With the government gradually lifting the UK’s Covid lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is coming under increasing pressure from Tory backbenchers, tired of ‘losing the whip’, to reopen the country’s sex industries. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, you can finally get your hair cut, buy fast food and go to the pub, but still you can’t enjoy a session at your local dungeon,” fulminates Sir Harry Fortnum-Mason, a Conservative MP who has campaigned tirelessly to make paid sex tax deductible and VAT exempt. “It’s vital to the nation’s morale that chaps should be able to get ‘a bit of the other’ – many men have suffered severe deprivation during this period. To be frank, they’re reaching breaking point now and I fear the consequences of not opening up the industry.” Indeed, the MP has expressed fears that the pent up sexual frustrations of male punters could be about to manifest itself in an explosion of domestic violence. “Many chaps have had to spend months trapped with wives who simply aren’t responsive to their sexual needs,” he told the Daily Norks. “I’m very much afraid that, any day soon, they will start to snap, resorting to violence when their wives refuse to wear black leather or be chained up during sex.”
Domestic violence support groups have condemned Fortnum-Mason’s comments, dismissing them as ‘crass and ignorant’ and accusing him of trivialising domestic violence and its victims. “look, it’s no good trying to make me out to be some kind of misogynist,” retorted the MP, whose London constituency includes many sex establishments, all of which were forced to close when lockdown was imposed in March. “I’m just as much concerned with the plight of all those ‘working women’ who haven’t been able to work for months now. Many are facing poverty and many of the establishments they work at may never reopen, so severe has the economic impact of the lockdown been upon them.” Fortnum-Mason points out that many European nations have already started reopening their sex industries. “Damn it, Austria actually included the reopening of their brothels as part of their careful easing of lockdowm,” he explains. “Austria isn’t alone in having protected its sex workers during the pandemic because, of course, on the continent they tend to be more adult about such things and attempt to regulate their sex industries. Whereas we just like to snigger about and sweep it under the carpet!”
Some places have already reopened their brothels, but with new safety restrictions. Greece, for instance, is now insisting that payments can only be made by credit card and that the time with clients is limited to fifteen minutes. (While, presumably, maintaining as distance of at least one metre between punter and sex worker – either that, or they both have to wear full body disposable plastic suits). Fortnum-Mason is worried that if such restrictions are placed upon the British sex trade, then its recovery could be severely stunted. “What can you do in fifteen minutes, for God’s sake?” he asks. “About the best you could hope for is some breast fondling or maybe a hand job – but both participants would have to wear gloves and wear masks, killing the passion of it all.” He has also condemned the idea of credit card payments only, pointing out that this has traditionally always been a strictly cash-in-hand business and simply isn’t geared up to take electronic payments. “It will put overheads up if they have to equip all the girls with card machines and train them to use them,” he claims. “Unless the Chancellor is prepared to offer vouchers to punters to offset the probable increase in prices, it could stall any recovery for the trade, with punters staying at home and pulling themselves off with a sink plunger instead, for the same effect as the restricted sex sessions on offer, but for free.”
Fortnum-Mason is most worried by rumours of specific restrictions to be placed upon a reopened British sex industry. “Not only will all forms of paid penetrative sex be off the menu, so to sreak, but the range of non-penetrative options on offer will be severely restricted, I’ve been told,” he confides. “There certainly won’t be any whippings allowed, for dear that any blood drawn could prove a health hazard, possibly spreading coronavirus if the subject is infected. It will be the same for bare-arsed canings, although hand spankings will still be OK.” In fact, according to the MP, virtually all torture-based procedures will be banned because of the risks of potentially spreading the virus. “It’s all that panting on the part of the ‘victim’,” he says. “Apparently, those leather gimp masks just don’t meet the required safety standards.” The biggest problem, though, remains the issue of social distancing. “The thing is that there’s just no way that a metre, let alone two metres, distance can be maintained between punters and sex workers,“ laments Fortnum-Mason. “You just have to get closer than that to attach the nipple clamps and strap people to bedsteads and racks.” Nevertheless, he remains hopeful that a solution might be in the offing involving ‘support bubbles’, allowing punters to ‘pair up’ with specific sex workers for exclusive sessions, so as to minimise the risks of transmission.
Fortnum-Mason’s claims about Britain’s sex industries and lockdown have been disputed by several opposition figures. “Re-opening our sex sector is not something we have to consider here, as sex establishments and sex workers generally, were never mentioned in the government’s lockdown plans. In the first place,” opines Labour backbencher Ronnie Woolworth. “Apparently, they were classified as key workers, essential to keeping the British end up during this crisis. Well the Tory end up – there’s no way that Tory politicians could face losing the whip. Clearly Sir Harry Fortnum-Mason wasn’t considered important enough himself to be included as a key shagger during the crisis.” Woolworth speculated that, during the pandemic, sex workers probably had to wear protective gear – visors, masks, rubber gloves and so – thereby providing an extra turn on for many of their clients. “I think that there’s little doubt that for certain groups of punters, this pandemic has provided a huge thrill,” he muses. “In fact, I suspect that, with lockdown lifting, we’ll see a whole new range of PPE-themed fetish wear, with ‘patients’ being subjected to ‘examinations’ involving rectal thermometers and the like, by ‘nurses’ clad in medical visors, masks and the like.”
