Portia* tried several different therapists and brands of anti-depressants before at last discovering a cure for the severe depression which had blighted her last decade. She went to visit a local woman in a perfectly average terrace house, lifted her skirt, pulled down her pants and bent over her kitchen table, to submit to the belt, birch, slipper, hairbrush, strap, and finally, cane, for an hour. Afterwards she dressed herself, handed the woman £120 for her time and efforts, and went on her wa...

I dunno, probably I’d been drinking. I wrote on my vanilla Twitter - for I’ve two accounts, though you’d hardly know it, so keenly do the kinksters sniff me out - I’m driving across the US in October and considering writing a book based on my escapades, part travelogue, part kink, part slapstick. Anyone fancy that? And fancy it they did. I got a barrage of replies, from chaps, largely, telling me to be careful, the US is very big, use sunscreen, rent a safe vehicle: offering to carry my bags; but largely, suggesting I visit them. From chaps in Seattle, Dakota, California. From @AtlantaBlack10, whose profile describes him as ”Highly sexual, no morals. I fucked your mom and your dad watched”, suggesting I visit him in Atlanta for a photo shoot. My geography stinks - in fact my geography stinking will be one of the most significant components of this narrative, so much so I should probably invent an acronym now and have done - but I could see I was going to need a plan, a theme, and a map, if I was going to do this stupid thing.

After toying with the idea of standing for election, Broadstairs writer and KentOnline columnist Melissa Todd outlines her hypothetical manifesto.From decriminalising drugs to scrapping school - what could possibly go wrong…?“If Nigel Farage stands in East Thanet, so shall I”, I wrote on X. I proper meant it too, although I’ll admit to relief when he chose to bother Clacton instead. It costs £1,000 to stand, but also, I’m quite busy, certainly too busy for door-knocking or baby-holding. I’ve a n...

Rather than banning sex education, Broadstairs writer Melissa Todd argues our children need a great deal more of it.Here, she outlines why it is so important - and why we cannot rely on families to teach it…Before announcing the snap election, the Government set out plans to ban sex education for nine-year-olds, although currently nine-year-olds do not receive sex education. It was almost as if it was a last-ditch desperate shamefaced effort by the Conservatives to make themselves seem cool and...

When her husband took his own life eight years ago today, Broadstairs writer Melissa Todd grappled with emotions ranging from shock to guilt and an enduring sense of anger. Here, she describes with heart-wrenching honesty the physical and emotional toll it took on her as she struggled to come to terms with his suicide...My husband killed himself on New Year’s Eve 2015. I got home about five and found a note taped to the bannisters that read “Don’t go upstairs. Call the police”. And even though h...

‘How did you get into this?’ That’s the question I was asked most often during my time working in strip clubs. Other popular queries included: ‘How does your boyfriend/mother feel about you being a stripper?’, ‘Do you do extras?’, and ‘How do you cope in those heels all night?’ The problem with being asked how I got into stripping was the implication there was something wrong with my career choice – I resented being asked. Usually I would change the subject or, when pushed, tell them how naughtiness was innate in me, that the word ‘whore’ ran right through my spine, like Blackpool through a stick of rock. But my job as a stripper began the way most jobs did in 1995: I answered a newspaper advertisement. It said: ‘Dancers wanted. You will earn up to £600 a night. No experience necessary.’

Walking into shot, I pause to exclaim over the delicate beauty of a small china vase, before pushing my hand deep into its recesses. The script dictates I must then struggle and wriggle for 10 minutes to extricate my hand. Ten minutes is an eternity. I try not to watch the clock on the wall. I look out of the window, at the passing commuters, and vaguely wonder if, when they hear the word pornography, they could ever imagine this. I wonder how and why the chap who’s paying for this clip became interested in women getting their hands stuck in vases; all my porny friends have also been asked to make this film. Did his mother get her hand stuck at a time that coincided with his first erection? Does the vase represent a vagina, a throat, a urethra? But sometimes a vase is just a vase.

My Body is my Business follows the life of Clara - a fictionalised version of the author herself – as she travels through a 25 year career in the sex industry. Clara leaves Oxford University to become a stripper, then moves through webcam work, porn, OnlyFans, chat lines and domination, while a succession of men come and go "Sex workers aren’t allowed to tell their stories. We are allowed to be victims or survivors, but never real, three dimensional characters. The rest of the world want to save us, then condemn us to minimum wage slavery and obscurity. Perhaps that isn’t always the boon and the delight people like to believe. I’m well-spoken and well-educated and have chosen to sell my body out of desire, not desperation. We live in an age that’s pro-sexuality, but weirdly anti-sex: fancy whomever you please, that’s encouraged, just don’t talk to them, touch them, ask them out, take pictures of them. This book is the antidote to all of that."

Melissa Todd makes the case against sending kids to school. I’m enjoying the way we’re all in agreement now, post-Covid, that education should be voluntary, a suggestion I’ve been making for decades. Only people who want to be taught should be. For most people, after all, education is a mocking cruelty, teaching them only what they’ll never have. Study hard, be patient, diligent, learn self-control, delayed gratification, fail anyway. Their near-inevitable floundering has nothing to do with the

Last week Matthew and Melissa debated the merits of the grammar school system. Melissa was firmly against, Matthew in favour. Our poll shows that just under 52% of you agreed with Melissa, 46% with Matthew and the remainder undecided. This week’s debate looks at the migration of people to Thanet, from London (DFL – Down from London) and further afield (DFA – Down from Anywhere). Recently I met a chap who’d moved from London to Ramsgate a few years back. “Wonderful area, wonderful views”, he s