UK Sex Sells News

A New Cross sex cinema has surprisingly been granted a licence to show films but with miserable licence restrictions designed to make it unviable.

Club 487, discreetly located behind the doors of an old New Cross Road printing shop at 487 New Cross Road , has been running unlicensed since the turn of the year, charging punters £15 a time to watch explicit films and pleasure themselves in the basement. And, as News Shopper found, the audience even have sex with each other.

Following a police raid, a licensing application to show movies was finally submitted in late April, with manager Peter Jones billing the venue as an adult environment for people meet/socialise .

And, following a brief discussion at a Catford town hall licensing committee last night (June 2), the club was granted a licence to show films. However, there were a number of restrictions designed to make to the cinema unviable.

Firstly, the licence only allows the club to show films with a certificate from 18 down to U. And the club must also agree to maintain CCTV of every room inside the premises except the toilets, keeping copies of the tapes for 31 days.

Leaving the town hall, heavily-tattooed cinema manager Jones would only say: I'm pleased.

Despite recent publicity around the cinema, just two people had objected to the licence.

Managers of Club Rouge in Lothian Road, Edinburgh, confirmed it had closed and would make way for Innis and Gunn's Beer Kitchen bar. Directors said their treatment by police made it impossible to continue operating.

But police said they had acted on clear evidence that the bar's licence conditions were being breached, but did not really provide enough details to be very convincing. A police spokeswoman said:

The licensee in this case took the decision to evict his tenant. This came after licensing officers identified numerous offences at the premises and brought them to the attention of the licensee.

A spokesman for the club said:

We'r e quite upset we had to close it. To be honest, we feel that we were forced out. We had the pressure from the local police. The trigger was constant visits. Harassment would be a word [to describe the situation].

Club Rouge recently claimed to be the only lap-dancing bar in the city that does not require its dancers to fully undress and has made efforts to diversify into non-adult entertainment offerings over the last 18 months. A spokesman said the club had stopped full strip teases since August and it was now a venue where couples can go and where businessmen can take their clients .

Perhaps the closure also had something to do with the selected niche not proving popular.

MSPs have been debating ludicrous claims by feminist campaigners that employing under 18s as out of hours cleaners or tradesmen could somehow be 'groomed' or propositioned for sex. Thankfully the Scottish Government has refused to listen to the campaigners.

Labour MSP Cara Hilton proposed the amendment to the Air Weapons and Licensing Bill currently going through the Scottish Parliament. She told the parliament's local government committee:

As the Bill stands, under-18s would be able to work in such venues when sexual entertainment was not taking place. The Zero Tolerance Trust has argued that would create a groomers charter. Some men who attend such venues seek to buy sex there and there is no guarantee they will restrict their inquiries to performers.

Justice Minister Michael Matheson told the committee he had sympathy with the objective of offering better protection to young people, but he said the proposed ban could mean employment opportunities for young people were unreasonably restricted . He said:

I would not be comfortable in saying that a 17-year-old cleaner could not be employed, or a plumber's apprentice could not enter to repair a leak when sexual entertainment was not taking place.

When the amendment was put to the vote at the committee, there was a 3-3 tie and the convener, SNP MSP Kevin Stewart, used his casting vote to reject the ban.

Hilton had a cliché filled whinge about the decision:

There is a real risk that this Bill could now encourage a slippery slope, allowing sexual entertainment venues to employ teenage girls to work as cleaners or in admin roles and then persuading or subtly coercing them to become performers when they reach 18.

Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian is a 2015 erotic novel by EL James

In Christian Christian's own words, and through his thoughts, reflections, and dreams, E L James offers a fresh perspective on the love story that has enthralled millions of readers around the world.

Christian Grey, enigmatic hero of best-selling erotic novels Fifty Shades of Grey , is getting his own sequel.

Author EL James has announced that she is publishing a new version of her sexually explicit novel written from the point of view of the tormented tycoon and not the shy, young object of his desires, Anastasia Steele.

The new book, entitled Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, will be published on June 18, the fictional character's birthday. It will be published simultaneously by Vintage in the United States and Penguin Random House in Britain.

A strip club has been banned from using images of women dressed up as schoolgirls after miserable claims that the images somehow sexualise children .

Urban Tiger, a strip club in Bristol, promoted their St Trinian's style evening by using dancers dressed in white shirts, short tartan skirts and high boots intended to look like school uniforms.

Another similar image was posted to the club's Facebook page, asking punters: Like women in school uniform? Come along tonight.

Roz Hardie of the moralist campaign group Object whinged:

If you've got the sexualisation of children through adverts it does help to create the context where schoolchildren are being seen as sexual objects.

Urban Tiger's licence has now been altered to state:

Relevant entertainment shall not include any word, action or imagery that endorses or depicts, or might reasonably be taken as endorsing or depicting, or be promoted as including, any conduct which, if taking place in reality, would amount to a criminal offence.

Killjoy Sally Lewis, from the Independent Chair of Bristol Children's safeguarding Board, said this is an issue that may never have been thought about before , and that they want to raise awareness . She spewed:

We aren't trying to be killjoys or ruin anyone's fun. I don't think films like St Trinian's should be banned or anything. We have to look at this in context, she added.

...[BUT]...

I can't think why any right-minded person would think this was appropriate.

Reading Borough Council has refused a lap dancing licence for a restaurant, citing bollox about the tone of the area.

The closed restaurant Chronicles in Valpy Street had applied to open a lap dancing club in its basement. But at a licensing hearing at Reading Borough Council, councillors refused the application for a sexual establishment licence moralising that the nature of the venue was not in keeping with the tone of the area. In particular they clutched a few straws about the cultural heritage of landmarks like Reading Abbey and Forbury Gardens.

The restaurant has been closed since November but had hoped to reopen with the lap dancing club in the basement.

The latest newspaper sales figures reveal that the Sun's dropping of Page 3 at the end of January does not appear to have made any discernible difference to its circulation.

In the month of March, the sales audit shows that it sold an average of 1,858,067 copies. That was a slight improvement on the month of February.

Labour's Deputy Leader and feminist campaigner Harriet Harman has stuck her oar in over a planned lap dancing club in Newcastle.

For Your Eyes Only (FYEO) is set to use the basement of what was formerly The Den nightclub , on Newcastle's Grainger Street, as a table dancing bar set to be called the Purple Door Club.

Councillors sitting on Newcastle City Council's licensing committee backed the renewal of a sexual entertainment licence for the proposed Purple Door Club, taking over The Den nightclub on Grainger Street.

City council leader Nick Forbes spoke out about the club, moralising about its objectification of women, but Lib Dems in the city said Labour was placing political correctness before planning rules. He said earlier:

Although I understand that there is no recognition of objections on moral grounds, I would still wish to place on record my personal views that such objectification of women is not welcome in the city.

Harman agreed with his moralising:

Councils have to make difficult decisions on planning but I was pleased to see that Nick Forbes the Labour council leader has been extremely critical of the specific location of this particular establishment - right opposite the newly re-developed Central Station -- as well as putting on record his personal view that such objectification of women is not welcome in the city.

Fellow labour politician and extreme feminist, Vera Baird, added as police commissioner:

Venues like this send the wrong message and project the wrong image. It goes against the hard work over the last few years in making Newcastle a family friendly city.It is counterproductive and detrimental to that image, one which the council and many others have done so much to enhance.

Lib Dem councillor Greg Stone said an attempt to override planning rules could see the local authority footing a huge legal bill. He explained:

It is sadly not a surprise that Nick Forbes and Harriet Harman are seeking to put political correctness before proper process in planning and licensing decisions.

The council correctly followed legal advice that the existing licence for this premises meant a refusal was legally unjustifiable. The Labour council administration needs to bear in mind that refusing applications for reasons that are not legally justifiable can result in them being challenged and overturned, and the council taxpayer facing a bill for costs which can run into many thousands of pounds.

A model agent and part time porn star has made the news by standing for council elections.

John Langley has a model agency business called Johnny Rockard Glocal Media. The business has a side line of making porn films, but doesn't seem to have made much impact on the global market.

Langley is standing as a UKIP candidate in the Stockwood constituency of Bristol City Council. He is also vice chair of the Bristol branch of the party and stood for election in the last council elections in Brislington.

UKIP say they are fully aware of Langley's sideline when he was taken on as a council candidate. Langley said:

This is no big deal, it is just electioneering and it is the type of thing you expect in the run up to any election.

I have never made a big deal out of what I do and I am not breaking any laws.

UKIP is a working class party which appeals to working class people. Normal people go to the pub and enjoy a pint and then probably go home and enjoy adult entertainment. What people do in their private lives is really up to them.

What people do in the privacy of their own homes is nothing to do with politics and I cannot see why there should be any problem with any of this.

The government has been trailing this policy by forcing onerous age verification requirements on British adult Video on Demand websites. Unfortunately there is currently no economically viable way to implement age verification and the net result is that pretty much the entire British VoD business has either been forced to close or else move overseas.

Widening out the policy to all internet porn will not do anything to make age verification practical and so the only possible outcome is that all internet porn will have to be blocked by the ISPs. Perhaps a few sites with a massively comprehensive selection of porn (think porn Amazon) may be able absorb the administrative burden, but they will for sure be American.

Anyway this is what the Tories are proposing:

It's time to protect children online

By Sajid Javi, Culture & Censorship Secretary, writing for the Daily Mail

Imagine a 12-year-old-boy being allowed to walk into a sex shop and leave with a DVD showing graphic, violent sexual intercourse and the subjugation of women.

You would, quite rightly, ask whether society should allow such a young mind to view hard-core pornography. I'm sure we'd all agree that the answer would be an emphatic no .

Yet each and every day children right across our country are being exposed to such images. And it's happening online.

The internet has been an amazing force for good in so many ways. But it also brings new threats and challenges for us to contend with. I'm a father of four young children and I know all too well that the online world can be a worrying place for mums and dads. After all, even the most attentive and engaged parents cannot know for sure which websites our children are visiting and what images they're seeing. Culture and Media Secretary Sajid Javid is setting out plans to shield youngsters from easy access to hardcore online pornography

Culture and Media Secretary Sajid Javid is setting out plans to shield youngsters from easy access to hardcore online pornography

In 2015 anyone, regardless of their age, is only ever two clicks away from the kind of material that would be kept well away from young eyes in the high street. And allowing young people to access pornography carries alarming consequences both for individuals and for society. It can lead to children pressuring each other to try out things they've seen online, and sharing inappropriate sexual pictures and videos. And it can lead to children having unhealthy attitudes towards sex AND relationships.

It is because of these types of concerns that we have long restricted and regulated adult content in the offline world -- whether that is magazines, TV programmes, DVDs or video-on-demand content. Such protections are taken for granted, and, as the Daily Mail has argued for years, it's time our approach to the online world caught up.

So today we are announcing that, if the Conservatives win the next general election, we will legislate to put online hard-core pornography behind effective age verification controls.

Of course adults should be perfectly free to look at these sites. But if websites showing adult content don't have proper age controls in place -- ones that will stop children looking at this kind of material -- they should and will be blocked altogether. No sex shop on the high street would be allowed to remain open if it knowingly sold pornography to underage customers, and there is no reason why the internet should be any different.

An independent regulator will oversee this new system. It will determine, in conjunction with websites, how age verification controls will work and how websites that do not put them in place will be blocked.

One thing is absolutely clear: the Conservative Party's commitment to child safety online. For the past five years we have been working with industry on A voluntary basis, an approach that led to the creation of default-on family filters. But filtering is just one way in which we can keep our children safe online. Now we can -- and must -- go further to give our children the best start in life.

There will be some who say that this exercise is futile, that websites and children alike will find ways to get around this law. And I agree that there are always people who try to avoid legal restrictions. But we must not let the best be the enemy of the good.

It is right that we act now and do what we can to restrict this content. It is right that we have the same rules applying online as we do offline. And it is right that we do everything we can to protect our children.

If we fail to take action, there is every chance that the sort of things children see on these websites will be considered normal by the next generation. That is not the sort of society I want to see and it's certainly not the sort of society I want my children to live in.

Over time Britain's laws have evolved to reflect our most deeply held values and beliefs, and the protection of children has long been a sacrosanct principle at the heart of that. I don't believe that we should abandon such an important principle simply because the latest threat to our young people comes from a technology that also brings incredible benefits.

There is a choice at this election, and it is between a party which backs families wants to give children the best start in life, and a chaotic Labour Party with no plan.

We are clear: adults should and will be free to view legal content, but we would never stand by and allow that 12-year-old boy to buy hardcore pornography from a sex shop.

It's time to make sure our children are just as well protected online as they are on the high street.