My contribution to the career of West Ham owner, David Sullivan is small, but I should probably be ashamed of it. I platformed him not once but twice in the mainstream press, at a time when I made writing about the sleazy seamy sex underground my dubious expertise.
So, forgive me, but I am knocking this one out fast - like a brickie on a tea break poring over his favourite stunna in theThe Daily Sport.
Let’s begin with some background. Why was I the “afficionado of sleaze” as an editor described me once.
In the mid nineties I had a sex column on GQ. It worked well for me as at the time. I’m not sure my sex life was that exciting but I had a lens on others’ whose antics were quite, erm, lively. It was a funny old time, then. Fetish parties were cool, even though half the people there were frumpy submissives head to toe in rubber and the walking into the wrong room could be to see things that left you mildy traumatised for weeks. I loved the outfits, I was a classic tourist browsing the world of genuine subdom weirdoes and rubber wearing suburban perves. Women would go to pole dancing clubs and ‘enjoy’ it. Raunch culture, I think it was called. Similarly touristic behaviour.
But none of this was really as grim and grotty as the parties I used to go to in a west end flat owned by a nice man who worked for a large and important company. He was like Hong Kong Phooey, mild mannered senior somebody by day…
This seemingly lovely chap moved in a sleazy demi-monde that revolved around loads of middle aged bachelors who wore loafers without socks, and had money and coke habits. My life, for the most part, was of a Ladbroke Grove dwelling self-employed, middle class, semi-retired raver. But every now and again I’d land up at his place, at a party for priapic bachelors.
The women that appeared on this scene were quite varied. There were some hyper-normal and quite dreary couples who lived in expensive ‘burbs like Richmond and similarly nice towns along the Thames, but who were deeply immersed in their hobby of filthy sex. These were nice Sunday Times readers with professional jobs and dedicated spare room for their sex hoists and butt plugs.
There were the occasional curious younger and smart girlfriends of older men who had introduced them to the thrills and spills of a pervert’s life. Some of the women there were just there for fun, they enjoyed chirpy spanking sessions and dressing up as schoolgirls. There was the odd watcher, like me, lurking. But mostly, the women there were there to work.
These events that I would dearly like to quaintly call Rabelaisian usually veered into the more lighter end of sexual violence described in the less alarming moments in the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom. Occasionally, I’d hear about less consensual events but never saw them. I always left feeling faintly morally queasy.
120 Days of Sodom is in places very beautifully written. For an average reader like me, what defines the Marquis de Sade’s 1785 work is that it’s the OG of horror porn and as far as my reading goes, remains the filthiest most depraved thing I’ve not just read but ever seen or heard about, bar the Holocaust. I mean that.
Even in the age of the Internet, 120 Days makes The Human Caterpillar look LOLs and Andrew Tate look basic. It catalogues the depths of human sexual depravity. De Sade wrote it in the Bastille (on what looks like toilet roll) where he was put for safe keeping given his tendency to assault, rape, kidnap, torture and drug women. 120 Days contains every depravity you can imagine and about 200 you probably couldn’t. From vomiting drinking to mass murder. It’s not for everyone. Even the most anti-woke, Reform voter would approve of it having a trigger warning. In fact they’d probably want it banned.
I must make clear that at this stage what I enjoyed the most about …
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