Cynthia Payne - a dame not a pimp??

[Twoshoesnewshoes]

I’m trying to find info on Cynthia Payne, and struggling to uncover anything that isn’t a Sun article on basically a Carry On film. All haha weren’t they naughty etc.

I personally don’t believe that the women working in her brothel all chose to be there, and were not victims of poverty, exploitation or oppression.

was it really very different from basically every other pimp set up?

I feel very frustrated and offended that the utilisation and degradation of women is treated as a bawdy joke just because this particular pimp was a women. But I’m willing to be corrected!

thanks

She sexually abused her son I think, gave him a prostitute for a birthday at quite a young age, 14? 15?

From my understanding pimps rule by fear and violence and take the majority of earnings.

This was a more symbiotic relationship where she provided a place of safety in return for partial earnings. The women chose to be there instead of the street. Yes they were vulnerable, no doubt about that, but they weren't beaten and forced to work, they could also save up to get a better life (and did). My recollection of the time was that the women actually liked Cynthia Payne. You can't say that about a pimp.

This seems very naive. A bit like saying domestic abuse is just violence which ignores emotional abuse, financial abuse and coercion.

Old villains are often rehabilitated by the media. The public is fascinated with bad 'uns and loves to feast from the safety of the couch. Mad Frankie Frazer was on the chatshow circuit for a while. I think the worst I saw was an old South African secret policeman with extrajudicial executions to his name treated very chummily on a post-Apartheid chatshow as "The Honourable Assassin".

Cyn is small beer compared to these monsters, but not blameless.

Thanks, that’s helpful.
I guess if she didn’t use fear as a tactic then that it different than the usual pimp set-up.
I do find it tasteless though that her story is often presented as a hilarious bawdy wink wink type when surely it involves women who were powerless and exploited?

It was better than working alone or on the streets or for a violent man. So yes, the women probably did like Cynthia Payne.

They were still being an object for multiple men's sexual pleasure on a daily basis for money. So still awful.

I've always assumed that Payne was treated relatively kindly by the media and the establishment because her clients included some very powerful men.

You can be afraid of more than a violent pimp.

Yes, she could get too many people in the shit if they played hardball with her.

I'm sure 'working' for her was better than walking the streets. So, that's one way she had power over her employees(?). Not happy? Don't want to do that? Well, dear, you know where the door is.

She was a brothel madam which is a form of pimping.

I could never understand the adulation for the two so called "comedy films" made about her life : Personal Services and Wish You Were Here. She was a groomed and abused teen who not surprisngly but sadly and in a sad indictment of our society ended up as a prostitute to be further abused and exploited and then finally someone who carried on the cycle of abuse as a pimp herself. I could never fathom how it was all presented as a good ole English larff!and the "clients come rapists" protrayed as all good ole boys. Nothing funny about it to my mind! Served to keep the Happy hooker and sex work is just work myth going.

Oh I agree the way the media portrayed her was terrible (glamourising her), and glossed over the fact these were vulnerable women who felt they had no other choice but to sell their bodies. A pp makes a very good point. Her alleged clients involved high ranking police and possibly judges. The type of people even newspaper editors don't want to get on the wrong side of.

How does "madaming" work? Do they just provide a gaff or do they actively recruit, arm-twist etc?

This. Also I think there's probably something around the power dynamic. We don't believe women are powerful so we have to reduce her to a sort of bawdy landlady stereotype. Whereas actually, Payne did have power over the women she pimped. Borrowed from the patriarchy possibly, but patriarchy all the same. There would 100% been some sort of enforcer/muscle on the payroll, outwardly to 'protect' the women from punters but also to ensure compliance.

I have a very vague recollection of the NoW referring to a little black book or something similar, no doubt that gave her enough leverage to make the press and polticians tread carefully.

Very few women make a genuinely free choice to prostitute themselves so in that regard she did exploit their vulnerability for profit.

IIRC a lot of the businessmen were using Luncheon Vouchers (LV), a job perk for some at the time to pay for the "personal services." My recollection at the time is that the newspapers and TV made it out that the men just liked to be dominated and spanked or put in nappies, have fun at sex parties etc... all quite benign

I remember people tittering about it. I think a lot of people don't like to really face the reality of what you would have to do as a prostitute and the violence, rape and boundaries crossed by "punters." Cynthia was an advert for the myth that prostitution does you no harm, she is the one exploiting the men and being able to send her child to public school. All good clean (sex) fun. Better to have Joe Public laughing about vicars and happy tarts caught in the act than consider that the vicar is an abusive rapist who feels entitled to pay to violate another human's body.

Yes I think that is part of what disturbs me, how keen people are to perpetuate the myth that prostitution does no harm, it’s all a bit of slap and tickle 😡, and that these powerful men were just having fun rather than abusing vulnerable women.

Wish you were here is a great film, it predated her prostitution/ madam time focusing on her coming of age and how women were taken advantage of and denigrated particularly if they were unfortunate enough to get pregnant.

It wasn't a comedy film.

I got to know her quite well in the last few years before she died.

@OldTinHat

What was she really like ?

Was she like the way she was portrayed in media and the two films about her life stories ?
Or
Was she quite different in real life?

What she think of the fame connected to her ?

My impression of her was she was probably a jolly straight to the point,
Who had a traumatic childhood losing her mother at 15 years,
She was sexually groomed became somewhere down the line a teenager mother,

Tried later on to make the best of what she got,
As in her era whithout any family support or enough,
Life was incredibly struggle

She probably looked out for her girls,
Like a eccentric quirky Auntie/friend figure to them,
But she also be a no nonsense type who didn't suffer fools glady,

And used her social networks giddy high of our society strata

To her advantage as levage

@BluebellBlueballs I don't want to derail the thread with an argument BUT... I said Wish you were Here was a "so called comedy" in my post upthread. I never said it actually was a comedy. However, according to Wikipedia it is a comedy-drama film and on the featured film poster the film is called a "wry and deliciously wayward comedy." Like you I thought it told a tale of abuse and couldn't understand why it was advertised and marketed as a comedy on its release in 1987 (when I saw it and it made me cry as it was all so horrendous).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(1987_film)

Off topic, but I never realised that Wish You Were Here was based on Cynthia Payne.

Whatever the genre, i think it's a brilliant film very well acted by Emily Lloyd and sympathetic to her character. I didn't think it came across as minimising her experiences, it portrays the massive big biological deal of getting pregnant as a working class girl without means in a time of illegal abortion and lack of reproductive rights.

Your mileage may vary.

i Wish you were here is a great film, it predated her prostitution/ madam time focusing on her coming of age and how women were taken advantage of and denigrated particularly if they were unfortunate enough to get pregnant.

i It wasn't a comedy film.

I saw it years ago. It struck me as having rather black humour and the men didn't come out of it well.