There’s a massage parlour in Sheffield that is more than happy to open its doors to documentary cameras. City Sauna, run by mother and daughter management team Kath and Jenni, was featured in a 2015 Channel 4 film A Very British Brothel, with a follow-up programme airing a year later. At the time it was a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the sex trade in the UK, asking sex workers what it was really like to work in a parlour and their clients why they visited.
It was a tongue-in-cheek programme with the air of a Carry On film, with storylines about damp in the “gentlemen’s lounge” and providing services for requests on the more unorthodox end of the scale. Looking back, it feels too voyeuristic and too removed to be of any note. Now, the documentary is back with a slightly different name – A Very Yorkshire Brothel – on ITV, and the tone is a little more serious.
Decriminalisation of sex work is at the forefront of the first hour-long episode, with many businesses similar to City Sauna facing tougher policing that often end with closure. Workers are then left with no option but to take their job to the streets, a place without the safety and protections of an established parlour fitted with panic buttons and a welfare system.
Footage of the women who work at City Sauna making each other cups of tea and reading magazines on the sofas are juxtaposed with blurry clips of women working on the street detailing horrific stories of murder and rape. “It’s since universal credit came in,” poses Kath, “because people have to wait for their money.” The sex workers who work independently say there has been an influx of women selling sex, though they are conflicted on whether they would want to work in a parlour. It’s much safer, some say, while others argue they wouldn’t make as much money.
Perhaps the most interesting part of A Very Yorkshire Brothel is the inclusion of the notorious “Red Light District” in Leeds – an area where selling and buying sex is not a criminal act between the hours of 8pm and 6am. Now considered to be a failed, dangerous experiment, Kath and Jenni meet up with a local resident who says the area has increased crime rates, the permitted hours are not adhered to and – crucially – there is no guarantee of safety for the working women. As owners of a massage parlour, though, it’s no surprise Kath and Jenni are shocked and bewildered by the area of decriminalisation.
The show doesn’t offer any answers to the never ending debate over the decriminalisation of sex work, but it does allow people whose voices are so often removed from the discourse to have their say.
Lilly Lovesit, a stalwart employee at City Sauna who also works from her own home a few days a week, is not the type of person invited on the news to talk about the state of her job, neither is she likely to be listened to by politicians drawing up legislation – despite having frontline experience of sex work. But here, her voice can be heard.
Read More:
Louis Theroux announces new BBC documentary about the sex trade in the UK
It’s a shame that documentaries about sex work have to be scheduled so late – A Very Yorkshire Brothel isn’t on TV until 10:45pm on a Monday night – and dressed up as a cheeky peek behind the curtain. While ITV’s take on the show included a lot more political content, there was still the jangly background music so often included to indicate we should consider ourselves “other” and separate to these people – Channel 4’s The Undateables is the first example that jumps to mind. On the other hand, including footage of sex workers brewing up and chatting just like any other job does humanise a too-often demonised group.
Sex work can be a life or death situation, and with marginalised voices pushed to the fringes of late night TV (so often associated with the seedier side of broadcasting) the programmes that have the opportunity to shine an alternative light on the subject are ignored or not seen at all. So please, documentary crews, commissioners and schedulers, let’s start taking sex workers and their jobs seriously.
