One of the most daring adult clubs in Osaka's Minami entertainment district has been shut down in what many say is the first strike in a campaign to clean up the area.

Six of the hostesses and a male customer of the "sexual cabaret club" Impulse were arrested last month for indecent exposure after the workers allegedly labored while entirely nude and the patron exposed his genitals.

As soon as you enter the club, a hostess will give you a hot towel that she has already used to swipe her private parts. You can start fondling the hostesses' breasts as soon as you sit down, but that's nothing. You immediately get a drink, but it's a hostess's urine served on the rocks. They also serve tidbits sprinkled with cuttings of the workers' pubic hair, the employee of an adult entertainment introduction service tells Shukan Jitsuwa. They also had a service where the ice served in drinks is first inserted into the hostess's private parts. They just kept on getting wilder and wilder and I think they went too far in the end.

Impulse was among the most popular establishments in Minami. Some say the arrests at Impulse signal the start of a clean-up of the entertainment district.

Sure, it stretched the limits, but it never really went beyond them. It didn't provide any sexual services that resulted in ejaculation and if there was any nudity going on, it was never anything more than a quick flash, the operator of a call girl service says. Even its most raunchy stuff wasn't that serious. I think the arrests have been made to send a message to others.

A member of the House of Representatives has filed a bill seeking to impose stiffer penalties for perpetrators of highly scandalous crimes against decency.

Aside from longer jail sentences, House Bill 2856 filed by Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco also seeks to increase the fines provided for in the Revised Penal Code for such offenses as grave scandal, indecency and pornography, among others, to between P100,000 to P2,000,000, among others. Currently, such offenses carry sentences of only six months or less.

The current law seems to be taken lightly by offenders since its penalties are minimal compared to the gravity of crime, Cuenco said There is no justice if we let the criminals responsible for the grim days ahead of these victims walk away unscathed -- only to be incarcerated be for a mere six months or less.

The lawmaker also said there is a need to amend some provisions in the law to curtail, if not totally eradicate the conduct of inappropriate and obscene behavior.

The Representative Carmelo Lazatin has proposed a bill to the Philippine House of Representatives that would impose fines on individuals participating in online sexual activity.

Called An act prohibiting cyber sex, prostitution and pornography in the Philippines, providing penalties for its violation and for other purposes, or House Bill (HB) 3190, the legislation would prohibit cybersex — defined as sexually explicit online activity between two or more individuals — as well as prostitution or forms of pornography broadcast on the Internet.

Lazatin’s proposal calls for any financier, manager, producer or promoter of a “cybersex operation” to be penalized with jail terms of from 20-30 years, and fines from more than $12,000, but not more than $25,000.

Other offenders would be subjected to possible jail terms of between 5-10 years and fines of $6,000 to $12,000.

Non-resident aliens convicted of violating regulations would face the same penalties and fines with deportation immediately following completion of their jail term, and would be barred also from re-entering the country.

Offenders would also risk loss of any property used in the commission of related crimes.

In the bill, “cybersex” was defined by Lazatin as any form of Interactive prostitution, pornography and the performance of a sexual act or other obscene or indecent act, between or among those belonging to the same or opposite sexes, using, as primary channel, the cyberspace.

Madrid's first Pornography Festival is planned for April 2008. The festival works towards promoting the glory of sex as a form of adult entertainment and shaping the acceptance of explicit pornography as a means of exploration to be enjoyed without succumbing to social stigma. High-class and arty!

La Jugueteria, Spain's first erotic boutique, and a Berlin based film production company are putting this festival together with citywide participation from theaters, galleries, and nightclubs.

For four days, you'll be able to relive the "golden age" of pornography with the opportunity to watch high-quality, eye-opening hardcore porn classics, shorts, plus "experimental" stuff produced by the international best of the industry. What's more, if you have the risky yet innovative vision required for pornographic cinematography, the festival gives you the chance to make your very own porn. Categories are gay, lesbian, and heterosexual. Deadline for submissions is January 31, 2008.

Amsterdam authorities said they will introduce new measures to crack down on pimps and stop the exploitation of prostitutes.

Under the proposed policies, brothel owners, escort services and so-called "security" firms that work with prostitutes will be forced to seek a license and will be subject to financial auditing, the city government said in a statement.

The city will force escort services and "security" firms for prostitutes, which usually are not registered businesses, to obtain a licence, a fixed address and phone line, and subject them to financial auditing, he said.

The proposal, which must be approved by the City Assembly, is part of a larger strategy to reduce criminality associated with prostitution, the city said.

The removal of the ban on brothels in 2000 that made prostitution legal hasn't achieved what was expected. (Instead) it gave free reign for the exploitation of women in the sex industry, the statement said.

It added that it hoped to increase the legal age for prostitution from 18 to 21.

A young man came to the sex-shop located on Leningradskoye Shosse in Moscow. At the entrance he took out a roll, threw it to the shop hall and ran away. In a few seconds the roll exploded. Silicon dildos and other specific goods were driven asunder.

The police are now holding an investigation and trying to identify what kind of explosive device it was. They say the bomb was equal to 50 grams in TNT. There are several versions of the explosion motives: it could be some of the customers who did not like the shop’s production or some citizen fighting for morality by such extreme means. The police also do not exclude the version about the former sex-shop seller who has been sacked recently and could want to take revenge

Police in Dubai say they have raided 22 brothels, arresting 247 people.

A total of 170 prostitutes and 12 pimps, mostly from China, were arrested along with 65 clients of various nationalities.

The police chief said such raids were a frequent occurrence but were not usually announced to the media.

In March, UAE police announced they had deported about 4,300 prostitutes from Dubai during 2006.

Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim said: We cannot tolerate this kind of behaviour that is against human moral ethics and our religious beliefs.

Foreign workers and expatriates make up over 80% of the 4 million inhabitants of the UAE, and men outnumber women by about three-to-one. Somehow with ratios like that then surely prostitution will continue unabated in UAE.

Prague City Hall has unveiled new plans to banish prostitution from the capital’s streets.

As of January 2008, prostitutes caught offering their services in Prague’s public spaces could face weighty fines, and will be banned from the area. But women’s groups have asked whether the City Hall’s new decree goes far enough.

Wenceslas Square at night has a seedy feel to it. Prostitutes and pimps are clearly visible at the corner of every street, particularly near the top of the square.

This is what Prague City Hall would like to put a stop to with its new decree. Under the new regulations, prostitutes offering their services in public places could face a fine of up to 30,000 CZK (1,500 USD). Police will also have the right to ban sex workers from the area, on the grounds that prostitution is a disturbance of the peace.

Petra Burcikova is the head of La Strada, an organization which fights against people trafficking said she can see the initiative as having two possible outcomes: Either [the prostitution] stays where it is, and the sex workers will try to find ways to avoid sanctions, or it will really be moved to some of the areas that are remote and inaccessible. It is important to keep in mind that this increases the danger and threat to the sex workers themselves. This is something that most people, and most councilors, don’t take into account. This increases sex workers’ health risks and even risk of death tremendously.

Prostitution is illegal in the Czech Republic. But Prague has still come to be known abroad as a destination for sex tourism. This new decree doesn’t affect the city’s 58 brothels, which the deputy mayor Rudolf Blazek has said are beyond the council’s legislation.

The Maharashtra government banned dance bars two years ago, and claims the flesh trade flourishing at these joints has been finished off. Wrong.

Dance bars in Mumbai continue to double up as pick-up joints and the flesh trade flourishes under police protection. Undercover CNN-IBN journalists visited bars that the police had recently raided and found the places were still a front for flesh trade.

At the LP bar in Andheri, girls sat in a corner, policemen waited outside and a bouncer called Ram Singh was a pimp. He offered to supply “bahar ki ladki” (foreign girls) and asked the reporters to wait outside in their car.

Outside the bar another man offered to “supply” women. “It will cost you Rs 8,000 for a girl. and for Rs 1,500 I will arrange a flat for you.

The next stop in CNN-IBN’s investigation was the Samudra bar in Chembur. At 1.30 am the bar is packed with women and it’s clear that many of them are not out for dinner. This bar too is a front for prostitution, and being located near the Chembur police station doesn’t harm its business.

The friendly doorman warns us that the police will be inspecting the bar tonight but asks us not be worry. I will show you 10 girls, pick any, he says.

Rakesh Marya, Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, promised to conduct an investigation on CNN-IBN’s report: These bars have licences but we'll check if they are violating any deadline or if any offences are being committed.

Canada's TV watchdog has approved the launch of Vanessa, a national pay TV porn channel.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved the application by Montreal-based Sex-Shop Television to operate a digital French-language channel devoted to the themes sex appeal, sensuality, eroticism and sexuality for a seven-year license period.

The regulator said the proposed pay TV channel will include documentaries, news coverage and magazines that focus on the sex shop industry.

At the same time, the CRTC barred the operators of Vanessa from airing infomercials, corporate or promotional videos, a key driver of advertising revenue.

The regulator said it received only two submissions against Vanessa. To ensure Vanessa remains within Canadian taste standards, the CRTC said the proposed pay TV channel must meet general community standards within the context of a discretionary service intended for an informed public.

China's public security departments have stopped using condoms as evidence in prostitution cases, according to an official with the AIDS prevention committee under the State Council.

Now police departments at all levels no longer take condoms as the proof of illegal sex activities in entertainment venues, Han Mengjie, also secretary of the National Center for AIDS Control and Prevention.

As various public places were told by health authorities to provide condoms in an attempt to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, police departments have gradually adapted to this change in line with AIDS prevention efforts, according to Han.

According to national surveillance figures, the rate of regular condom use among China's prostitutes rose from 14.7% in 2001 to 41.4% in 2006.

All hotels in Beijing will be required to provide condoms in every room by the end of next year, though so far they are only available in 133 hotels out of 700 in Beijing, according to local government statistics.

The Regulation on AIDS Prevention and Control, issued by the State Council in January last year, urges all public places designated by provincial or municipal governments to provide condoms or condom vending machines.

City authorities are cracking down on alcohol sales along Hamburg's famous Reeperbahn as they try to curb the drunkenness, violence and litter associated with visitors to its strip clubs, sex shops, brothels and discos.

Owners of gas stations and street kiosks around the central street in Hamburg's red-light district are being asked to stop selling alcohol in glass bottles, and not to sell alcohol after 11 p.m. as of Jan. 1.

If voluntary sales limitations don't work for the vendors, then there will be an alcohol ban as of May 1, said city Interior Ministry spokesman Reinhard Fallak.

The rules will be applied not only to the Reeperbahn strip, but to the wider red-light zone that has grown up around it in the St. Pauli district, Fallak said.

Beer gardens and street cafes will be exempt from the restrictions.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has vowed to stop temporary visa-holders from working as prostitutes.

Under existing laws, women whose visas have work rights attached are allowed to work in the sex industry.

Most commonly, this involves women from Southeast Asia who are able to enter Australia on a range of temporary visas and legally work, including working holidaymaker and student visas, Andrews said in a statement. The coalition believes that it is morally inappropriate for temporary visas to be used as a means for people to enter Australia with the intent purpose of working in the sex industry, including in legal brothels.

Andrews said a re-elected coalition government would amend migration regulations to prohibit the practice.

Prostitution Behind the Veil is narrated by the director, Nahid Persson, who fled Iran 20 years ago. Her commentary adds her perspective and contextual information to the film's events. An element of the film is the difficulties faced by a female director shooting a film. Filming prostitution in the street was hard and dangerous, as is evident in the film.

Minna and Fariba are neighbours and good friends. They support one another. Both have to live under the pervasive curtailment of women's rights and the double standards of today's Iranian society. They make a living walking the streets looking for men. They have a choice between leaving their small children at home alone or bringing them along when they have sex with men.

The film is a sympathetic portrait of the two women, exploring their day-to-day life and the workings of prostitution in a country that bans it and prosecutes adulterers, sometimes with the penalty of capital punishment.

Many of the clients find a way to buy sex and still comply with Muslim law: they marry the women in what is called 'Sighe', a temporary marriage sanctioned in Shia Islam. Sighe can last from two hours up to 99 years. Both Minna and Fariba enter into Sighe with clients, and Fariba is in a Sighe marriage with a neighbour, Habib, that lasts six months. Giving his perspective on temporary marriage, Habib says that Sighe is a way to help poor women, it is an act of mercy in the name of Allah.

The film follows the two women for more than a year. It describes their middle-class backgrounds and their submission to treacherous men and drugs. We see how Fariba manages to quit drugs and prostitution, only to find herself temporarily married to a man who will not let her leave the house.

Japan has come up with a fine idea for a fun bar, a 'panty bar'.

It is a place where one drinks, gets drunk, and then drops one's inhibitions. Particularly when women drop their underthings.

Shukan Taishu's reporter was spotted this unfamiliar term, which appeared in a cryptic classified ad in one of Tokyo's evening tabloids. The ad simply read: Panty bar. Lewd women. Exhibitionism. Peeping.

This particular panty bar, according to our reporter, operates on a members-only basis. The first-time outlay comes to 15,000 yen, with each subsequent visit 10,000 yen.

The establishment is lushly carpeted, requiring arrivals to remove their shoes at the entrance. Instead of chairs, there's a sunken well in the floor, similar to the "hori-kotatsu" in Japanese-style restaurants, which enables patrons' legs to dangle beneath while seated at the counter. It seats a maximum of 10.

In addition to the counter, the room features a "show space" the size of a queen-size bed. Red and yellow lamps are strategically positioned to create an erotic ambience -- suggestively subdued, but by no means too dark to conceal the activities therein.

The reporter plopped himself down beside an unaccompanied woman. Glancing up at the ceiling, he saw it was festooned with women's panties of all sizes, shapes and colors.

Oh those? says the proprietor. They were all left behind by our customers. Would you like to take a whiff? Some are still fairly fresh, if you get my drift...

And Kyo-chan, as the woman's name turned out to be, required very little encouragement. Goaded on by the proprietor, she sloshed down the remaining contents of her scotch and clambered over to the show space, gesturing for our reporter to follow. Whereupon she hiked up her skirt, revealing diaphanous panties, beneath which an abundant black bush beckoned.

The reporter was soon running his fingers up and down against her crotch, and felt secretions -- first heat, followed by considerable moisture -- percolating within.

Do you want to see more? she asks in a husky voice. She slid the material to one side and spread herself invitingly. His finger took the plunge.

Just as there are exhibitionistic women who will bring themselves to orgasm before a panting male audience, there are women who, after losing their inhibitions to strong drink, seem to have no objection to snatching a strange man's schlong and giving it a friendly fondle. That's the kind of promiscuous place a panty bar is.

The female patrons of this particular shop are known to be somewhat domineering, and there have been occasions when, encountering a male of masochistic proclivities, the two will engage in a full-fledged SM session.

There's something about my place that really brings out people's suppressed libidos, The proprietor winks.

Comment: Tommy Ducks

26th November 2007

Thanks to Patrick

There was once a pub in Manchester  where panties festooned the ceiling - quote taken from a travel website:

Tommy Ducks used to be famous for having a ceiling festooned with the underwear of it's female clientele. The tradition was that if you were a female, you had to donate the underwear you were wearing if visiting Tommy Ducks for the first time.

Unfortunately, Tommy ducks is no more. It is an EX duck. It has ceased to be. It has gone to meet its maker. It is pining for the fjords. It was bulldozed in the early nineties to make way for the car park of the Bridgewater Hall.

South Korean authorities have punished nearly 24,000 prostitutes, pimps or clients in a two-month operation against the sex trade, the National Police Agency have said.

Most the 23,626 caught, of which about 19,900 were clients, were fined. 32 people accused of more serious offences were formally arrested and detained pending trial.

Clients faced a maximum fine of three million won (3,315 dollars) and brothel owners up to 10 years in jail or 100 million won in fines.

It was our third special crackdown on prostitution this year. The next one will begin in late December, the officer said of the latest operation, which began in August.

It was one of a series of police crackdowns since a new anti-prostitution law with tougher penalties was passed in 2004. Last year alone 35,000 clients were persecuted.

The anti-prostitution drive has resulted in a sharp increase in incidents of South Koreans involved in the foreign sex trade. The government plans to revise the law to punish citizens caught buying sex abroad.

It is been two years since dance bars were banned in Mumbai but many are still running, and the Mumbai Police is cracking down on them.

Recently, nine girls were arrested for soliciting customers at one such bar during a late night raid. A few days ago, six girls were arrested in a similar raid. Nine girls were arrested. They were soliciting customers, says Police Inspector R B Mane.

Many dance bars continue to thrive in some form or the other. Some feature live orchestras to entertain customers, and have women waiters. Though it is legally allowed only up to 9: 30 pm, the bars generally close around 1:30 am.

Dance bar owners say the police crackdown is not justified, as the Supreme Court is still hearing their case. This is legal extortion, says president, Dance Bars Association, Manjeet Singh Sethi.

While many of the dance bars still survive, reinvented as Orchestra Bars, fate hasn't been this kind to the dance bar girls themselves. Prostitution is up 10 fold. They have so many expenses and can only earn 100 -200 rupees a day as waiters, says Singh.