Portal:Prostitution

Magpie Lane in Oxford, once known as Gropecunt Lane.

Gropecunt Lane /ˈɡroʊpkʌnt ˈleɪn/ was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street's function or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound of the words grope and cunt. Streets with that name were often in the busiest parts of medieval towns and cities, and at least one appears to have been an important thoroughfare.

Although the name was once common throughout England, changes in attitude resulted in its replacement by more innocuous versions such as Grape Lane. A variation of Gropecunt was last recorded as a street name in 1561. (read more ...)

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The media waited in vain outside Dupré's Manhattan apartment building the day after Spitzer's resignation

Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro (born Ashley Youmans; April 30, 1985) better known by the stage name Ashley Alexandra Dupré, is a former call girl. She has worked as a sex columnist for the New York Post, and as a singer. She became a public figure when it was disclosed that she was the woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. In that capacity, she was known as Kristen, the name she used as a call girl.

On February 13, 2008, Dupré travelled by Amtrak from New York's Pennsylvania Station to Washington, D.C., for an assignation at the Mayflower Hotel with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. The arrangements had been made by phone between Spitzer and a booker at Emperors Club VIP. (read more...)

• ...that Marthe Richard (pictured) was a former prostitute and spy who worked to make brothels illegal in France?
• ...that Duxton Hill in Singapore used to be a notorious slum area with brothels, opium and gambling dens, but now belongs to a conservation area known as Tanjong Pagar?
• ... that in 1861, brothel proprietor Ann Manley rescued part of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment after it was attacked by a mob in Baltimore?
• ... that Melahat Okuyan, a Turkish female microbiologist and AIDS activist, once proposed the establishment of male brothels for homosexuals and cross-dressers in order to improve public health?

• 6th
  • 1986: Murder of Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, an Australian prostitute and heroin addict who became a writer and whistleblower.
• 7th
  • 2018: Death of Laura Lee, an Irish born prostitute and activist who initiated a judicial review against Northern Irelands Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015.
• 9th
  • 1982: Death of Marthe Richard, a French prostitute and spy. She later became a politician and worked towards the closing of brothels in France in 1946.
• 12th
  • 2009: Death of Domenica Niehoff, a German prostitute and activist. She appeared in television shows in the 1990s, where she campaigned for legalization of and regulation of the profession.
• 25th
  • 1992: Birth of Zahia Dehar, a French-Algerian fashion and lingerie designer who was once known for her role in an underage prostitution scandal involving Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema.
• 27th
  • 1914: Birth of Dulcie Markham, a prominent Sydney prostitute, brothel-keeper and associate of gangland figures in Sydney during the 1930s, 1940's and 1950s, when she was closely involved with the razor gang milieu of that era.
• 28th
  • 1608: Execution of Margaret Fernseed, an English prostitute and brothel keeper who had murdered her husband.

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