Greetings, Dear Hearts....

My name is Mark and I’m a pornographer.

There you go, I said it. I write porn, I am a porn merchant. I’m up there with Larry Flint, Hugh Hefner, albeit with slightly (slightly mind) fewer six foot, pneumatic, peroxide blondes and I guess the likes of (and rather bizarrely) John Holmes and Anais Nin. I write words for Xcite Books (amongst others) but more importantly, TO excite. To titillate. To encourage my fellow man to fornicate, seek pleasure, take pleasure. Masturbate, fuck, shag. Embrace their slutdom, be at one with their sexuality, discover their innate fantasies, desires and most importantly, get off. Because nothing gives me greater pleasure than someone emailing me (male or female) and saying that my words made them come.

So of course, it gives me great pleasure to be a contributor to this ’ere Red Rabbit Books blog. Because, very essentially, I grew up with (and still live my life) an attitude towards sex that the immediate society around me frowned upon and Red Rabbit live exactly by that message too and further makes me think that there are other people out there that think the same and it's okay to actually enjoy sex. Their mission satement is simple:

"We believe that sex is for everyone, and that everyone is entitled to enjoy sexual experiences in whatever capacity works for them."

It's not only something that makes me grin and feel warm inside but something that inspires and educates, but never preaches. Because we don't want to preach to you, we just wanna make you orgasm.

Pretty good deal, so far...

And I have also come to realise that not only am I pornographer, it probably also makes me a sex worker. Something that I am quite proud about, actually. To celebrate, I recently went to be at one with my people along with my friend, the author Tania Glyde and the IUSW (the International Union of Sex Workers) with the vicar from St. Anne’s Church on Dean Street for their annual carolling on the streets of Soho to recognise International End Violence Against Sex Workers Day.

I’ve always been an advocate of non-violence in all it’s forms, it was an opportunity to support those in this world whose business in providing the pleasure of others. The world’s oldest industry and one forever under threat from the moralistic sycophants in the corridors of power and their need to change society based upon their whims and religion influenced opinions but more importantly (as Tania pointed out), it was a rare opportunity to serenade a brothel. Normally, a practice that would get you arrested on the streets of W1.

Not that I would know anything about that, of course.

Yes, it was too good not to turn down. I mean, how often does one get the chance to follow a man wearing nothing but red leather chaps and down a dark alley in Soho and it not lead to inflamed haemorrhoids and chapped palms from exposed brick work, I ask you. Exactly, so I think you’ll agree with me, I had to tag along.


The premise was meet at the church, then the priest, mingle with those present (thus creating networking opportunities with those from the sex workers union) and then hit the street. I know what you are thinking,

‘What sort of networking opportunities would our weird friend, Mark with the funny hair want to make with a bunch of hookers and rent boys?’

Well, hearing about the whole event made me wonder upon the concept of me being a sex worker now, what with me being paid to write about it and all. And I thought about this as we had booklets of carols thrust into our hands and sniffed at the rims of the plastic cups of questionable red liquid with the floating bits of lemon. First, we went to Compton’s on Old Compton Street for a classic rendition of ‘Silent Night’, which (for those of you who have never graced this particular establishment) is a highly ironic situation to be in. The place is always rammed with cruising homosexuals, even on this occasion. A Wednesday night. Which is what prompted this suggestion from our leader, Red Chaps, who is now mincing along with an open red umbrella in the air.

“Let’s just all squeeze in there. As many as possible.”

I turned to Tania and raised an eyebrow. It was too late though. She’d missed it and was going through her lines under her umbrella.

There were about 50 of us, so as you can imagine just over half of us manage to get in there. It was alleged by our group leader that each of our destinations were aware of our arrival, which brings us to the image of 30 or so sex workers (plus two authors) and led by a man dressed like an S&M version of an emaciated Jack Twist on his smalls laundry day, trying to sing a Christmas ballad over thumping Europop.

As planned, the music was turned down a little and that gave us our first round of boos. At this, the music is turned back up again, just as we start the first line. This was around the time we got our first heckle and our plea to shut the hell up. More or less immediately, people started to turn back to their conversations with one another about the upcoming ban on extreme pornography and the new presenter of Eurovision, and we decide that it’s probably best to disperse and head off to the next venue.

It’s a pathetic start.

We soon weaved through more alleyways following the exposed, tanned butt cheeks of the Pied Piper in front of us until we descend across to the Phoenix club, downstairs from the similarly named theatre on the Charing Cross Road. Patrons sat uncomfortably throughout their meal and a reformed punter turned activist along for the ride gets himself into a slanging match about the rights of sex workers during ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!”

Instead, we dispersed. The evening is not going well.

We headed back into Soho and head down another alley around the back of Raymond Revue Bar. We stopped outside a curry house and proceeded to sing above us at the red-lit windows. A few of them opened and a few heads, covered in the hoods of winter jackets peeked out and waved at us while a buxom lady in her fifties, dressed like a church warden appears at the brightly lit open doorway, brandishing plastic cups and a couple of bottles of wine. Plastic cups with inches of warm Liebfraumilch are passed around and I realise that my trouser legs is caught on the wall I am stood next to.

“There’s something sticky down here…”

“Eww…” Tania says.




There was beautiful moment when we try ‘Silent Night’ again and more heads appeared and one girl threw glitter down upon the crowd of people below her jammed into the tight alley as the warm, soothing tones of the heavily wrapped up former pimps, prostitutes filled the short width between the dodgy pub and the closed print shop.

It was a pretty cool night that ended with a rendezvous back at the church with a conversation with the gentleman responsible for the recent male escort memoir "Whatever She Wants" and was generally an experience that made me feel good about representing a cause that is not considered as the most fashionable (Paltrow and the Baldwins won’t be knocking on their door anytime soon) or gets any major attention, let alone being one of the few causes in the world that hardly comes on the receiving end of a great deal of empathy.

So yeh, It gives me great pleasure to be asked to blog here because of the message of liberty and pleasure for all that Red Rabbit stands for and I hope that I can do all that I mentioned. To you and anyone else I come across. Not to mention the fact that I got to use the words ‘inflamed haemorrhoids’ in a blog post. That doesn't happen every day.

You can find me and my books and other words on my website.

Much love.