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OK, this is the last time, I hope
... that I will post some sex-and-the-Olympics related news story.
Sex and the Olympics: The world brings its vice to Vancouver
Influx of visitors sees huge rise in demand for strippers, escorts
By Ethan Baron, The Province January 31, 2010
Let the sex games begin. Olympic fever is taking hold in Metro Vancouver's sex industry, with businesses and workers preparing to welcome a deluge of eager visitors.
One purveyor of sex for sale is seeking to entice new prostitutes with promises of tens of thousands of dollars. Vancouver's most prominent strip club is planning Olympic-themed decorations, but keeping them secret for fear of a clampdown by Olympics authorities. And one Metro Vancouver escort service is hiring dozens of women from across the country for the Games -- and is already catering to Olympics-related demand.
In Vancouver, hotel doormen, bell captains and concierges who refer guests to entertainment venues have been warning Brandy Sarionder to expect hordes of clients at her high-end strip club Brandi's and her massage parlour The Swedish Touch, she says.
"We've been told that however busy we think we're going to be, we're going to be a thousand times busier than that -- sort of like Expo on steroids," Sarionder says.
To respond to the demand, Brandi's will open Sundays and close later nightly. Sarionder has hired an additional 10 porters, security guards and bartenders, while dancers from the pool of 70 will work extended hours.
"We expect that they will be sort of lining up to do their dances," Sarionder says. "They're very excited. I keep trying to make them understand that it's a marathon and not a sprint. I'm a little worried about my staff burning out."
To give the strip lounge an Olympic feeling, Sarionder has left up the snowflakes from the Christmas decor, and plans to put up some Games-specific items she wouldn't reveal.
"I'm afraid to talk about it in case the Olympic police come and say, 'Take those decorations down,'" Sarionder says.
The 20 or so women working in The Swedish Touch will be "busier than anything we've ever experienced before," Sarionder says.
Canada's largest escort agency, Carman Fox and Friends, has been receiving about a hundred applications a week from women hoping to work during the Games, says owner Carman Fox.
"These are a lot of women who want to be 'foxes' just for the Olympics," Fox says. "We've got a lot of girls coming in from Calgary, from Toronto, Edmonton, from all over Canada. Even girls from Victoria want to come in here and work with us for a week, or just for a few days.
"There's so many now that I'm doing group interviews, four at a time."
Fox expects to hire about 30 women for the Olympics, adding to the company's existing escort pool of 100. Clients will be paying $300 to $400 an hour for most escorts, with four "VIP foxes" coming in for the Games costing $10,000 an hour and up, Fox says.
Already, men who have arrived early for the Olympics are swamping Fox's agency, she says.
"A lot of them are working with the Olympics. A lot of them are working to support the athletes. A lot of them know the athletes," Fox says.
The company's outcalls to hotels near the Vancouver airport have risen from a handful a night to 11, and escort orders from Whistler have risen to four or five a night, for groups of 10 people or more, Fox says. "We're sending up four, five, six, seven foxes at a time," she says, adding that similar numbers of escorts are catering to groups of Olympics visitors brought in by tour operators to her Fox Den in Burnaby.
Out in Surrey, escort Chelsea Chambers says she's already booked downtown Vancouver outcalls for 10 international clients coming to the Olympics and anxious to reserve companionship for $250 an hour with the "hot blond cougar" they found online.
"It's like they're planning their whole trip," says Chambers, 37. "It's definitely going to be a busy time. The only thing I plan on doing differently is working more -- a lot.
"I get paid to spend time with men, but whatever happens behind closed doors is between two consenting adults."
A Vancouver escort who goes by the name Classy Angel says she's sticking with her established clients, and is turning down four or five requests a day from Olympics visitors hoping to pay $500 an hour for four to six hours of her company. Many of the men are from Germany, with some contacting her from the U.S. and Eastern Canada, she says.
Vancouver-area dominatrix Miss Jasmine -- whose work includes bondage and "pony play," in which she wears spurs and rides the man, who wears a saddle and a bit between his teeth -- says she's looking forward to providing her $300-an-hour abuse to police working at and visiting the Games.
"There's a certain kind of person who's in that position of power who needs . . . it taken away from them," Miss Jasmine says.
She expects she'll be seeing Europeans, from two countries in particular.
"British and Germans are usually really kinky," she says.
Local pimps have been seeking to cash in on the Olympics, posting ads on Craigslist to find women to work as prostitutes.
"New and young girls are welcome to our family. Take advantage of the Olympics to make a large sum of money," says an ad posted by "John," who hung up when contacted by The Province and questioned about his plans.
Another ad slugged "urgent help needed" says: "Olympics are almost here . . . make up to $30,000 in two weeks . . . really!"
A third ad seeks workers for a massage parlour on Vancouver's Robson Street, but the promise that the "spa" is "ready to serve the world for the Olympics" appears to be as empty as the storefront where the purported parlour is said to be located.
On the streets, Vancouver's hundred or so local sex-trade workers have seen about 50 additional women arrive in recent months, says Susie Davis, a sex worker heading an effort to open the city's first legal brothel.
"They think that there's going to be a huge earning potential off of all of the visitors to the Olympic Games," Davis says.
That influx has cut into the incomes of local sex workers, and she doesn't expect the Games will drive up business on the streets.
"It's a family event, and I really don't see it as a really sex-consuming group," Davis says, adding that Olympics executives, security workers and wealthy visitors seeking to pay for sex will likely patronize escorts and high-end massage parlours.
During the Olympics, Safe Games 2010 volunteers will be circulating at major events and parties handing out 20,000 packages that include condoms, information on the sex trade and HIV, and a card that says: "Vancouver sex-industry workers welcome the world. Please treat us with respect and play safe."
Jamie Lee Hamilton -- a transsexual former sex worker, an advocate for street prostitutes and former candidate for Vancouver's city council and parks board -- will set up a kiosk on Kingsway near Victoria Street for Olympics visitors.
Kiosk staff will hand out organic condoms and information about Downtown Eastside sex workers, and encourage tourists to use reputable escort agencies and massage parlours and avoid street prostitutes, she says.
"We don't want them taking advantage of individuals who have so much to deal with already, and are just so lost and so broken," Hamilton says. "We'll be suggesting places that are female-operated, owner-operated, for the most part."
Publicly communicating for the purpose of prostitution, profiting from prostitution and/or operate a brothel are illegal in Canada, although prostitution itself is not.
In Vancouver, the city licenses escort services and individual escorts, although the fact that only seven escorts are licensed this year suggests the vast majority are not working under official sanction.
Vancouver police aren't planning any crackdown on prostitution during the Games, says Const. Lindsey Houghton.
"Street-related prostitution existed before the Games, it will exist during the Games and it will exist after," Houghton says. "Our enforcement around that will not be any different. We have a dedicated vice unit that works very closely with the girls and the guys . . . to ensure that they are safe."
ebaron@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province
***
Italics mine - the VANOC executives and security people, the only ones who will make significant money off this horrible circus, will patronize the "high-class foxes", while everyone else makes do with the disruptions (and fear that the Olympic bylaw police will abarge in and tell them to take down their brand-infringing decorations).
Sigh. Just a few more weeks and it will be all over, then we can look forward to paying for the party for the next 25 years....
Sex and the Olympics: The world brings its vice to Vancouver
Influx of visitors sees huge rise in demand for strippers, escorts
By Ethan Baron, The Province January 31, 2010
Let the sex games begin. Olympic fever is taking hold in Metro Vancouver's sex industry, with businesses and workers preparing to welcome a deluge of eager visitors.
One purveyor of sex for sale is seeking to entice new prostitutes with promises of tens of thousands of dollars. Vancouver's most prominent strip club is planning Olympic-themed decorations, but keeping them secret for fear of a clampdown by Olympics authorities. And one Metro Vancouver escort service is hiring dozens of women from across the country for the Games -- and is already catering to Olympics-related demand.
In Vancouver, hotel doormen, bell captains and concierges who refer guests to entertainment venues have been warning Brandy Sarionder to expect hordes of clients at her high-end strip club Brandi's and her massage parlour The Swedish Touch, she says.
"We've been told that however busy we think we're going to be, we're going to be a thousand times busier than that -- sort of like Expo on steroids," Sarionder says.
To respond to the demand, Brandi's will open Sundays and close later nightly. Sarionder has hired an additional 10 porters, security guards and bartenders, while dancers from the pool of 70 will work extended hours.
"We expect that they will be sort of lining up to do their dances," Sarionder says. "They're very excited. I keep trying to make them understand that it's a marathon and not a sprint. I'm a little worried about my staff burning out."
To give the strip lounge an Olympic feeling, Sarionder has left up the snowflakes from the Christmas decor, and plans to put up some Games-specific items she wouldn't reveal.
"I'm afraid to talk about it in case the Olympic police come and say, 'Take those decorations down,'" Sarionder says.
The 20 or so women working in The Swedish Touch will be "busier than anything we've ever experienced before," Sarionder says.
Canada's largest escort agency, Carman Fox and Friends, has been receiving about a hundred applications a week from women hoping to work during the Games, says owner Carman Fox.
"These are a lot of women who want to be 'foxes' just for the Olympics," Fox says. "We've got a lot of girls coming in from Calgary, from Toronto, Edmonton, from all over Canada. Even girls from Victoria want to come in here and work with us for a week, or just for a few days.
"There's so many now that I'm doing group interviews, four at a time."
Fox expects to hire about 30 women for the Olympics, adding to the company's existing escort pool of 100. Clients will be paying $300 to $400 an hour for most escorts, with four "VIP foxes" coming in for the Games costing $10,000 an hour and up, Fox says.
Already, men who have arrived early for the Olympics are swamping Fox's agency, she says.
"A lot of them are working with the Olympics. A lot of them are working to support the athletes. A lot of them know the athletes," Fox says.
The company's outcalls to hotels near the Vancouver airport have risen from a handful a night to 11, and escort orders from Whistler have risen to four or five a night, for groups of 10 people or more, Fox says. "We're sending up four, five, six, seven foxes at a time," she says, adding that similar numbers of escorts are catering to groups of Olympics visitors brought in by tour operators to her Fox Den in Burnaby.
Out in Surrey, escort Chelsea Chambers says she's already booked downtown Vancouver outcalls for 10 international clients coming to the Olympics and anxious to reserve companionship for $250 an hour with the "hot blond cougar" they found online.
"It's like they're planning their whole trip," says Chambers, 37. "It's definitely going to be a busy time. The only thing I plan on doing differently is working more -- a lot.
"I get paid to spend time with men, but whatever happens behind closed doors is between two consenting adults."
A Vancouver escort who goes by the name Classy Angel says she's sticking with her established clients, and is turning down four or five requests a day from Olympics visitors hoping to pay $500 an hour for four to six hours of her company. Many of the men are from Germany, with some contacting her from the U.S. and Eastern Canada, she says.
Vancouver-area dominatrix Miss Jasmine -- whose work includes bondage and "pony play," in which she wears spurs and rides the man, who wears a saddle and a bit between his teeth -- says she's looking forward to providing her $300-an-hour abuse to police working at and visiting the Games.
"There's a certain kind of person who's in that position of power who needs . . . it taken away from them," Miss Jasmine says.
She expects she'll be seeing Europeans, from two countries in particular.
"British and Germans are usually really kinky," she says.
Local pimps have been seeking to cash in on the Olympics, posting ads on Craigslist to find women to work as prostitutes.
"New and young girls are welcome to our family. Take advantage of the Olympics to make a large sum of money," says an ad posted by "John," who hung up when contacted by The Province and questioned about his plans.
Another ad slugged "urgent help needed" says: "Olympics are almost here . . . make up to $30,000 in two weeks . . . really!"
A third ad seeks workers for a massage parlour on Vancouver's Robson Street, but the promise that the "spa" is "ready to serve the world for the Olympics" appears to be as empty as the storefront where the purported parlour is said to be located.
On the streets, Vancouver's hundred or so local sex-trade workers have seen about 50 additional women arrive in recent months, says Susie Davis, a sex worker heading an effort to open the city's first legal brothel.
"They think that there's going to be a huge earning potential off of all of the visitors to the Olympic Games," Davis says.
That influx has cut into the incomes of local sex workers, and she doesn't expect the Games will drive up business on the streets.
"It's a family event, and I really don't see it as a really sex-consuming group," Davis says, adding that Olympics executives, security workers and wealthy visitors seeking to pay for sex will likely patronize escorts and high-end massage parlours.
During the Olympics, Safe Games 2010 volunteers will be circulating at major events and parties handing out 20,000 packages that include condoms, information on the sex trade and HIV, and a card that says: "Vancouver sex-industry workers welcome the world. Please treat us with respect and play safe."
Jamie Lee Hamilton -- a transsexual former sex worker, an advocate for street prostitutes and former candidate for Vancouver's city council and parks board -- will set up a kiosk on Kingsway near Victoria Street for Olympics visitors.
Kiosk staff will hand out organic condoms and information about Downtown Eastside sex workers, and encourage tourists to use reputable escort agencies and massage parlours and avoid street prostitutes, she says.
"We don't want them taking advantage of individuals who have so much to deal with already, and are just so lost and so broken," Hamilton says. "We'll be suggesting places that are female-operated, owner-operated, for the most part."
Publicly communicating for the purpose of prostitution, profiting from prostitution and/or operate a brothel are illegal in Canada, although prostitution itself is not.
In Vancouver, the city licenses escort services and individual escorts, although the fact that only seven escorts are licensed this year suggests the vast majority are not working under official sanction.
Vancouver police aren't planning any crackdown on prostitution during the Games, says Const. Lindsey Houghton.
"Street-related prostitution existed before the Games, it will exist during the Games and it will exist after," Houghton says. "Our enforcement around that will not be any different. We have a dedicated vice unit that works very closely with the girls and the guys . . . to ensure that they are safe."
ebaron@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province
***
Italics mine - the VANOC executives and security people, the only ones who will make significant money off this horrible circus, will patronize the "high-class foxes", while everyone else makes do with the disruptions (and fear that the Olympic bylaw police will abarge in and tell them to take down their brand-infringing decorations).
Sigh. Just a few more weeks and it will be all over, then we can look forward to paying for the party for the next 25 years....
no subject
no subject
But you'll be paying for it for a long time.
Montreal paid off the last of its debt from the 1976 Olympics in 2008.
Next up is poor old London, the jaggedy-looking logo they've chosen looks like some smashed dinner plates.
no subject