Radio review: The sordid business of talking about the online sex industry

Radio review: The sordid business of talking about the online sex industry

A few years ago a hit film comedy entitled The 40 Year-Old Virgin chronicled the efforts of a socially awkward middle-aged man, played by Steve Carrell, to have sex for the first time. As his quest became ever more desperate and farcical, much hilarity ensued. It turns out that Carrell’s character could have saved himself a lot of time if he had been more like John, a similarly aged caller to Tom Dunne (Newstalk, weekdays), who solved the problem of his own fortysomething celibacy by paying a prostitute for sex. But it would have been a much shorter movie, and not in the least bit funny. The conversation with John, who said he felt “brilliant” after that first sexual encounter, was part of an investigation by Dunne into “the reality of prostitution in Ireland”. Particular focus was paid to “escorts” who meet their clients through online sites, a safer practice than randomly soliciting on the street, at least according to some of those interviewed by Dunne and his reporter Yvonne Kinsella. Indeed, there were times when the sex workers made their job sound like an attractive career option. “You’re providing a service, just in a different way,” said Clyde, who formed a bisexual double act with his Brazilian partner, Bonnie. Another unnamed interviewee said she offered companionship as well as carnality, adding that working indoors added sophistication. A student called Sarah was positively evangelical about working part time as an escort: it offered her flexibility, plus she liked meeting people. Sarah was also adamant that “escorting is not prostitution”, saying she could walk away from an appointment if she wanted. “There is the horrible side where there’s girls raped,” she conceded. “But if you’re careful there’s no risk, essentially.” Such testimony came perilously close to sanitising the whole squalid business, particularly as it inevitably excluded the voices of those coerced into prostitution. Dunne, who has previously covered the misery of human trafficking, was alert to the dangers of airbrushing the issue, but he pressed on: “Since when have we solved a problem in Ireland by not talking about it?” Even so, his main concern at times seemed to be the cold commercialism of the business. “Am I in a minority who cannot separate sex from emotion?” he asked. “I hope not, because it is a very special thing.” Dunne seemed particularly affected by John’s story, though the picture of a cripplingly shy man in receipt of an altruistic act from a humane soul was undercut by the casual remark that he “had chosen” the escort in question. A powerful counterblast came courtesy of Justine, who, having been a sex worker for 20 years, acerbically noted that “there was nothing shy about him when he was handing over his money”.



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