Eideard

Colin Birch, 44, a former assistant vice-president of Deutsche Bank, had been turned down for a job on the same day that he paid the women to taunt him and call him a “loser” as he stood on a ladder with a noose around his neck.

Mr Birch told them he was wearing a safety harness and asked them to kick away the ladder so that they could carry out a mock execution. The women refused and walked away laughing. One of the women, worried for Birch’s safety, returned moments later to find him dying. The harness he had assured them he was wearing failed, the inquest heard. Mr Birch, a married father of two, had been made redundant in 2009 and was having trouble finding new work.

Louise Howard, who runs Katie’s Lovely Escorts, told the inquest that she received a call from Mr Birch on the morning of July 30 asking to arrange the “execution”…

The court heard that Mr Birch, who had been contacting Ms Howard regularly to see if the execution was arranged, sent her a text saying: “Just to clarify the role play. I will wear a harness to support me but will also have a noose round my neck for show. Girl will ask for execution fee and I will go to my place of execution. My crime is being a loser.

“Girl kicks away stool and laughs and walks back to car without looking back so to show she has no feelings. Important stick to the role…”

…Miss Sturley said it “didn’t feel right” and the pair left as she “laughed loudly” as had been ordered. But worried for his safety she went back to check on the former banker.

She found him turning blue and screamed for help from Mr Bowyer and the pair cut him down and tried to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A life-ending “Oops!” Or was it?

One of the Goddesses

A church called the Phoenix Goddess Temple has been accused of being a house of prostitution, and a six-month undercover investigation has resulted in the arrests of 20 women and men who worked there…

Authorities are still searching for 17 more people — all of whom have been indicted — in connection with the prostitution enterprise, said Sgt. Steve Martos, a Phoenix police spokesman. The 20 people arrested so far have been charged with prostitution or other offenses, police said.

During a Wednesday search of the Phoenix temple and two church-related sites in nearby Sedona, police seized evidence showing that “male and female ‘practitioners’ working at the Temple were performing sexual acts in exchange for monetary ‘donations,’ all on the pretense of providing ‘neo tantric’ healing therapies,” Phoenix police said…

“What’s unusual is that they were trying to hide behind religion or church, and under the guise of religious freedom, they were committing acts of prostitution,” Martos said…

The website says at one point: “Sex is a holy, sacred and divine healing force at the core (of) our beings. Once we embrace this force instead of deny it, we become successful, happy and powerful manifestors.”

The website also features unclothed women, listed as residing in several states, under a “Goddesses” section.

Of course, prostitution should be made legal as should any number of other “morality” crimes. Allow for sensible regulation, health checks and above all else – collect taxes.

I guess that applies to real churches, too.

Prostitutes working the streets of the old West German capital now have to buy tickets from converted roadside vending machines that once dispensed tickets to the city’s drivers. A night’s ticket will set a prostitute back £5.30, irrespective of the number of clients they have.

Like parking metres, the machines also tell users the times of day when a ticket is necessary: in this case between the hours of 8:15pm and 6am, Monday to Sunday.

Monika Frombgen, a spokeswoman for Bonn city council, said the ticket machines would bring street prostitutes into fiscal line with their peers in registered sex establishments.

“This is an act of tax fairness,” she said. “Prostitutes in fixed establishments such as brothels and sauna clubs already pay tax.” She added that with many street prostitutes foreign born previous attempts to tax them had floundered on a widespread inability to comprehend a German income tax form. The machines, Bonn hopes, will provide an easy-to-understand system of taxation…

The ticket machines come as the latest step in Bonn’s drive to increase tax revenue from prostitution as it wrestles with financial problems. Earlier this year the city introduced a “sex tax”, and it expects the levy to raise annual revenue of £265,000 for the city’s coffers…

The city has banned prostitution from areas of the city, and allocated six closed-off parking places for the use of prostitutes and their clients.

Aside from the chuckles, this is a useful exercise in thoughtful fiscal policy from a sophisticated, well-educated nation. Imagine trying to sort something like this out in the United States?

But, then, much of Western Europe also has [somewhat more] sensible policies about drugs, speeding, unemployment.

Attorney Andrew McCullough in Dr. John’s Novelty and Lingerie Shop

Two escort services have filed a federal lawsuit to halt a Utah solicitation law they fear could lead to the arrest of strippers or escorts who are simply acting sexy.

Utah defines solicitation as a person agreeing to sex in exchange for money. A new law that went into effect this month broadened the definition to include any person who indicates through lewd acts, such as exposing or touching themselves, that they intend to exchange sex for money.

It was intended to help law enforcement agents working undercover in prostitution stings, Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said Friday. He said it would protect officers who were being asked by prostitutes to expose or touch themselves to prove they’re not police because making such requests as a precursor to offering sex for money is illegal under the new law…

Andrew McCullough, an attorney representing the escort services in the lawsuit filed May 9, said the law is so broad that it could allow police to arrest licensed employees of sexually oriented businesses, such as escort services or strip club dancers, for doing their job.

The expanded law includes language that makes a person exposing their genitals or touching themselves sexually an indication that they are offering sex. Those acts are legal in Utah for private strippers.

“Most girls who touch their breasts are not telling you they’re open for sex,” the attorney said.

Sounds like Utah lawmakers have never been to a contemporary rock’n roll concert. Which actually is no surprise.

Or someone might even be scratching – in mosquito season.

A German insurance firm has admitted rewarding its 100 best salesmen with a prostitute-filled “sex party” in Budapest’s most famous thermal baths.

Hamburg-Mannheimer International (HMI), now part of the huge Munich Re insurance conglomerate, rented out the historic Gellert Baths in the Hungarian capital and turned it into an “open-air brothel”, where it let staff run riot.

At least 20 prostitutes were hired by HMI top brass for the so-called “incentive trip”. According to those present, the women were colour-coded to indicate which men were allowed to have sex with them. Those wearing white ribbons were reserved for “the very best salespeople and executives”, said one HMI employee.

After an investigation printed in the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Munich Re has admitted that the party – described in one German magazine as “Bunga-Bunga in Budapest” – did occur…

“The women wore red and yellow ribbons,” one guest told Handelsblatt. “Some were there just as hostesses; the others made clear with the colour of their ribbon that they weren’t just there to chat.”

Then there were women wearing white ribbons. They, allegedly, were reserved for the “best of the best” in the company.

Another guest said that beds had been set up around the baths where the salesmen could “do what they wanted”. The women, he claimed, were then given an ink stamp on their forearms to show how popular they had been: some of the women ended up with more than a dozen stamps, it is alleged.

Maybe European insurance salesmen are mutants from the American breed. Most of the domestic species I ever met haven’t progressed beyond the Benjamin Franklin close.

Was this somehow influenced by the internationalization of traditional German industries? Or has this level of sleaze been around all along and existed in disguise like Family Values are used in American politics?

The influx of thousands of soccer fans would increase demand on South African sex workers; at least that was the belief of a leading expert prior to the start of the 2010 World Cup.

But it seems fans of the beautiful game that traveled to the Rainbow Nation have created a flop in sex-worker business — leaving prostitutes out-of-pocket and out of work — in favor of more high-brow pursuits.

“The World Cup has been devastating. We thought it was going to be a cash cow but it’s chased a lot of the business away. It’s been the worst month in my company’s history,” the owner and founder of one of Johannesburg’s most exclusive escort companies told CNN.

“No one is interested in sex at the moment. I think we’ve had three customers who traveled here for the World Cup which has seen my group’s business drop by 80 percent. I enjoyed watching the games, but I can’t wait for everyone to just go home now!” the madam, who works under the alias of “Tori,” added…

The tournament in 2010, if anything, has seen the modern-day soccer fan attracted to art galleries and museums over brothels.

“People went to the bars and stadiums to watch the games and afterwards they went home. They didn’t bother themselves with coming to us,” Zobwa, who works as a prostitute told CNN.

“Before the tournament we were getting good money but [over the month] it has not been busy at all. We thought it was going to be much better but it has been boring. I’ve actually left Johannesburg now because there has been so little trade.

RTFA for the details. Amazing to me. Is the sport attracting a better educated, more perceptive crowd?

Dare I hope?

The sex scandal involving Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, and a prostitute deepened today with the release of sensational new audio tapes purportedly proving their encounters late last year.

In the second series of tapes and transcripts to be published by the left-leaning weekly L’Espresso, the escort, Patrizia D’Addario, is recorded discussing her appointment with Mr Berlusconi in October with the man who allegedly hired her to go to the Prime Minister’s official residence

Mr Tarantini…warned Ms D’Addario that the 72-year-old Italian leader does not use condoms. At an apparent meeting held with Ms D’Addario and another unnamed woman in October 2008, Mr Tarantini briefed them ahead of their evening with the premier…

D’Addario: And a thousand for the night.

Tarantini: I have already given you a thousand and if you stay with him he will give you a gift on his own.. ah.. you will also see that he doesn’t use condoms…

D’Addario:.. But it is not going to happen without it. How will I feel safe?

Tarantini: But… it’s Berlusconi…

This slimeball is sleazy enough to take over leadership of the Republican Party in the United States. I wonder if John Boehner could get his citizenship expedited?

Craigslist, the Web’s largest classified advertising site, says that it will close its controversial “erotic services” category, which critics have said is a forum that facilitates prostitution and other illegal activities. In its place, the company has created a new category called “adult services” in which postings will be reviewed by employees, who will look for indications of activity that violates the site’s guidelines.

The move comes in the wake of pressure from officials in several states. But it does not appear to go far enough to satisfy everyone in the growing chorus of Craigslist’s critics.

That’s newspaperese for politicians preparing to run for higher office.

Andrew Cuomo, New York’s attorney general, said that an impending criminal case brought by his office implicated the erotic services category. “Rather than work with this office to prevent further abuses, in the middle of the night, Craigslist took unilateral action which we suspect will prove to be half-baked,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement.

Mr. Buckmaster said the move was “strictly voluntary” and that Craigslist has always been on solid legal footing under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which says that Web sites are not legally responsible for material contributed by their users.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said…“We are going to be extraordinarily watchful,” he said. “We are concerned about any possible new area where ads may migrate. We are not going away.”

Blumenthal is getting ready to run against that world-class flip-flopper and moralist, Joe Lieberman. Normally, I’d say anyone is a better choice than Joe. Now, I’m not so sure.

Air Force Amy at Moonlite BunnyRanch

Nevada brothels that cater to long-haul truckers are offering gas cards and other promotions after seeing business decline as much as 25 percent from a year ago.

Geoffrey Arnold, president of the Nevada Brothel Owners’ Association, said truckers account for up to 75 percent of business at the state’s rural brothels along Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 95…

Under a promotion under way at the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, the first 100 customers who arrive with government stimulus checks receive twice the services for the same regular price.

“We’re calling it double your stimulus,” said BunnyRanch owner Dennis Hof. “The brothel industry is having to get more creative just like all consumer products in America. Everybody has got to deal, and we’re doing the same thing.”

Hey, if Wal-Mart and Best Buy are doing it. Why not the rest of the pimps business community?

Thanks, K B