A schoolroom-style suspected brothel has been discovered in a police raid in Wakefield.
Officers visited “Westgate Old School” in the city centre and found a fully-equipped classroom and a room kitted out to look like a dungeon. Two women were arrested at the premises and questioned on suspicion of running a brothel for personal gain.

Police were investigating what was going on at the building, in Thompson’s Yard, when screams were heard coming from behind a locked door.

Officers from Wakefield central neighbourhood police team took action and arrested the two women. Both were later bailed pending further inquiries.

As the arrests were being made, men were arriving to take part in what they described as “harmless role-play”.

They had come from throughout the country for the event which could cost up to £200 each. At the premises, police found equipment including stocks, whips, birches and masks, while there was also a classroom with a blackboard and the office of headteacher Miss W Hastings-Gore. There were also uniforms, handcuffs and a cage.

Westgate Old School’s website advertises its services as role-play in its school classroom and dungeon. It says: “Day schools have always been the backbone of schools run by Hastings-Gore. These events comprise a mixed class of pupils, boys, girls and cross-dressers, experiencing a full day of school lessons, based on the old school values. It also makes mention of caning nights, spanking parties and promotes three-day boarding school events with stays in school dormitories.

The raid came after possible links were discovered between Westgate Old School and a party billed as Northern Caning Nite, which was to have included caning competitions and corporal punishment. However that event, which cost £25 a ticket, was cancelled earlier this month.

Comment: Police Priorities

From spanking-news.com:

With knife crime rife on our streets, our kids killing each other daily, drugs being peddled at the school gate and in clubs attended by vulnerable young people. With children dying from neglect and child poverty within our urban communalities it’s reassuring to know that the nations plods still have time to protect our morality and to ensure that we, as consenting adults do not stray from the straight and narrow path of state authorised enjoyment.

Westgate Old School, a veritable temple amongst the plethora of establishments where safe, sane consensual activities could be carried out amongst and involving only consenting adults has been ‘raided’ by the nations finest. What were they hoping to find one has to ask?

Did they expect to see kidnapped children secured to the floor and forced into unpaid labour producing shirts for some of our better known high street retailers, did the think they would be knee deep in drugs being packaged for sale on the nations streets by a criminal gang arriving for work each morning dressed as schoolmasters and aging schoolboys? What crime were they investigating?

Once you have worked out what the crime being committed was and ranked it alongside the other felonies being committed in the Wakefield area we suggest you write to the chief constable of West Yorkshire and tell him that you would be a lot happier if his bobbies were out on the streets protecting you and your kids from real criminals. I suspect that most of the bobbies would rather be doing that as well. Oh! Raise a glass in support of Miss. W. Hastings-Gore for she may need all the help she can get once the paragons of virtue inhabiting the judicial establishment realise that she may be an easy ‘nick’ and throw the might of the state into incarcerating her in a dungeon… No better not go down that road or she may make my next visit a very painful one.

A bungalow is at the centre of allegations that it has been used as a sex dungeon specialising in sadomasochism.

Police, the fire service and council jobsworths were called in after complaints about activities at the detached property in Fulwood, Preston, Lancashire.

Their attention had been brought to a website on which the premises, in a quiet suburban area, were advertised as The House of Pleasure and Pain.

Among pathetically trivial fire hazards being looked into were claims of "waxplay" in which burning candles are dripped onto a client.

The website, currently displaying just placeholder, described the premises as giving people the chance to dress up as adult babies and offers outdoor domination, schoolroom scenarios and experiences in the woodland.

It states that a Mistress Storm does not offer any sexual services, but describes her as a brown-haired, blue eyed 44 year old natural born sadist. A disclaimer read: Any money paid to the ladies listed on this website is for their time and companionship alone. Whatever else that may occur is the choice of consenting adults.

A Lancashire Fire Regulation jobsworth said: We attended and offered advice about things such as fire alarms and marked exits: If it is found to be operating as a business there would be shortfalls. But until that decision is made, as a domestic property, we can only offer advice.

Police and Preston city council are continuing investigations into activities at the premises.

Ins Jameel Murtza, of Lancashire Police, said: The property has been brought to our attention. Ludicrously citing a Under a law made 260 years ago he said: it is an offence to keep a disorderly house, used by members of the public and not regulated by the restraints of morality.

A council spokesman said: Council officers will visit the property to look into how the building is being used to assess whether the owners have the correct planning permission.

The Kapiti Coast District Council is looking at introducing a bylaw to turn the coast into one of the world's longest nudist beaches.

The proposed area is 45 kilometres of beach that stretches from Paekakariki to Otaki.

The local naturists say the District Council's new nude friendly plan is not just great for the region but also great for New Zealand.

And estimated 200 nudists frequent the Kapiti Coast and while there has been opposition to the plans, Councillor Peter Ellis says they are just moving with the times.

Residents have up until October 24 to make submissions opposing the change. Otherwise the nature coast could become the naturist coast.

It's Friday night in Sheffield and, at the old Robin Hood pub, the conversation is growing lively. It would be a fantastic experience to see you strip off and see you two play with each other. Then I would join and play with my wife if she lets me, says Simon, a chubby, middle-aged Yorkshireman with a cheeky grin. His wife Toni, who is slim and curly-haired and looks a decade younger than him, gives me a reassuring smile as I nearly drop my notepad on the floor.

The Robin Hood is no ordinary pub. Once a watering hole for local steelworkers, it went through a radical makeover nearly a decade ago. The dartboards were replaced with large TVs showing hardcore porn, the pool table made way for pole dancing poles, an S&M dungeon was added, and the Robin Hood acquired an alternative identity as La Chambre, one of Britain's most successful swingers' club.

...Read full article

Duncanville officials report both of the owners of a neighborhood swingers club have been arrested on charges associated with operating an unregistered club.

Julie Norris was arrested at the Cherry Pit Wednesday and is currently being held at the Duncanville Police Department Jail.

Norris runs the Cherry Pit with Jim Trulock. He was arrested on the same charges two weeks ago and has since been released from jail.

Warrants for their arrests were issued after Duncanville police confiscated business records, alcoholic beverages and other evidence in July.

The charges carry a one-year jail sentence and a fine of up to $4,000.

The owner of a suburban Dallas swingers club is accused of storing and serving alcoholic drinks without a permit.

Duncanville police arrested Jim Trulock on September 5th. He co-owns the Cherry Pit and was released after posting a $1,500 bond.

The Dallas Morning News reports officials allege Trulock and club co-owner Julie M. Norris violated the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code.

Trulock's attorney Ed Klein tells The Associated Press he thinks: it's just something else in a long line of things that the city of Duncanville is doing to run him out town.

According to the website swing4ireland, picturesque Hazelbank Park along the Shore Road is among the most popular hunting grounds in County Antrim for those involved in "dogging."

The swing4ireland website, which has almost 38,000 members, lists County Antrim as top of the league for outdoor sex sessions, with 27 locations from the White Rocks at Portrush to Hillsborough Forest. The Newtownabbey Council operated public park in Whitehouse is listed twice. Also highlighted as a top spot for dogging is Knockagh Monument at Greenisland.

Condemning reports of sex in public places across Newtownabbey, former Mayor Nigel Hamilton said he believed that dogging had been taking place not only at Hazelbank Park but in public spaces around Ballyclare too: This type of behaviour is totally unacceptable and is a criminal offence. The police have a responsibility to monitor these key areas and deal with the problem appropriately.

In a statement this week, Newtownabbey Council said it had not received any complaints about parks or toilets in relation to the activities highlighted recently in the press.

A Brisbane swingers' club is boasting that it is the first in the country to gain council approval and operate just like any other business.

With 600 couples on their membership list and council approval to keep swinging, the owners of Couples International, Bryan and Leesa Horn, could not be happier.

Now we're seen as a lifestyle choice not just as an underground hidden culture that has been around since if not well before the 70s until now, Mrs Horn told AM.

Earlier this year, the Brisbane City Council threatened to shut it down because the building was zoned inappropriately. But Mr and Mrs Horn lodged a re-zoning application: We did have objections from the moral right. But the tone of the objection was about suggesting that child molesters come here and that sort of thing, which is, I mean, who would ever know frankly.

Councillor Helen Abrahams says the majority of submissions in the planning application were in favour of the application and the building has been re-zoned as a nightclub, which she says is the most appropriate category the council had. She says council had to consider the application purely as a zoning decision: Council cannot consider the moral aspects of this application, and in fact the condition of development clearly states that this is only for the purpose of the building. It does not comment on the legality of whether a swingers' club is lawful under state legislation.

Update: Nutters Miffed

13th September 2008

Australian Christian Lobby Queensland Director Peter Earle said it was a shame local councillors representlng local nutters were effectively gagged when it came to controversial sex venues in their communities:

To gag councillors from discussing the social implications of such activity and force them to approve these applications solely on town planning grounds is ridiculous.

The Integrated Planning Act must be amended to give power back to local [nutter] communities

Two Britons have appeared in court in Dubai after allegedly having sex on a beach in the Muslim emirate. What would happen if a couple got frisky on a beach in the UK?

The Sexual Offences Act 2003, which mainly covers England and Wales but also covers Northern Ireland in some areas, does not specifically legislate against sex on the beach so long as the act is consensual, says a Ministry of Justice spokeswoman.

Effectively sex on the beach in isolated places is allowed, so long as there is a reasonable expectation of privacy - which someone engaging in such an activity would be expected to prove. But someone could be charged with outraging public decency under common law, she says, if it is proven that at least one person has seen the act.

The witness has to see the act of intimacy first-hand. CCTV does not count, says travel lawyer Philip Banks, of the firm Irwin Mitchell.

Section 66 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 - which bans exposing one's genitals if the intention is to cause alarm or distress - can also be applied in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Although the act does not fully apply in Scotland, indecent exposure is an offence under common law, says a spokesman for the Law Society of Scotland, although intent would be difficult to prove. The same expectation of privacy applies north of the border, although there could be a breach of the peace if someone saw and was offended.

Another thing to bear in mind is that getting frisky on the beach in the presence of a child is a criminal offence under section 11 of the act, says the Ministry of Justice spokeswoman.

And a person can also be charged if they use words, behaviour or display to cause another person harassment, alarm or distress under sections four and five of the Public Order Act 1986.

But both of these offences only apply if the couple intend to cause alarm, or are aware that a child is watching, says Banks: These legislations are very unlikely to be used in this context.

It is rare for an amorous couple to appear in court, says criminal lawyer Mark Haslam, of BCL Burton Copeland. If police do spot a couple engaging in al fresco love making, they are more likely to issue a caution or warning.

But if it is reported by a passing - and outraged - member of the public, the couple are likely to be prosecuted and would probably be fined, with the case reported gleefully in the local press, says Banks.

National Go Topless Day was held over the weekend, and protesters were out in full force in and around Central Park to fight for their rights to be topless in public.

Of course, in New York it is legal--in 1992 the NY State Appeals Court ruled that women have the right to go topless, just like men.

The Empire State ladies were merely marching in support of the women who get fined, humiliated and arrested around the nation. Some of the picket signs read: Shame is Lethal, Go Top Free & Be Healthy, Breasts Are No Longer Indecent in NY, and of course the 'ol standy, Free Your Breasts, Free Your Mind.

As the founder of GoTopless.org, Rael, put it: as long as men can be topless, constitutionally women should have the same right, or men should also be forced to wear something hiding their chest.

Regan Lane-Smith and Nonah Elliston outfitted their six-bedroom rental house with 15 mattresses, bondage crosses and sex swings. They built elaborate sets in their backyard for taking erotic photos.

And they promoted the Hardwood Cabin online.

Up to 60 guests at a time came to mingle, sunbathe nude by the pool and have sex with fellow swingers and fetishists, Elliston said. Parties were frequent enough that the couple's laundry service was cycling through 50 bedsheets a week.

But the couple shut down the sex club last month when they were cited for running a business without a license and threatened with fines of up to $513 a day.

City officials say naked or not, the couple had been warned that their activities violated zoning laws for their residential neighborhood. Large swingers groups aren't unusual locally, but they generally meet in commercial areas or hotels and not close to other homes.

A former policeman who admitted running a brothel has been spared being jailed.

Brian Sheridan ran Hamshaws, also known as Club Liberty, a club for swingers, with his wife Caroline.

Their plans for a three-day fetish festival on the site at Scaynes Hill, near Haywards Heath, were halted by police in 2006.

Local nutters had hired a snitch private investigator to infiltrate the club. He discovered up to 60 men were attending Pandora’s Party nights held at the club every Wednesday.

The event was run by a prostitute called Pandora and paid Sheridan for use of the club but had two other prostitutes working with her.

Private eye snitch Richard Clarke posed as a new member in April 2006 and paid a £150 entrance fee. He said Pandora and her girls had group and individual sex with clients in the games room while other men watched.

Sheridan and his wife, from Cobham, Surrey, were arrested but denied managing a brothel between November 2005 and June 2006.

They were due to stand trial at Hove Crown Court last month but Sheridan changed his plea to guilty at the last moment. Prosecutors offered no evidence against Mrs Sheridan who was found not guilty on the orders of the judge.

Sheridan was given a ten-month prison sentence suspended for two years. Judge Cedric Joseph also sentenced Sheridan to 40 hours unpaid community work.

Update: Planning to Demolish

30th September

A former brothel and swingers club could be demolished to make way for luxury homes.

If the plans are accepted, it would be the end of a piece of history for the sleepy village of Scaynes Hill, near Haywards Heath.

On Thursday, Mid Sussex District Council will consider the plans to change the face of Hamshaws in Sloop Lane.

The land was bought last year by Scandia Hus. Planners will decide whether to demolish all buildings, including the club house, and allow four detached houses.

A naturist club in London's Kilburn, which police claim is a brothel, has had its licence revoked. The Soho Beach House in Kilburn High Road was stripped of its licence by Camden Council bosses.

In the course of 10 visits since March, police compiled a dossier of evidence including used condoms, traces of cocaine and reports from the public that women were available for £120.

Owner Douglas Ifedha asked for a second chance, saying his club was not a brothel and that he had learned from his mistakes. But he could not convince the licensing panel. He said the cost of £120 was for entry to an all-night private party, which included drinks but not sex, although only the men pay.

It's not a brothel at all. It's a themed event - it's a swingers party, he pleaded: We don't have women there and men paying them for sex. We have couples or bikini nights. There might be sex going on but it's a private party. People don't understand what's going on in there.

Ifedha has vowed to appeal the decision.

The Pleasure Palace is a place where sexy is the dress code and where the world comes to play, according to its Web site.

Hillsborough County code enforcement officials use more succinct language, calling the Tampa business  a sexual encounter center and a swingers club.

A hearing on Sept. 3 will determine if the Pleasure Palace is in violation of the county's ordinance restricting sexually oriented businesses.

Under the law, an adult entertainment business and its employees must have licenses to remain open. The Pleasure Palace does not.

First Amendment lawyer Luke Lirot represents the Pleasure Palace and said the business is a private membership club that caters to people with more progressive sexual viewpoints. The business, open for seven years, has managed to avoid the county's definition of an adult entertainment establishment in the past, Lirot said.

Hillsborough sheriff's Maj. Paul Davis said his agency investigated the club this year and said that other than the code violations, no criminal activity has occurred at the Pleasure Palace.

The Sept. 3 quasi-judicial hearing will decide if the business is illegal and needs to be shut down, Davis said.

It's obviously not everybody's cup of tea, Lirot said. But these are human beings. It's an ideological issue, not an environmental or zoning issue.

From what is being reported by La Stampa newspaper in Italy, a quarter of all Italian couples regularly take part in wife swapping.

According to their article titled, The Lunch Time Swingers, almost 500,000 Italian couples are officially swapping partners at private sex clubs, and thousands more doing it in a more ad-hoc fashion in car parks, specially designated beaches or even cemeteries.

The report said that wife swapping had increased at a dizzying rate everywhere, and a major reason behind this predilection can be attributed to the internet which has apparently stripped away the taboos.

The article based its finding on the figures given by The International Federation for the Protection of Rights and Freedoms, or Federsex, in Rome, which said that wife swapping organizations have 500,000 members that meet in 200 private clubs across Italy and swap partners.

But this was just the tip of the iceberg; as the Federsex experts said that there exist closer to two million, or a quarter of the eight million sexually active couples across the country.

There are an estimated one million swingers in the UK and according to the author of a new book, the sexy pastime could become even more common place thanks to the credit crunch.

Ashley Lister, who wrote and researched Swingers: Female Confidential, reckons that in the coming months more people will shun expensive restaurants and nights out in favour of cheaper pleasures.

And for many that means meeting regularly to have sex with someone other than their partners.

Ashley says: With a recession on its way, swinging is about to go through a boom period because it is such a cost effective way for people to enjoy themselves and to get maximum enjoyment from minimum outlay.

Ashley spoke to students, single mums in their 20s, unemployed swingers, top lawyers and even swinging doctors - of every age, size and shape imaginable.

And he discovered that contrary to popular belief, most shun the notorious swingers parties in favour of getting to know a small number of similar minded people socially. Then it is simply a case of consenting adults taking part in whatever sexual practice they desire generally, with the full support and encouragement of their partner, husband or wife.

Ashley said: I found it riveting to talk to these people about a subject that is normally forbidden. They really are just normal people, it's just they have a liberated attitude towards sex. They could be your neighbour, your boss or even the person who sits next to you at work and you would never know. But what I enjoyed about it all was the openness among themselves and they actually seemed empowered by what they do in that they could state exactly what they want and just do that.

Having researched and written his insight into the world of swinging, Ashley was only left with one question about the ever growing phenomenon - why do women do it?

Ashley said: Nobody asked me why men did it, they seemed to understand men would do that kind of thing for more sex, but everyone asked what motivated women, so I decided to look into it and write Swingers: Female Confidential.

The taboos around sexual equality in the bedroom are finally being broken down and if we continue in the current vein they will be ultimately vanquished.

It used to be that a woman with a libido was considered to be dangerous or insane and there has long been the double standards between male and female promiscuity. To some extent that is still true today, but I don't think it has the same severe connotations that it used to have.

Society has become more open, we have the Ann Summer shops on the high street, we have erotic fiction in print and there is an acceptance now that women are allowed to be sexual creatures unrestricted by the double standard hierarchy imposed on them by a patriarchal society.

And liberated women are more free to do what they want and that's why I think they turn to swinging.

...Read full review

Another sex club has been operating in a North Texas neighborhood and nearby nutters want it to stop. Sources have told CBS 11 News that La Maison Joue is a so-called "swingers" club that, until recently, met at a hotel in Dallas.

In recent months a swingers club called The Cherry Pit has been scrutinized by police, city officials and neighbors in Duncanville. The organizer of the club in McKinney says she has nothing to do with the Cherry Pit.

Elizabeth Grilley denies operating a sex club, but admits adults meet to have "consensual" relationships in the home on Cordova Lane. Earlier this month the Executive Director for Development Services for the City of McKinney advised Grilley she is violating city ordinances. Grilley would not consent to an on-camera interview, but over the telephone she stated, We aren't anything like the Cherry Pit.

McKinney Police and city officials met with Grilley on June 16 and again on June 21. Following those meetings, the city issued a letter to Grilley informing her that the club would be violating a city ordinance by meeting in a single family dwelling. According to city officials, Grilley has agreed not to have any more parties at the house. This week the club shut down its Web site and a moving truck was seen moving furnishings out of the residence.

A Florida judge has all but ended the state's cases against 17 people who were arrested last year in two controversial raids at Broward sex clubs.

Upholding a lower court, Circuit Judge James I. Cohn ruled that someone other than an investigating police officer has to be offended in order for the crime of lewdness to occur at a swingers' club where notices were posted telling the squeamish to stay out. It was a further indication that the state's case, which attracted national attention, is rapidly collapsing.

It came one day after another Broward judge dismissed lewdness charges against the co-owner of one of the most popular of the clubs, Trapeze II.

Defense attorney Daniel Aaronson - who has four Trapeze defendants as clients and another person arrested during an earlier raid at the now-defunct Athena's Forum in Pompano Beach - said This is the nail in the coffin, and this should dismiss all these cases.

A total of 50 people were arrested at the two clubs 18 months ago by armed and masked Broward sheriff's deputies. Some defendants have had their charges dropped, others paid misdemeanor fines, but 17 men and women resolved to fight it out.

Melanie Dietrich of Chicago's Loving Couples Club said the Broward case is a landmark: People in the Lifestyle who were afraid no longer have to live with this fear because now they know that what they love to do is legal. There is no doubt now, as long as they have sex in private and do not bother anyone.

But nutters were predictably wound up.

Barbara Collier, chairman of the Christian Coalition of Broward County, said swingers are lewd because lewdness means they are preoccupied with sex and outrageous and indecent behavior.

The legal process was at fault, Collier whinged, because attorneys were able to strike off the list of jurors people with a strong sense of morality. There were not any moral people on that jury,  she said, reacting to comments made by jurors about what they felt was the state's inability to prove lewd behavior after a judge gave a directed verdict of acquittal in the case against Dennis Freeland, co-owner of Trapeze.

Collier said she felt that an apparent lack of public outrage at swingers' clubs operating in Broward - which has Florida's largest concentration - was reflected in the court's rejection of the state's case.

According to reports coming from France, sunbathers on the Cote d'Azur, who once adopted a "laissez faire" attitude to nakedness, have turned against displaying too much bare flesh.

Even regulars at La Voile Rouge beach club on Pampelonne's Beach, in St. Tropez, where it all started prefer to keep their top on.

The development has sparked a minor debate in the country which has always prided itself on being less prudish than its Anglo-Saxon neighbours.

For some it is simply a change in fashion, for others it marks a new conservatism sweeping France. Yet others say it is to do with increased health concerns about skin cancer and sensitivities to the growing Muslim community.

For decades, Germans holidaying on the white sandy beaches of Usedom have opted to leave their swimming trunks at home. Their penchant for naked bathing is nothing unusual in a country where naturism is popular and seen as natural.

But this summer, border controls between Germany and Poland were dismantled as part of the Schengen agreement. Now flocks of Poles stroll along the leafy coastal paths to nearby German towns - and many are shocked by what they see.

But for Germans of all ages who enjoy swimming and sunbathing on naturist - or FKK (free body culture) - beaches, the disapproving glances from Polish walkers are incomprehensible and intrusive.

Naturism is so popular on the Baltic coast island of Usedom that German travel agent OssiUrlaub selected it as a destination for its first nudist charter flight, a trip which was later cancelled because of "moral concerns".

It is disgusting, said Edward Zajac, a Szczecin politician who wants to move the FKK beach from the Polish border.

But the Germans, who have been unfolding their towels on the beach year in year out, are unlikely to want to move. For the time being, authorities plan to put up signs marking the boundaries of the nudist beach - in both German and Polish.

Nudists are a pretty tolerant bunch. But when a beach came under threat from developers it was too much to bear.

Defence research group Qinetiq had been involved in a two-and-a-half-year battle to get planning permission for more than 100 flats on former Ministry of Defence land next to the nudist beach at Eastney in Portsmouth.

The naturists opposed the plans, fearing Qinetiq would ban them so as not to put off potential buyers.

Yesterday they won the right to enjoy the beach after the company agreed to allow them access.

Mike Houlsby of the Eastney Naturist Beach Liaison Group said: Nudists have been using the beach since the mid-1930s and the MoD always turned a blind eye.

After a full day of sightseeing, Diane set out to do what she came to Toronto for: I went to Club Hers and they were having a blast.

I went to Wicked and there were lots of pretty people there. Diane is into "the lifestyle," and Toronto is her sexual playground: I try to get here once every other month.

The Greater Toronto Area i(GTA) s now home to at least a dozen establishments that describe themselves variously as "swingers' clubs," "hedonists' clubs" and "lifestyle clubs," and which are increasingly drawing clients from afar.

Ménage à Quatre, a new lifestyle club, has just opened in Etobicoke, bringing the total number of such establishments in the GTA to at least 12. The sex clubs have been proliferating since 2005, when a Supreme Court decision rewrote the definition of indecency, ruling that clubs that offer group sex and partner-swapping are legal because they cause society no harm.

Wicked, Club Hers and Ménage à Quatre are all "on-premise" establishments, meaning that clients can engage in sexual activities in the club - and just about anything, as long as it is consensual, goes.

On-premise clubs are illegal in some U.S. states, but even in states where they are technically legal, such as New York, the practice isn't well tolerated, says Richard Pollara, proprietor of Ménage à Quatre.

Although in operation only two months, Pollara's club already has 400 members: I would say that 25 to 30% of the people who are coming to the club are coming from more than an hour away, and the vast majority of them are coming from two or three hours away.

Wicked, which has been in operation for almost six years, claims 30,000 members. Ms. Benzion says membership spiked following the Supreme Court's ruling. The legitimization drew a lot of traffic from south of the border, she says. But membership swelled locally as well. The media coverage brought the lifestyle to people's attention, while the ruling legitimized it for people who might not have risked it.

Wicked's clientele is a far cry from most preconceptions of traditional swingers: over-tanned and over the hill, bobbing in a hot tub. Wicked does have a Jacuzzi, but the similarities end there. The crowd on a recent Saturday evening was multicultural, relatively young, and obviously well-groomed for the occasion.

Mr. Benzion, a savvy businessman, is aware of the revenue his establishment brings to the city. I'd like to see more backup from the municipal government. The same way as they're backing up Pride. In future, if we are doing good for the city, I'd like to see some recognition.

Two Britons accused of having sex in public on a Dubai beach have been charged with the most serious offences open to the authorities.

Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors had hoped to escape with a caution after they publicly apologised to the police officers involved in the case.

But the pair, who as part of their bail conditions are unable to leave Dubai, have been charged with three offences which could mean a maximum sentence of six years in prison if found guilty.

The triple charges are indecent behaviour, having unmarried sex and having consumed alcohol.

Update: Just Kissing

16th August 2008

The couple were summoned to appear before Dubai's Court of First Instance yesterday in a hurried hearing organised in a bid to ward off the intense media interest the case has generated both in the Muslim country and abroad.

They admitted consuming alcohol but denied the other offences. Legal sources said that unusually, they have opted to represent themselves in the case.

Judge Hamad Abdul Latif yesterday adjourned the case and both Palmer and Acors were ordered to stay in the country until the next court hearing, which according to some reports will be on September 2.

The battle between a swingers club and the City of Duncanville is escalating. This after armed police officers raided the "Cherry Pit" over the weekend.

On Saturday night police from Duncanville and Cedar Hill used a battering ram to force their way inside the Cherry Pit. With their weapons drawn, officers executed a search warrant looking for evidence of prostitution and money laundering.

Police were also looking for evidence that the Cherry Pit was operating as a sexually oriented business and sex club in a residential area.

A witness said: There was a big group of people… wearing solid black. One was wearing a mask. We waited for the homeowner to answer the door, and then they started busting it in. They ran in the house carrying automatic weapons, pistols... everyone was basically terrified.

Police say they went in with guns drawn because no one answered the door. They seized at least $500 in cash, DVDs, CDs and Cherry Pit business cards. Police made no arrests and did not issue any citations.

According to the attorney for the owners of the Cherry Pit, the owners and some 55 people inside were terrified and thought they were being robbed.

A swingers' club has been granted a licence for late-night entertainment and drinks.

Xscape Cambridge, based on the Norman Way Industrial Estate in Over, had its application for a premises licence approved by South Cambridgeshire District Council.

But the council's licensing subcommittee only granted a licence to the interior of the unit, after hearing concerns about "potentially highly inappropriate" conversations in the outdoor smoking area being overheard by children.

The club must also ask clients to provide a passport or driving licence to gain membership. Under the terms of the licence, the police can inspect the personal details of club members, including names and addresses, on request.

A retrospective planning application for change of use to a private members' club - including bar, dance floor and "rooms for sexual activities" - has yet to be heard.

The license application was considered under the four objectives of the Licensing Act 2003 - prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, prevention of public nuisance and protection of children from harm.

August 26 sees the celebration of Women's Equality Day. It marks the 72 anniversary of passage of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote in nationwide elections.

However, on August 23, an organization known as Gotopless.org claims that women are discriminated against in the U.S. by suffering arrest for baring their bosoms in public. By contrast, dudes such as Matthew McConoughey can go shirtless whenever they desire.

Women who dare to be topless in public in the U.S. are arrested, fined, humiliated , criminalized.

On August 23, women will rally across the USA to protest this gross inequality in the law and will demand for the constitution to be amended to grant them the fundamental right to be topless wherever men are.

Currently the following rallies are slated:

• WASHINGTON, DC: Lafayette Park, across from the White House
• LOS ANGELES: Venice Beach
• NEW YORK CITY: Central Park
• HAWAII: Kona, Big Island
• DENVER: (August 26) at the door steps of the Presidential Democratic Convention.

Actually, several US and Canadian cities allow women to go without a shirt; however, few of them exercise the right. New York has a ruling from its high court that one of the most important purposes to be served by the equal protection clause is to ensure that ‘public sensibilities' grounded in the prejudice and unexamined stereotypes do not become enshrined as part of a policy of government.

The District of Columbia, as of 1986, has a Court of Appeals ruling in place that the D.C. nudity law does not apply to any body part but genitals.

In Florida, the Fifth District Court of Appeal in 2007 dismissed a woman's plea to go topless at Daytona Beach. However, the court dismissed the case without an opinion, thus, presenting an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

Nine foreign women were charged with prostitution after being arrested at the weekend on the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos, police have said.

Police sources in Athens said earlier the women involved were British and had been taking part in an oral sexual competition which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet.

However, a local police official on Zakynthos said the women were mostly from eastern Europe and were working in strip clubs at Laganas in the south of the Ionian island.

Six foreign and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged with encouraging obscene behaviour.

Sex seems to be everywhere these days, yet the details of Max Mosley's privacy hearing have helped lift a veil on one type of sexual behaviour still shrouded in secrecy - sadomasochism.

Nobody knows how many people are involved in the "scene": a loose grouping of people across the country who enjoy an unorthodox - and under current laws potentially illegal - sexual lifestyle. However, one US study suggests 11% of women and 14% of men have engaged in BDSM - an abbreviated acronym for bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and masochism - activities.

If those figures are translated to the UK, it could mean around four million people have tried BDSM. A smaller, but still substantial, number has chosen to make it a "lifestyle choice".

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Fighting Freedom

Thanks to Alan
See full article from the Pandora's Blog

More and more papers are adding their voices to the consensus that spanking play is normal, common, and harmless. More articles on spanking have been posted in the last week than ever before. The Daily Record recently ran an advice column on how to seek out introducing healthy spanking play, and yesterday's Metro ran a story on Peter Jones, author of Confessions of a London Spank Daddy, which surely was only published because of the kink-curious climate provoked by the Mosley case, for all that it studiously avoids mentioning it. Spanking has never been so fascinating to the UK press.

The Mosley case was hugely depressing to me at the time, not least because I was busy stressing about the new violent porn legislation which was passed a few weeks ago, and which groups all over the UK fought for years to prevent, criminalising possession of images which appear to depict serious injury to the anus, breasts or genitals. I didn't write about this legislation, either, because when it was passed I felt so disaffected, so disenfranchised, that I just didn't know what to say. We'd campaigned and protested for months, and they'd passed it anyway.

The actual wording of the legislation is dangerously vague. Spanking and CP material isn't necessarily illegal, but given an unsympathetic judge armed with waffly, imprecise language, it could be. As a result, most of the individuals I know who own spanking porn haven't changed their habits since the law was passed; but the film producers are getting increasingly antsy. Several times this year, ideas I've had for shoots which would have been perfectly fine a few months previously were vetoed by nervous site owners who didn't want to risk it. Any caning on the breasts, for example, was deemed off-limits by one site owner unless it was so light as to be laughable. Face slapping was another no-no, although quite why when faces aren't a part of the body listed in the new legislation, I have no idea.

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