure how i feel about this but here’s what he said:

“There is definitely jealously between male and female escorts, and that largely relates to money. Female escorts get paid twice or three times as much as male escorts. Funny that, isn’t it? Have you ever heard a feminist admit that?
“Why would they not want to tell you that? Why – given all the writing that exists within feminism about every aspect of the sex industry – does no one admit that it’s the one business where women earn more than men? And it’s true all around the world…go to North Africa, to Eastern Europe, to Australia, America, and here in Britain, it’s the same. Men get paid a third to a half of what women do.
“So going on prices in London at the moment, at the top end of the industry, £130 an hour would get you a male escort, while it would cost about £350 an hour for a female of equivalent standing. In a female brothel – a flat or house where a group are working – you could pay £120 to £150 an hour. In a male brothel it would be about £70.
“Even when I went on jobs where I had to arrange for a female escort to come with me, she would get paid two or three times what I would. It’s about supply and demand, of course. But it’s certainly not something I’ve heard the feminists say anything about.”

A viable way to survive the recession? Things in the media are looking pretty dire but I think I’ll try to hold out a little longer…

“Nationalists often speak of the importance of preserving their national culture. But the cultures they describe are often mythic. It is amid the rubble of discarded beer cans and the bleakness of northern English housing estates that never knew a genteel past that the BNP finds its most enthusiastic support.”

There’s an intelligent feature about the European far right in the latest edition of Time magazine. Recommended reading.

I was just hunting for something among my old photos and came across this picture that I took a year ago while in Budapest for a wedding. Using flash was a complete accident….as a result the image looks completely wrong, surreal and bizarre. Yet there’s something I really like about it. It’s so bad that it works for me somehow. Hmmm.

I thought cats were meant to be intelligent?

Images from last night’s exhibition preview. I don’t often show my face on here but that’s me, above.
My only criticism is that their colour balance when printing my image was off, and it came out too orange and over-saturated. Still though, it was good to be there. There was some great work in the show, but I thought there was a fair amount of lame stuff in there as well.

I found a strange spot in London the other day…Crossbones…an old prostitutes’ graveyard. Despite being licensed by the bishop back in the Middle Ages, these women could only be buried on unconsecrated ground….outcasts in death as well as life. Plus ca change.

I’m very excited to be doing some multimedia training next month with the talented folks from duckrabbit, whose informative and entertaining blog I’ve been following pretty much since it began last year. Comprised of a photojournalist and a former BBC producer, these guys are pretty much at the cutting edge of this area in the UK so I’m looking forward to learning from them. This country is trailing behind America in failing to grasp the mettle on multimedia. The likes of Mediastorm and Magnum in Motion are way ahead of most of us here. I see this as the future for media on the internet so want to get in there now. Anyway, there’s a lovely slideshow of a few of my images on the duckrabbit site

It’s link city around here today.
I’m in love with this Radiohead gig right now. Just awesome….I was lucky enough to catch them live last summer in Manchester. Sadly I accidentally formatted my memory card afterwards. What an amateur

A story I wrote on youth homelessness, from this week’s Inside Housing