ON 4 SEPTEMBER,The Sunday Mirror ran an old-school political sex sting on Keith Vaz, the MP for Leicester East. Vaz is a symbolic local hero. When he was elected in 1987, he was our first British-Asian Member of Parliament for more than 60 years, coming from a glorious community ritualistically culturally side-lined, stereotyped and tokenised. As gay folk, we understand the importance of figures such as Vaz. He’s the living emblem of a whole swathe of the country’s promise that becoming part of The Establishment is not just for other people, it’s for you, too. The door Keith Vaz inched open just slammed in his face. Here was his supposed downfall.
Sex work, like drug use, is our great national hypocrisy. It is shrouded in a language of prurient, moralising shame. Sex workers are always sex workers first, people second, and not in a kind way, as with princes or WAGS. Their demonisation is a recurring nonsense. Attitudes to sex work are one of the few personal morality bellwethers that relax rather than stiffen as you age. When you’re young, hot and frisky, when sex is a tap you turn on and off like the heating, sex work is something other people have a go at.
When you’re middle-aged, overworked, stressed, fat and kinky, when the instigation of a bunk-up feels more like the ignition of a three-bar fire, you kind of get it.