Punternet

Punternet, also known as Punternet.com, is a review site that allows customers to rate their experiences with call girls. Customers are referred to as "punters" on the website.[2][3]

Punternet
Type of site
Pornographic
Available inEnglish
URLhttp://www.Punternet.com/
Launched1999 (1999)[1] (as Field Reports)
Current statusActive

The website was initially an information source run by enthusiasts and service users rather than a commercial enterprise. It described itself as "The Online Community for Patrons and Providers of Adult Personal Services in the UK". The London Evening Standard newspaper called it "the most successful of the prostitute-reviewing internet sites". The reviews, originally called "field reports", were written almost exclusively by men and described heterosexual encounters with female sex workers.[4]

The site was sold in August 2017 and the new owners dropped the discussion boards from the site.[5] They also changed the site's policy to allow male and transgender service providers to advertise and be reviewed. Previously this had been limited to female escorts only.[5]

Features

The site offers free membership. Free members can submit reviews and access site features and a limited search function.[6][2]

Criticism

The site has been met with criticism, most notably in 2009 from Harriet Harman.[7] Harman, who was the UK government's Minister for Women and Equality at the time, asked then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to ban the website, given that it was based in California, US.[8] The web owners thanked Harman for increasing web traffic to their site.[9][10][11]

In 2013, Trishna Datta, a former outreach worker from Ilford, Essex, launched a petition to have the Punternet website taken down. She said the website lacked adequate safety measures to ensure details that could put sex workers in danger were not revealed. Additionally, she expressed concern that some of the sex workers reviewed on the site might be underage or victims of trafficking or sexual assault. Punternet commented that it would report underage prostitutes to the authorities, and that it encourages customers to report underage prostitutes and victims of trafficking to Crimestoppers UK.[12][13]

Academic reference

Data from Punternet was used[14] by Peter Moffatt and Simon Peters, both lecturers in econometrics,[15][16] in their 2004 work "Pricing personal services: An empirical study of earnings in the UK prostitution industry".[17]

See also

References
  1. Earle, Sarah; Sharp, Keith (2008). "XIII – Sex on the Net: Online Relationships between the Men Who Pay for Sex". In Holland, Samantha (ed.). Remote Relationships in a Small World. Digital formations. Vol. 41. Peter Lang. p. 262. ISBN 9780820486291.
  2. Morris, Kevin (26 October 2011). "A British author analyzes what traits men seek in prostitutes". Daily Dot. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  3. "More bang for your buck". The Economist. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  4. Earle & Sharp (2008), p. 262.
  5. "Change of Ownership". Punternet UK. August 2017. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  6. Fisher, Lucy (27 November 2014). "Invisible subjects: the men who fuel the demand for prostitution". New Statesman. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  7. Ambrogi, Stefano (1 October 2009). "Schwarzenegger asked to close prostitute Website". Reuters. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  8. "Terminate degrading site - Harman". BBC. 2009-09-30. Retrieved 2019-01-15.
  9. Fae, Jane (5 October 2009). "PunterNet thanks Harriet for massive upswing". The Register. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  10. Fae, Jane (26 January 2010). "Solicitor General takes fresh pop at PunterNet". The Register. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  11. Taylor, Jerome (2009-10-02). "Punter Net prostitutes thank Harriet Harman for publicity boost". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2013-11-26.
  12. Martine Berg Olsen (4 October 2018). "There's a vile website that lets people review prostitutes and 'victims of trafficking'". Metro.
  13. Ellena Cruse (3 October 2018). "'Prostitute Tripadvisor': Campaign to close down website in which punters rate and review Ilford, Goodmayes and South Woodford sex workers". Ilford Recorder.
  14. Bowmaker, Simon W. (2005). Economics Uncut: A Complete Guide to Life, Death, and Misadventure. Edward Elgar. pp. 212–213. ISBN 978-1-84376-362-8.
  15. "Peter Moffatt - Research Database". people.uea.ac.uk. The University of East Anglia. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  16. "Simon Peters". www.research.manchester.ac.uk. The University of Manchester. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  17. Moffatt, Peter G.; Peters, Simon A. (2004). "Pricing personal services: An empirical study of earnings in the UK prostitution industry". Scottish Journal of Political Economy. 51 (5): 675–690. doi:10.1111/j.0036-9292.2004.00327.x. ISSN 0036-9292. S2CID 153456833.
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