title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The evangelical movement of the 19th century denounced prostitutes and their clients as sinners, and society for tolerating it. The Vagrancy Act 1824 introduced the term "common prostitute" into English Law and criminalised prostitutes with a punishment of up to one month hard labour. The act also made it a crime for a man to live on the earnings of a prostitute (often known as "living off immoral earnings").


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Victorian morality held that prostitution was a terrible evil, for the young women, for the men and for all of society. One of the first pieces of legislation introduced during the Victorian period to restrict prostitution was the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, which made it an offence for common prostitutes to assemble at any "place of public resort" such as a coffee shop.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: For several reasons prostitution was predominantly a working-class occupation. For many women, their journey into prostitution was one of circumstance. During the 19th century the public began to concern itself with particular social problems; conversely, a view of the ideal woman began to emerge such as "The Angel in the House". The rise of middle-class domestic morality and the separation of men's and women's activity into separate spheres made it increasingly hard for women to obtain work, causing an increase in such areas as the needle-trade, shop girls, agricultural gangs, factory work, and domestic servants, all occupations with long hours and low pay. Low earnings, it is argued, meant that women had to resort to prostitution to be able to provide for themselves and their families, particularly in households where the main breadwinner was no longer around. A study from the late Victorian period showed that more than 90 per cent of prostitutes in Millbank prison were the daughters of "unskilled and semiskilled working men", more than 50 per cent of whom had been servants, the rest having worked in dead-end jobs such as laundering, charring (cleaning houses) and street selling.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The level of prostitution was high in Victorian England, but the nature of the occupation makes it difficult to establish the exact number of prostitutes in operation. Judicial reports of the years 1857 to 1869 show that prostitutes were more common in commercial ports and pleasure resorts and less so in hardware towns, cotton and linen manufacturing centres and woollen and worsted centres. The "Westminster Review" placed the figure between 50,000 and 368,000. This would make prostitution the fourth-largest female occupation. One difficulty in calculating numbers is that In the 19th century the word "prostitute" was also used to refer to women who were living with men outside marriage, women who had had illegitimate children, and women who perhaps had relations with men for pleasure rather than money. The police estimates of known prostitutes offer an entirely different figure.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: However, this table relates only to prostitutes known to the police. The unreliability of statistics during the 19th century makes it unclear if prostitution was increasing or decreasing during this period, but there is no doubt that Victorians during the 1840s and 1850s thought that prostitution and venereal disease (as sexually transmitted infections were called then) were increasing.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Actresses were associated with prostitution in the public mind, and a woman's lack of respectability was indicated by her presence in a place of public entertainment. A series of small books, The Swell's Night Guides, listed the advantages and drawbacks of various theatres for men seeking pleasure, and gave advice on how to approach actresses. It warned men not to offer them money directly, but to say they wanted to hire them for private theatricals.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Some prostitutes worked in red-light districts, others in their own neighbourhoods. London's dockyards had a large population of prostitutes, and Granby Street, beside Waterloo Station, was well known for its "half naked" women in the windows. Prostitutes also found work within the armed forces, mainly due to servicemen's forced celibacy and the conditions of the barracks the men were forced to endure. The barracks were overcrowded and had a lack of ventilation and defective sanitation. Very few servicemen were permitted to marry, and even those were not given an allowance to support their wives, which occasionally lured them to become prostitutes as well. Regulating prostitution was the government's attempt to control the high level of venereal disease in its armed forces. By 1864, one out of three sick cases in the army was caused by venereal disease; admissions into hospitals for gonorrhoea and syphilis reached 290.7 per 1,000 of total troop strength.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Public attention was drawn to prostitution in London by William Acton's controversial 1857 book "Prostitution, Considered in Its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects". It raised concerns that the city was the centre of moral decay in Britain and was infested with diseased prostitutes. Acton denounced low wages for women as one of the reasons why they would turn to prostitution, in contrast to the dominant perception among members of the middle and upper classes that women decided to become prostitutes because of an innate lustfulness and sinful nature.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced in the 1860s, adopting the French system of licensed prostitution, with the goal of minimising venereal disease. Prostitutes were subjected to compulsory checks for venereal disease, and imprisonment until cured. Young women officially became prostitutes and were trapped for life in the system. After a nationwide crusade led by Josephine Butler, legalised prostitution was stopped in 1886 and Butler became a sort of saviour to the girls she helped free. The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 made numerous changes that affected prostitution, including criminalising the act of procuring girls for prostitution by administering drugs or intimidation or fraud, suppressing brothels and raising the age of consent for young women from 12 to 16. This last provision undercut the supply of young prostitutes who were in highest demand. The new moral code meant that respectable men dared not be caught.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: There is also some evidence of homosexual male prostitution in the Victorian period. Since homosexuality was illegal at this time, most of the information that we have comes from court cases. A few dozen report the closures of gay brothels, or pubs, but the most popular locations were the parks and the streets, particularly those near barracks.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In the second half of the 20th century several attempts were made to reduce prostitution. The Sexual Offences Act 1956 included sections making brothel-keeping an offence. New restrictions to reduce street prostitution were added with the Street Offences Act 1959, which stated: "It shall be an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution." As a result, many prostitutes left the street for fear of imprisonment. As Donald Thomas put it in "Villains' Paradise":


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The Street Offences Act of 1959 sought to prevent the public nuisance of having prostitutes on the pavements and thereby turned most of them into 'call-girls'. The mass availability of the telephone as much as moral determination by the authorities made the change possible. Fines of £60 for pavement soliciting and possible imprisonment under the new law accelerated it.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The penalty for living off immoral earnings was also increased, to a maximum of seven years' imprisonment.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The publication of directories of prostitutes (also known as contact magazines) was legally challenged in 1962 when Frederick Charles Shaw published the "Ladies Directory", a guide to London prostitutes. He was convicted of "conspiracy to corrupt public morals" and appealed on the grounds that no such offence existed. The House of Lords dismissed the appeal, in effect creating a new common law offence.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In a later piece of legislation, some of the activities carried out by prostitutes' clients were criminalised. The Sexual Offences Act 1985 created the two new offences of kerb crawling and persistently soliciting women for the purposes of prostitution.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: An increase in the number of prostitutes originating from overseas in the 21st century led to concerns regarding allegations of human trafficking and forced prostitution. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 included sections making sex trafficking a specific offence. A Home Office review "Paying the Price" was carried out in 2004. It focused on projects to divert women from entering prostitution, and to engage with those already trapped to help them exit. A second Home Office review, "Tackling the demand for prostitution" (2008), proposed the development of a new offence to criminalise those who pay for sex with a person who is being controlled against their wishes for someone else's gain. This approach to prostitution began to make legislative progress in 2008, as Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that paying for sex from a prostitute under the control of a pimp would become a criminal offence. Clients could also face rape charges for knowingly paying for sex from an illegally trafficked woman, and first-time offenders could face charges. The Policing and Crime Act 2009 made it an offence to pay for the services of a prostitute "subjected to force", introduced closure orders for brothels and made other provisions in relation to prostitution.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Some differing local approaches to policing have been tried. In Ipswich a version of the "Nordic model" was implemented in 2007 following the Ipswich serial murders. In Leeds unsuccessful initiatives to suppress prostitution were followed in 2014 by the introduction of local regulation. An experimental "managed" prostitution zone was set up in Holbeck, Leeds to allow prostitutes to work in a designated area between 7 pm and 7 am without the risk of prosecution. It was made permanent in January 2016 and the BBC made the documentary series "" about the zone. The zone was ended in March 2020. Gwent Police considered similar plans in 2015 for a part of Pillgwenlly in Newport, Wales.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The Policing and Crime Act 2009 (together with the Sexual Offences Act 2003) replaced most aspects of previous legislation relating to prostitution, although previous acts still remain in force. Working as a prostitute in private is not an offence, and neither is working as an outcall escort, nor is it illegal for prostitutes to sell sex at a brothel provided they are not involved in management or control of the brothel. Street prostitution, however, is illegal.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: It is an offence to loiter or solicit persistently in a street or public place for the purpose of offering one's services as a prostitute. The term "prostitute" is defined as someone who has offered or provided sexual services to another person in return for a financial arrangement on at least one previous occasion. The laws on soliciting and loitering for the purposes of prostitution were amended by the 2009 act. The main differences involve the shifting of focus from the prostitutes to the customers. Before 1 April 2010, it was illegal for a customer to kerb crawl/solicit only if this was done "persistently", or "in a manner likely to cause annoyance". Today, all forms of public solicitation by a customer are illegal, regardless of the manner in which the prostitute was solicited. The act also makes it an offence for someone to pay or promise to pay a prostitute who has been subject to "exploitive conduct". The law now applies to male as well as female prostitutes because the term "common prostitute" has been replaced with "person". Before 1 April 2010, a prostitute was committing a crime by soliciting/loitering in a public place more than once in a period of one month. Today, he/she commits a crime if he/she does it more than once in a period of three months. Sentencing options for loitering available to the courts include a fine of up to £1000, the issuing of a Criminal behaviour order and the requirement to attend rehabilitation meetings using an Engagement and Support Order.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Until 2015 there existed an offence of causing, inciting, controlling, arranging or facilitating child prostitution. In 2015, the UK Government "legislated through the Serious Crime Act 2015 to remove all references to 'child prostitution' from the law, in order to reflect the true nature of this activity as sexual exploitation". Under these changes the Sexual Offences Act 2003 sections 47–50 "Abuse of children through prostitution and pornography" have been replaced by the offences of "Sexual exploitation of children". Child prostitution in name no longer exists as an offence in the UK, but nevertheless, its legal language was substituted as "child sexual exploitation," which remains a criminal offence.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Under the Sexual Offences Act 1956, It is an offence for a person to keep a brothel, or to manage, or act or assist in the management of, a brothel. Section 33a of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 also updated this law and made it an offence for a person to keep, or to manage, or act or assist in the


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: prostitution (whether or not also for other practices). This section provided a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and minimum of six months.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: To demonstrate "persistence" under the current legislation, two police officers must witness the activity and administer a non-statutory "prostitutes caution". This caution differs from an ordinary police caution in that the behaviour leading to a caution need not itself be evidence of a criminal offence. There is no requirement for a man or woman to admit guilt before being given a "prostitutes caution" and there is no right of appeal. Even if no criminal action is pursued, the caution remains on the individual's criminal record and may affect their future employment prospects.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Soliciting someone for the purpose of obtaining their sexual services as a prostitute is an offence if the soliciting takes place in a street or public place (whether in a vehicle or not). This is a broader restriction than the 1985 ban on kerb-crawling. It is now also an offence to make or promise payment for the sexual services of a prostitute if the prostitute has been subjected to "exploitative conduct" (force, threats or deception) to bring about such an arrangement for gain. This is a strict liability offence (clients can be prosecuted even if they did not know the prostitute was forced). Additionally there exists an offence of paying for sexual services of a child (anyone under 18).


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: There are various third party offences relating to prostitution. For instance, causing or inciting another person to become a prostitute for gain is an offence. Pimping (controlling the activities of another person relating to that person's prostitution for gain) is also illegal. Similarly brothelkeeping is illegal. It is an offence for a person to keep, or to manage, or act or assist in the management of, a brothel. Note that the definition of a brothel in English law is "a place where people are allowed to resort for illicit intercourse". It is not necessary that the premises are used for the purposes of prostitution since a brothel exists wherever more than one person offers sexual intercourse, whether for payment or not. Thus the prohibition on brothels covers premises where people go for non-commercial sexual encounters, such as certain saunas and adult clubs. However, premises which are frequented by men for intercourse with only one woman are not a brothel, and this is so whether she is a tenant or not. Thus in practice to avoid committing this offence a prostitute who works in private must work alone.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Advertising for the services of prostitutes has traditionally been expressed in euphemistic language, partly as an attempt to avoid prosecution and partly as an expression of British cultural values. Prostitutes have advertised in specialist contact magazines for decades despite a common law offence of "conspiracy to corrupt public morals" which was created in 1962 to prohibit such advertising. Adverts for prostitutes have also been placed in public telephone boxes (where they are known as tart cards) despite the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 making such advertising an offence. Newspaper advertising has been used since advertising in newspapers is not in itself illegal. However, a newspaper which carries advertising for illegal establishments and activities such as brothels or venues where sexual services are offered illegally may be liable to prosecution for money laundering offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This is the case even if such places are advertised under the guise of massage parlours and saunas. Some police forces have local policies in place for enforcement against prostitution services advertised in the local press. The Newspaper Society's guidelines suggest that their members (the majority of local newspapers) refuse to carry advertisements for sexual services. Newspaper companies nowadays often adopt a policy of refusing all advertisements for "personal services".


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Internet advertising is now widely used by prostitutes, primarily in the form of specialist websites. Social media have also become a common way to attract clients. An unsuccessful private member's bill to prohibit the advertising of prostitution, the Advertising of Prostitution (Prohibition) Bill 2015–16, was introduced by Lord McColl of Dulwich in the House of Lords in June 2015 and backed by the Christian advocacy group CARE.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: It has been illegal to pay for sex in Northern Ireland since 1 June 2015 as a result of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 which was enacted in January 2015. Previously, prostitution in Northern Ireland was governed by similar legal restraints to those in the rest of the United Kingdom. The first prosecution for paying for the services of a prostitute was brought in October 2017 in Dungannon, Northern Ireland.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Since devolution in 1998 the Scottish Parliament has started to pursue an independent policy to prostitution which had been historically similar to England since the Act of Union.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Street prostitution is dealt with under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, section 46(1). Kerb crawling, soliciting a prostitute for sex in a public place, and loitering for the same purpose are also criminal under the Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Act 2007. There was formerly no specific offence directed at clients in Scotland in contrast to the "kerb crawling" offence in England and Wales in the Sexual Offences Act 1985.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: A Prostitution Tolerance Zones Bill was introduced into the Scottish Parliament but failed to become law. A number of attempts have been made to criminalise the purchase of sex but all have failed.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: There is a debate about the possible reform of prostitution laws in the UK. It centres around the question of whether new legislation is necessary or desirable, and if so which of the three main options for change the UK should follow. Proponents of regulation argue for a system modelled on those used to regulate prostitution in Germany and prostitution in the Netherlands. Proponents of decriminalisation argue for an unregulated system similar to that covering prostitution in New Zealand and parts of Australia. Proponents of sex buyer laws argue for a system in which it is illegal to pay for sex, as is the case with prostitution in Sweden, prostitution in Norway and prostitution in Iceland. This last option is sometimes described as the "Nordic model of prostitution".


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: "Paying for sex exploits women and should be a criminal offence": 44% of the total respondents agreed (65% of those aged 18–24 agree; 48% of all women agree, 39% of men agree)


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: "Paying for sex exploits women but should not be a criminal offence": 21% of the total respondents agreed


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: "Paying for sex does not exploit women and should not be a criminal offence": 17% of the total respondents agreed


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: "Paying for sex does not exploit women but should be a criminal offence": 8% of the total respondents agreed


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: An Ipsos-Mori poll conducted in July and August 2008 showed that 61% of women and 42% of men thought that paying for sex was "unacceptable", while 65% of women and 40% of men said selling sex was "unacceptable". Young people were the most opposed to prostitution: 64% of the youth said that paying for sex was "unacceptable" and 69% believed that selling sex was "unacceptable"; older people had more relaxed attitudes about prostitution (men over 55 were the most accepting of buying sex).


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Of all the people who were questioned, 60% would feel ashamed if they found out a family member was working as a prostitute, while 43% thought it should be illegal to pay for sex; however, 58% supported making it illegal to pay for sex if "it will help reduce the numbers of women and children being trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation".


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: A poll conducted in August 2015 indicated a majority view in support of decriminalising prostitution among adults in Great Britain. In a poll of 1,696 adults in Great Britain, 54% indicated support for decriminalising prostitution. The question was posed as ""Currently prostitution is restricted in Britain, meaning that in some cases it can be legal but in others it is a criminal offence - for example street prostitution and running a brothel. Would you support or oppose the full decriminalisation of prostitution, as long as it is consensual?"" The results were as follows:


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In 2006, the Labour government raised the possibility of loosening the prostitution laws and allowing small brothels in England and Wales. According to the law that is still current, one prostitute may work from an indoor premises, but if there are two or more prostitutes the place is considered a brothel and it is an offence. Historically, local police forces have wavered between zero tolerance of prostitution and unofficial red light districts. Three British ministers, Vernon Coaker, Barbara Follett and Vera Baird, visited the Netherlands to study their approach to the sex trade, and came to the conclusion that their policy of legal prostitution was not effective, and therefore ruled out the legalisation of prostitution in the UK. Plans to allow "mini brothels" were abandoned, after fears that such establishments would bring pimps and drug dealers into residential areas.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: On the subject of local regulation, a spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes commented in 2016: "A managed zone is no substitute for decriminalisation. Some women complain that the police wash their hands of the area and they feel segregated from the protection of the local community."


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Like many other countries, the UK has sex workers' rights groups, which argue that the best solution for the problems associated with prostitution is decriminalisation. These groups have criticised the provisions from the Policing and Crime Act 2009. The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), founded in 1975, campaigns for the decriminalisation of prostitution, sex workers' right to recognition and safety, and financial alternatives so that no one is forced into prostitution by poverty; in addition the ECP provides information, help and support to individual prostitutes and others concerned with sex workers' rights. One member, Nikki Adams, said that the government was overstating the extent of the trafficking problem, and that most prostitution was consensual. The UK-based International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW), part of GMB Trade Union, campaigns for the labour rights of those who work in the sex industry.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In 2010, in response to the Bradford murders of three prostitutes, the new Conservative prime minister David Cameron said that the decriminalisation of prostitution should be "looked at again". He also called for tougher action on kerb-crawling and drug abuse. The Association of Chief Police Officers suggested that designated red-light zones and decriminalised brothels might help to improve prostitutes' safety. Defendants in a test case in Manchester attempted to use the Human Rights Act 1998 to argue that the law against brothelkeeping breached their human rights by not allowing them to work together as prostitutes in safety. However, the case collapsed in 2016 without a verdict.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In March 2016, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, speaking to students at Goldsmith's University, said that he was "in favour of decriminalising the sex industry".


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In May 2016 the Home Affairs Select Committee, headed by Keith Vaz, investigated prostitution laws in Britain. The committee called on Brooke Magnanti and Paris Lees to give evidence about sex work conditions in the UK. The pair suggested that the past criminal records of those arrested for prostitution-related crimes should be eliminated. The committee's interim report was published in July 2016. It recommended that soliciting should be decriminalised and that sex workers should be allowed to share premises, while laws allowing the prosecution of those who use brothels to control or exploit sex workers should be retained. It also recommended that past criminal records for prostitution should be removed, as suggested by Maganti and Lees. Sex worker nonprofits called the apparent U-turn decision "a stunning victory for sex workers and our demands for decriminalisation" and "a giant step forward for sex workers' rights in the UK."


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In May 2019, the Royal College of Nursing voted to back the decriminalisation of prostitution in the United Kingdom. The decision was primarily based around safeguarding sex workers and improving their health.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The focus of those who oppose the legalisation of prostitution is the ethical argument that prostitution is inherently exploitative, a view held by many in the Government and the police. Additionally it is argued that the legalisation of prostitution would result in an increase in human trafficking and crime. An example offered by anti-prostitution activists is that of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which experienced severe problems with human trafficking and crime in 2010. At the time the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, said about legal prostitution in his city: "We've realised this is no longer about small-scale entrepreneurs, but that big crime organisations are involved here in trafficking women, drugs, killings and other criminal activities" and "We realise that this [legal prostitution] hasn't worked, that trafficking in women continues. Women are now moved around more, making police work more difficult."


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In 2007, Commons Leader Harriet Harman proposed that the "demand side" of prostitution should be tackled by making it illegal to pay for sex. Ministers pointed to Sweden, where purchasing sexual services is a criminal offence.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In March 2014 an all-party parliamentary group in the House of Commons issued a report called "Shifting the Burden" which claimed that the current legislation is complicated and confusing. The report expressed concern at the difficulty of successfully prosecuting the sexual abuse of girls and the rape of trafficked women. The report proposed the introduction of the "Nordic model of prostitution" to England and Wales, consolidating current legislation into a single act with a general offence for the purchase of sexual services. It also suggested re-examining the definition of force and coercion in the Policing and Crime Act 2009 and raising the age at which strict liability is established under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 from 13 to 16.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In November 2014 Fiona Mactaggart MP added an amendment to the Modern Slavery Bill, a bill consolidating and simplifying slavery and trafficking offences into one law. Mactaggart's amendment aimed to criminalise the purchase of sex ("procuring sex for payment"). In response Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper put forward an alternative amendment which called for a period of review and research. Mactaggart's amendment was subsequently dropped before the bill became law in March 2015 despite its initially having received cross-party support.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In January 2016 the Home Affairs Select Committee began an inquiry into prostitution legislation, including trying to assess "whether the balance in the burden of criminality should shift to those who pay for sex rather than those who sell it". On the subject of the "sex buyer law" (as it termed the Nordic model), the committee's interim report said:


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: Prostitutes are routinely victims of crime as a result of the social and legal status of their profession. 180 sex workers were murdered in Britain between 1990 and 2015, according to figures given by the National Ugly Mugs (NUM) scheme. Of the last 11 to die, nine were migrants. University of Leeds research in 2015 found that 47% of prostitutes had been victims of crime, including rape and robbery, while 36% had received threatening texts, telephone calls or emails. The mortality rate for sex workers is 12 times higher than the national average. There have been a number of websites which have allowed prostitutes to publish warnings regarding potentially dangerous clients. In 2007, the "Saafe" forum (Support and Advice for Escorts) created a centralised function using RSS from existing sites. This did not work as well as envisaged and was ended in 2010. In 2011, the Home Office announced a pilot scheme for a national online network ("National Ugly Mugs") to collate and distribute information. The scheme was launched in 2012 and run by the UK Network of Sex Work Projects. It has continued after its 12-month pilot period and is still in operation.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In the early 2000s there was growing concern about human trafficking, in particular allegations regarding the trafficking of women and underage girls into the UK for forced prostitution. As a result, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 included sections dealing with cases of sex trafficking. Section 57 of the Act covers trafficking "into" the UK for sexual exploitation. Offences relating to trafficking "within" and "out of" the UK are contained in sections 58 and 59. These offences apply in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, with section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 providing similar offences for Scotland. The act uses a much looser definition of "trafficking" than the international definition used in the UN Protocol, lacking any requirement that a person is trafficked for sex against their will or with the use of coercion or force. Simply arranging or facilitating the arrival in the United Kingdom of another person for the purpose of prostitution is considered trafficking. Hence the act covers the movement of all sex workers, including willing professionals who are simply travelling in search of a better income.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In 2005, a high-profile court case resulted in the conviction of five Albanians who trafficked a 16-year-old Lithuanian girl and forced her to have sex with as many as 10 men a day. A 2007 UN report identified the major sources of trafficked persons include Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. The British government signed the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in March 2007, and ratified it in December 2008.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: In July 2008 "Operation Pentameter Two", the UK's biggest ever investigation into sex trafficking, announced 528 arrests but resulted in no convictions. A study carried out in 2011 by London Metropolitan University and funded by the Government's Economic and Social Research Council found that 6% of prostitutes "felt" they were "deceived and forced" into the work. Commenting on the low figure, Dr Nick Mai said that "the large majority of migrant workers in the UK sex industry are not forced or trafficked" and that "working in the sex industry is often a way for migrants to avoid the unrewarding and sometimes exploitative conditions they meet in non-sexual jobs." However, the ESRC survey remains controversial as its data are derived from post-facto interviews with sex workers whose susceptibility to Stockholm syndrome and other psychological traumas are well-documented.


title: Prostitution in the United Kingdom

text: The United States Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ranks the UK as a 'Tier 1' country.


title: NFL International Series

text: The NFL International Series is a series of American football games during the National Football League (NFL) regular season that are played outside the United States. Since 2017, the series has two sub-series: the NFL London Games in the United Kingdom, which has been in place since 2007, and the NFL Mexico Game in Mexico, which began in 2016 with a predecessor game in 2005. Starting in 2022, the Germany Games will be held in multiple cities across Germany.


title: NFL International Series

text: Initially, all games in the International Series were held in London. Wembley Stadium was the exclusive home stadium for International Series games from 2007 to 2015 and continued to host NFL games through 2019 and from 2022 to 2024; beginning in 2016, the series expanded to more stadiums, first to Twickenham Stadium in London (2016–17) and to Estadio Azteca in Mexico City (2016–17, 2019, 2022) and eventually to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London (2019, 2021–28) and two locations in Germany: Allianz Arena in Munich (2022 and 2024/2025) and Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt (2023 and 2024/2025).


title: NFL International Series

text: Before 2005, the National Football League's primary method of promoting its game abroad was through the American Bowl, a series of preseason games played around the world, and NFL Europe, a developmental league based in Europe. The American Bowls ended in 2005 (though a similar China Bowl was planned for 2007 before being canceled), while NFL Europa (as it was known for its final season) folded in 2007. On October 2, 2005, the Arizona Cardinals defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 31–14 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico, under the name "NFL "Fútbol Americano"". It was the first regular season NFL game held outside the United States. The game drew the NFL's highest game attendance at the time with 103,467 spectators.


title: NFL International Series

text: Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, considered expanding the league's appeal overseas ever since the end of NFL Europa. Goodell has openly discussed the idea of holding a future Super Bowl game in London. The NFL also investigated the possibility of adding a 17th regular season game to all teams, taking the place of the fourth pre-season game. Waller notes that there will not be 16 different venues for the 17th games. More likely would be a "mini-season ticket" of perhaps four games in one city or country. There was discussion that this "17th game" could take effect as early as the 2009 NFL season; however, 2010 would be the earliest this could be implemented because of concerns about playing on Labor Day or over the 2010 Winter Olympics, the league's rigid scheduling formula, and the league's collective bargaining agreement (CBA). League officials were pondering moving a second existing game abroad for the 2010 season, but eventually abandoned it due to the ongoing CBA negotiations. The league eventually abandoned its attempt to expand the NFL season via CBA negotiations, and the new CBA enacted in 2011 kept the NFL schedule at 16 games through 2020. However, the CBA enacted in 2021 expanded the regular season to 17 games with one bye week and introduced at least four neutral site games each year from 2022. Teams will alternate seasons where they host nine regular-season games and one preseason game, or eight regular-season games and two preseason games. The NFC will have nine regular season home games in the 2022 season.


title: NFL International Series

text: Games in the United Kingdom are broadcast by Sky Sports and the BBC with highlights also shown by the BBC. On radio, the games are broadcast by BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, with Arlo White commentating, and Talksport with Nat Coombs commentating.


title: NFL International Series

text: The games have been popular, with tickets selling out in two days, nine months in advance. According to the NFL, only 3% of those attending the London games are Americans or American expatriates, while 22% are from London and 60% from elsewhere in Britain. Ticket prices start from £64 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and £44 at Wembley Stadium. A team that plays a home game in London sells a cheaper season ticket package for its own stadium with seven regular season games rather than the usual eight. Each designated home team receives US$1 million for giving up the home game.


title: NFL International Series

text: On October 11, 2011, the NFL owners approved playing NFL games in Great Britain through 2016. This stated that a home team could visit every year for up to five years but visitors could only visit once every five years. However, in 2015 the Detroit Lions returned to London as visitors in an apparent disregard for this rule. Subsequently, an agreement was reached to play internationally through 2025.


title: NFL International Series

text: The Buffalo Bills received a unanimous vote of approval to play a series of regular and preseason games at Rogers Centre in Toronto from 2008 to 2017. This was separate from the regular International Series as arrangements are made by the team as opposed to the league as with the International Series. The Bills' Toronto Series was mutually terminated after the 2013 contest.


title: NFL International Series

text: Due to significant time zone differences, from 2007 to 2015 teams playing in London would have their bye week in the following week after their game in London. For 2016, the Indianapolis Colts volunteered to play a game the week after their London game, preferring to have their bye week later in the season. The Colts playing the week after London was also done by the NFL as a test to see team fatigue for evaluation of an eventual London franchise. As Mexico City is within the Central Time Zone—eight NFL teams play home games in Central Time and the rest are within two hours of it—no bye week would be needed for those teams, though they may still by chance be scheduled their regular bye week anyway. For 2017, three teams playing in London (the Baltimore Ravens, Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins), would have games immediately following their International Series game. In all three cases, the teams playing after their International Series game are based on the East Coast of the United States and will either be home or (in the Jaguars' case) playing in East Rutherford, New Jersey. In 2018 and 2019 all teams once again received their bye immediately following their international game, including the teams who played in Mexico.


title: NFL International Series

text: Through 2020, due to NFL rules, teams that were playing in temporary homes as part of a relocation or that were recently awarded the hosting of the Super Bowl were required to play a home game internationally. The Los Angeles Rams, upon relocating from St. Louis, agreed to host an international game from 2016 to 2019, while their new stadium was being built. The Los Angeles Chargers, who would share the stadium with the Rams, also hosted an international game in 2018 and 2019, only getting out of the 2017 game because the team had executed its get out clause to relocate from San Diego after the 2017 International Series games had been announced. The Oakland Raiders, who spent the 2019 off-season in limbo due to the expiration of their stadium deal in Oakland and the lack of an NFL-ready stadium in their eventual home in Las Vegas, also agreed to annual international home games through 2019.


title: NFL International Series

text: NFL rules also require the designated home team for each international game to have their home stadium reserved for use in the event that a game cannot be played at the international site. This happened with the Mexico Game in 2018 and with all games in 2020.


title: NFL International Series

text: The Miami Dolphins hosted the New York Giants in the first International Series game at Wembley Stadium in London, England, on October 28, 2007. The Giants defeated the Dolphins 13–10 in the first regular season NFL game held outside North America. The first 40,000 tickets sold out for the game in the first 90 minutes of sales. The game was aired regionally on Fox.


title: NFL International Series

text: A single game was held in London each year through 2011. Like the 2007 game, each was televised nationally in the United Kingdom, but only regionally in the United States.


title: NFL International Series

text: On January 20, 2012, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that from 2012 to 2014, the St. Louis Rams would play one of their eight home games each year at Wembley Stadium. However, on August 13, 2012, the team announced that they would not play the proposed games in London in 2013 and 2014, only the 2012 game against the New England Patriots that had already been scheduled. Goodell had previously proposed the use of certain regular teams in the International Series in an effort to build a fan base for those teams, raising the prospect of a permanent NFL team on the British Isles.


title: NFL International Series

text: The Jacksonville Jaguars took the Rams' place and agreed to play a home game in London for four seasons from 2013 through 2016. With this announcement also came news that the NFL were working to schedule a second UK game from 2013 onwards (the Jaguars later extended their agreement with Wembley Stadium through 2020 in an agreement announced in October 2015). In October 2012, it was announced that the Jaguars would host the San Francisco 49ers and the Minnesota Vikings would host the Pittsburgh Steelers, marking the first season with multiple games in London.


title: NFL International Series

text: The NFL played three international games for the 2014 season, including one game with an earlier 9:30 am ET (2:30 pm UK time) start, which allowed for an afternoon game, rather than an evening game, in London. This timeslot proved to be successful as all London games in 2015 and 2016 were also scheduled at 9:30 am ET. Three games were again scheduled in 2015 – including the series' first division game between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins.


title: NFL International Series

text: On July 8, 2015, the NFL and Tottenham Hotspur F.C. announced they had reached a 10-year deal to host at least two London Games a year at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium from its opening year in 2019. Additionally, on October 7, 2015, the league announced that a resolution had been passed to schedule international games at additional locations to London until 2025. Subsequently, on October 22, 2015, it was confirmed that at least two games per season would remain at Wembley through at least 2020 and that the Jacksonville Jaguars will continue to play a home game there annually throughout the agreement. Another stadium deal was confirmed on November 3, 2015, when the league announced they had reached an agreement with England's Rugby Football Union to host regular season games at Twickenham Stadium from 2016 onwards, with a minimum of three, and as many as five games to be held over the initial agreement period of three years.


title: NFL International Series

text: In 2016, the Oakland Raiders hosted the Houston Texans on November 21 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, at the first International Series game played in Mexico. Previously, the Houston Texans and Pittsburgh Steelers had expressed interest in playing a game at Estadio Azteca (or possibly Estadio Olímpico Universitario) in Mexico City, although Houston was not prepared to give up a home date. It was televised as part of ESPN's "Monday Night Football", marking the first "MNF" game broadcast from outside the United States, and ESPN's second broadcast from Mexico City since the 2005 "Fútbol Americano" game (which was televised as part of ESPN's former incarnation of "Sunday Night Football").


title: NFL International Series

text: The 2016 game between the Redskins and Bengals was the first International Series game to go into overtime, the first to end as a tie, and had at the time the highest attendance of all International Series games (later surpassed by the 2017 game between the Ravens and Jaguars, which drew an attendance of 84,592).


title: NFL International Series

text: For 2017 the series underwent a partial rebrand with four games in London branded as NFL London Games and one game in Mexico City branded as the NFL Mexico Game.


title: NFL International Series

text: In January 2018, it was announced that three games would be played in London that year, with two at Wembley and the other the first game at Tottenham Hotspur's new stadium. However, it was later confirmed that the opening of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium would be delayed and therefore all three games would be held at Wembley. Having already fulfilled the minimum three-game requirement for Twickenham Stadium in 2017, the league would no longer host games there. The Mexico City date and opponents were not announced at that time, but were later confirmed as the Los Angeles Rams playing as designated home team against the Kansas City Chiefs. This game was subsequently moved to Los Angeles due to poor field conditions at Estadio Azteca.


title: NFL International Series

text: In October 2018, the league confirmed four London Games would take place in 2019. Wembley Stadium would host two and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium would host the remaining two. The Jacksonville Jaguars would return to Wembley Stadium for the seventh consecutive year in line with their annual commitment. The final schedule was announced in April 2019 alongside that of the rest of the regular season. This marked the end of the Los Angeles Chargers', Los Angeles Rams' and Oakland Raiders' annual commitments, with all three moving to new stadiums in 2020.


title: NFL International Series

text: In November 2019, the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins were announced as home teams for 2020 games in either London or Mexico City.


title: NFL International Series

text: On February 4, 2020, it was announced that the Jaguars would play two home games at Wembley Stadium on consecutive weekends in 2020, the first time a team had done so. 2020 would also have been the final year of games at Wembley Stadium and the final year of the Jaguars' agreement to host annual home games there. On February 28, 2020, it was announced that the Arizona Cardinals would host a game in Mexico City. Their hosting was due to the awarding of Super Bowl LVII to the State Farm Stadium in 2018. The Cardinals would have returned to Estadio Azteca for the first time since 2005's Fútbol Americano game. The date and opponent were not announced at the time. On May 4, 2020, the league announced that all international games for have been moved back to the home stadiums of the designated home teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: NFL International Series

text: On April 1, 2021, the Atlanta Falcons announced their intention to play a home game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in October 2021. On May 11, it was reported that the Falcons and Jaguars would each host a game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. This was confirmed the following day. This would mark the Jaguars' eighth home game in London but their first at Tottenham.


title: NFL International Series

text: The National Football League announced the International Home Marketing Areas initiative, where 18 NFL teams have been selected to freely market their team across eight countries, starting in January 2022. Teams were selected based on their proposals submitted to the NFL, along with the performance of their marketing domestically. The following teams were granted the five-year initiative that will allow marketing methods such as in-person events, sponsorships, and merchandise sales, as well as a high priority to compete in the countries granted in:


title: NFL International Series

text: On February 9, 2022, the NFL confirmed the addition of the Germany Games to the International Series slate, initially with one game each year from 2022 to 2025. Mark Waller had previously stated in 2017 that the only holdup with games in Germany was what he dubbed "an inventory management thing," in that with four games already being played in London each year, adding additional games in Germany atop those four would pose logistical problems. The addition of a 17th game to the schedule in 2020 has the potential to provide up to 16 neutral site games to be held in venues that do not host NFL teams, including outside the United States. The league began gauging interest from German cities regarding potential games in June 2021; the league viewed Germany as an ideal candidate for expansion of the International Series because of the country's high viewership for NFL games (2.2 million people in Germany watched Super Bowl LV) and the country's numerous modern stadiums. In October 2021, it was confirmed that Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich had been invited to participate in deeper conversations about hosting NFL games.


title: NFL International Series

text: In March 2022, the Jaguars confirmed they had reached an agreement with Wembley Stadium to host an annual game through 2024.


title: NFL International Series

text: Within the United Kingdom, aside from London, potential candidates for hosting NFL games include the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales; and Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland. Other prime locations to get games would be Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland (Ireland has already hosted the NCAA Emerald Isle Classic, a college football game similar to the International Series, and former Steelers owner Dan Rooney was once an ambassador to the country), Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; China, Brazil, Australia and Canada (Canada hosted the Bills Toronto Series from 2008 to 2013 and a preseason game between the Green Bay Packers and the Oakland Raiders at IG Field in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2019). In 2007, NFL senior Vice President Mark Waller doubted Asia or Australia would be targeted because of travel concerns, but did not dismiss the possibility. The league had planned to host a game in China in 2018 with the Los Angeles Rams as the home team against the San Francisco 49ers. The potential game in China was postponed (the third time the league has postponed playing in China, following failed attempts in 2007 and 2009) to being aimed for the 2019 season to coincide with the league's 100th anniversary; that game ultimately was not scheduled for 2019. The league has indicated that a China game is still not certain because of the lack of a fan base in the country; NFL games are played in the middle of the night in China. Other potential problems include whether the stadiums in China are suitable to play an NFL game and Beijing's notoriously poor air quality. The topic of a 2020 preseason game in China was discussed in the 2019 owners' meetings, but no news came out of those meetings.


title: NFL International Series

text: The success of the International Series has led the NFL to focus its global expansion aims on the possibility of having a full franchise located in London. It is believed this would be most likely achieved through relocation of an existing franchise, with the Jaguars most often linked due to their association with the International Series, even though their owner is said to be content with the current arrangement and other franchises have more reason to move (the most often cited being poor on-field performance, lack of fans and uncertainty over stadium leases). The NFL has used some of the specific arrangements for the International Series games as a test bed for predicting how a London franchise could be made effective from a logistical and competitiveness standpoint.


title: NFL International Series

text: Prior to the start of the 2019 season, the "extreme long shot" possibility arose that the Oakland Raiders, due to legal disputes with the city of Oakland and Alameda County, could play all of their home games in London in 2019; they were already slated to host one regular season game abroad and also played one of their preseason games in Winnipeg. Cost and logistics concerns left this scenario unlikely and was rendered moot when the Raiders and city and county officials ultimately reached an agreement to allow the Raiders to remain at the Oakland Coliseum through the 2019 season, before moving to Las Vegas in 2020.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: 33 Thomas Street (formerly the AT&T Long Lines Building) is a windowless skyscraper in Tribeca, Lower Manhattan, New York City. It stands on the east side of Church Street, between Thomas Street and Worth Street. The building is an example of the Brutalist architectural style. It is a telephone exchange or wire center building which contained three major 4ESS switches used for interexchange (long distance) telephony, as well as a number of other switches used for competitive local exchange carrier services. However, it is not used for incumbent local exchange carrier services, and is not a central office. The CLLI code for this facility is NYCMNYBW. The building has also been described as the likely location of a National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance hub codenamed TITANPOINTE.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: The location was previously the site of cast-iron buildings, typical of the area, the facades of which were preserved before demolition. The building was a core part of the AT&T Long Lines Department, housing solid-state switching equipment that required tight security and ample space. The Long Lines Department became AT&T Communications in 1984 after the Bell System divestiture. The AT&T Long Lines Building is now commonly known by its street address, 33 Thomas Street.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: AT&T gradually moved switches and other facilities from their former AT&T Long Lines headquarters building at 32 Sixth Avenue, just a few blocks away, completing the move by 1999. 33 Thomas is still used for telephone switching, but some of the space is also used for highly secure datacenters.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: On September 17, 1991, management failure, power equipment failure, and human error combined to disable AT&T's central office switch at 33 Thomas. More than 5 million calls were blocked, and Federal Aviation Administration private lines were also interrupted, disrupting air traffic control to 398 airports serving most of the northeastern United States. The problem arose when the electric utility, Consolidated Edison, asked AT&T to temporarily stop drawing electricity from the grid and instead use the building's on-site generators. The request was part of a previous load shedding agreement, and the switch had been performed successfully in the past, but on this occasion, it went wrong. After switching power sources, standard procedure was to check all the equipment power supplies, known as DC plants, for problems. But due to scheduled training, the check was not performed, and one plant went on battery backup. The alarms were not detected until it was too late to maintain uninterrupted power.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: After the destruction of the World Trade Center in the September 11, 2001 attacks, AT&T Local Services restored lost facilities they acquired from the former Teleport Communications Group based there, to 33 Thomas and 811 10th Avenue.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: The Long Lines Building was designed by architect John Carl Warnecke and completed in 1974. As it was built to house telephone switching equipment, the average floor height is , considerably taller than in an average high-rise. The floors are also unusually strong, designed to carry live loads.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: The exterior walls have no windows (other than the entrance) and are made from precast concrete panels clad with flame-treated textured Swedish granite faces. There are six large protrusions from the rectangular base which house air ducts, stairs and elevators. There is a series of large, protruding ventilation openings on the 10th and 29th floors. William H. Whyte claimed that it features the tallest blank wall in the world.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: It is often described as one of the most secure buildings in America, and was designed to be self-sufficient with its own gas and water supplies along with generation capabilities and protected from nuclear fallout for up to two weeks after a nuclear blast. Its style has been generally praised, with "The New York Times" saying it is a rare building of its type in Manhattan that "makes sense architecturally" and that it "blends into its surroundings more gracefully" than any other skyscraper nearby.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: The building is a telephone exchange or wire center building which contained three major 4ESS switches used for interexchange (long distance) telephony, two owned by AT&T and one formerly owned by Verizon (decommissioned in 2009). It also contains a number of other switches used for competitive local exchange carrier services, but is not used for incumbent local exchange carrier services, and is not a central office. The CLLI code for this facility is NYCMNYBW.


title: 33 Thomas Street

text: 33 Thomas was described as the likely location of a NSA mass surveillance hub codenamed TITANPOINTE, in an investigation by "The Intercept", and in a documentary short film by and Laura Poitras titled "Project X," both drawing on the surveillance disclosures of Edward Snowden. The investigation ties the facility to a nearby FBI building, and its rooftop equipment to NSA's SKIDROWE satellite intelligence system.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Go Ask Alice is a 1971 book about a teenage girl who develops a drug addiction at age 15 and runs away from home on a journey of self-destructive escapism. Attributed to "Anonymous", the book is in diary form, and was originally presented as being the edited "real diary" of the unnamed teenage protagonist. Questions about the book's authenticity and true authorship began to arise in the late 1970s, and Beatrice Sparks is now generally viewed as the author of the found manuscript–styled fictional document. A therapist, Sparks went on to write numerous other books purporting to be real diaries of troubled teenagers. Some sources have also named Linda Glovach as a co-author of the book. Nevertheless, its popularity has endured, and as of 2014 it had remained continuously in print since its publication over four decades earlier.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Intended for a young adult audience, "Go Ask Alice" became a widely popular bestseller. It is praised for conveying a powerful message about the dangers of drug abuse. "Go Ask Alice" has also ranked among the most frequently challenged books for several decades due to its use of profanity and explicit references to sex and rape, as well as drugs.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The book was adapted into the 1973 television film "Go Ask Alice", starring Jamie Smith-Jackson and William Shatner. In 1976, a stage play of the same name, written by Frank Shiras and based on the book, was also published.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The title was taken from a line in the 1967 Grace Slick-penned Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit" ("go ask Alice/ when she's ten feet tall"); the lyrics in turn reference scenes in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland", in which the title character Alice eats and drinks various substances, including a mushroom, that make her grow larger or smaller. Slick's song is understood as using Carroll's story as a metaphor for a drug experience.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: In 1968, a 15-year-old girl begins keeping a diary, in which she records her thoughts and concerns about issues such as crushes, weight loss, sexuality, social acceptance, and relating to her parents. The dates and locations mentioned in the book place its events as occurring between 1968 and 1970 in California, Colorado, Oregon, and New York City. The two towns in which the diarist's family reside during the story are not identified, and are only described as being college towns.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The diarist's father, a college professor, accepts a dean position at a new college, causing the family to relocate. The diarist has difficulty adjusting to her new school, but soon becomes best friends with a girl named Beth. When Beth leaves for summer camp, the diarist returns to her hometown to stay with her grandparents. She meets an old school acquaintance, who invites her to a party. There, glasses of cola—some of which are laced with LSD—are served. The diarist unwittingly ingests LSD and has an intense and pleasurable trip. Over the following days the diarist socializes with the other teens from the party, willingly uses more drugs, and loses her virginity while on acid. She worries that she may be pregnant, and her grandfather has a minor heart attack. Overwhelmed by her worries, the diarist begins to take sleeping pills, first stolen from her grandparents, then later prescribed by her doctor upon returning home. Her friendship with Beth ends, as both girls have moved in new directions.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The diarist befriends a hip girl, Chris, with whom she continues to use drugs. They date college students Richie and Ted, who deal drugs and persuade the two girls to help them by selling drugs at schools. When the girls walk in on Richie and Ted stoned and having sex with each other, they realize their boyfriends were just using them to make money. The girls report Richie and Ted to the police and flee to San Francisco. Chris gets a job in a boutique with a glamorous older woman, Shelia. Shelia invites both girls to lavish parties, where they resume taking drugs. One night Shelia and her new boyfriend introduce the girls to heroin and brutally rape them while they are under the influence of the drug. Traumatized, the diarist and Chris move to Berkeley where they open a jewelry shop. Although the shop is a success, they quickly grow tired of it and miss their families; they return home for a happy Christmas.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Back at home, the diarist encounters social pressure from her drug scene friends, and has problems getting along with her parents. Chris and the diarist try to stay away from drugs, but their resolve lapses and they end up on probation after being caught in a police raid. The diarist gets high one night and runs away. She travels to several cities, hitchhiking partway with a girl named Doris who is a victim of child sexual abuse. The diarist continues to use drugs, supporting her habit through prostitution, and experiences homelessness before a priest reunites her with her family. Now determined to avoid drugs, she faces hostility from her former friends, especially after she calls the parents of one girl who shows up high for a babysitting job. The diarist's former friends harass her at school and threaten her and her family. They eventually drug her against her will; she has a bad trip resulting in physical and mental damage, and is sent to a psychiatric hospital. There she bonds with a younger girl named Babbie, who has also been a drug addict and child prostitute.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Released from the hospital, the diarist returns home, finally free of drugs. She now gets along better with her family, makes new friends, and is romantically involved with Joel, a responsible student from her father's college. She is worried about starting school again, but feels stronger with the support of her new friends and Joel. In an optimistic mood, the diarist decides to stop keeping a diary and instead discuss her problems and thoughts with other people.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The epilogue states that the subject of the book died three weeks after the final entry. The diarist was found dead in her home by her parents when they returned from a movie. She died from a drug overdose, either accidental or premeditated.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The anonymous diarist's name is never revealed in the book. In an episode where the diarist describes having sex with a drug dealer, she quotes an onlooker's remark indicating that her name may be Carla. Although a girl named Alice appears very briefly in the book, she is not the diarist, but a fellow runaway whom the diarist meets on the street in Coos Bay, Oregon.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Despite the lack of any evidence in the book that the diarist's name is Alice, the covers of various editions have suggested that her name is Alice by including blurb text such as "This is Alice's true story" and "You can't ask Alice anything anymore. But you can do something—read her diary." Reviewers and commentators have also frequently referred to the anonymous diarist as "Alice", sometimes for convenience.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: In the 1973 television film based on the book, the protagonist played by Jamie Smith-Jackson is named "Alice". The protagonist is also named "Alice Aberdeen" in the 1976 stage play adaptation.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The manuscript that later became "Go Ask Alice" was initially prepared for publication by Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon therapist and youth counselor then in her early 50s, who had previously done various forms of writing. Sparks had reportedly noted that the general public at that time lacked knowledge about youth drug abuse, and she likely had both educational and moral motives for publishing the book. Sparks later claimed that the book was based on a real diary she received from a real teenage girl, although this claim was never substantiated and the girl has never been identified (see Authorship and veracity controversies).


title: Go Ask Alice

text: With the help of Art Linkletter, a popular talk show host for whom Sparks had worked as a ghostwriter, the manuscript was passed on to Linkletter's literary agent, who sold it to Prentice Hall. Linkletter, who had become a prominent anti-drug crusader after the 1969 suicide of his daughter Diane, also helped publicize the book. Even before its publication, "Go Ask Alice" had racked up large advance orders of 18,000 copies.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Upon its 1971 publication, "Go Ask Alice" quickly became a publishing sensation and an international bestseller, being translated into 16 languages. Its success has been attributed to the timing of its publication at the height of the psychedelic era, when the negative effects of drug use were becoming a public concern. Alleen Pace Nilsen has called it "the book that came closest to being a YA phenomenon" of its time, although saying it was "never as famous as [the later] "Harry Potter", "Twilight", and "Hunger Games" series". In addition to being very popular with its intended young adult audience, "Go Ask Alice" also attracted a significant number of adult readers.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Libraries had difficulty obtaining and keeping enough copies of the book on the shelves to meet demand. The 1973 television film based on the book heightened reader interest, and librarians reported having to order additional copies of the book each time the film was broadcast.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: By 1975, more than three million copies of the book had reportedly been sold, and by 1979 the paperback edition had been reprinted 43 times. The book remained continuously in print over the ensuing decades, with reported sales of over four million copies by 1998, and over five million copies by 2009. The actual number of readers probably surpassed the sales figures, as library copies and even personal copies were likely circulated to more than one reader. "Go Ask Alice" has been cited as establishing both the commercial potential of young adult fiction in general, and the genre of young adult anti-drug novels, and has been called "one of the most famous anti-drug books ever published."


title: Go Ask Alice

text: "Go Ask Alice" received positive initial reviews, including praise from Webster Schott in "The New York Times", who called it an "extraordinary work", a "superior work" and a "document of horrifying reality [that] possesses literary quality". It was also recommended by "Library Journal", "Publishers Weekly", and "The Christian Science Monitor", and ranked number 1 on the American Library Association's 1971 list of Best Books for Young Adults. Some reviews focused on the realism of the book's material, without further addressing the literary merit of the book. According to Nilsen and Lauren Adams, the book was not subjected to the regular forms of literary criticism because it was presumed to be the real diary of a dead teenager. Lina Goldberg has suggested that the publishers were motivated to list the author as "Anonymous" partly to avoid such criticism.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Years after its publication, "Go Ask Alice" continued to receive some good reviews, often in the context of defending the book against censors (see Censorship). In a 1995 "Village Voice" column for Banned Books Week, Nat Hentoff described it as "an extraordinarily powerful account of what it's actually like to get hooked on drugs" that "doesn't preach".


title: Go Ask Alice

text: However, starting in the 1990s, the book began to draw criticism for its heavy-handedness, melodramatic style and inauthenticity, in view of the growing consciousness that it was fiction rather than a real teenager's diary (see Authorship and veracity controversies). Reviewing the book again for "The New York Times" in 1998, Marc Oppenheimer called it "poorly written", "laughably written", and "incredible", although some other writers have pointed to the material as being plausible or even appealing to young readers. The portrayal of the diarist's drug use, progressing from unwittingly ingesting LSD to injecting speed within a few days, and making a similar quick transition from her first use of marijuana to heroin, has been deemed unrealistic. The book has been criticized for equating homosexuality with "degradation", illness, sin, and guilt. More recent analyses have expressed ethical concerns with the book's presentation of fiction to young readers as a true story. Despite all these criticisms, the book is frequently called a young adult classic.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Although school boards and committees reached varying conclusions about whether "Go Ask Alice" had literary value, educators generally viewed it as a strong cautionary warning against drug use. It was recommended to parents and assigned or distributed in some schools as an anti-drug teaching tool. However, some adults who read the book as teens or pre-teens have written that they paid little attention to the anti-drug message and instead related to the diarist's thoughts and emotions, or vicariously experienced the thrills of her rebellious behavior. Reading the book for such vicarious experience has been suggested as a positive alternative to actually doing drugs. "Go Ask Alice" has also been used in curricula dealing with mood swings and death.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Although "Go Ask Alice" has been credited to an anonymous author since its publication, and was originally promoted as the real, albeit edited, diary of a real teenage girl, over time the book has come to be regarded by researchers as a fake memoir written by Beatrice Sparks, possibly with the help of one or more co-authors. Despite significant evidence of Sparks' authorship, a percentage of readers and educators have continued to believe that the book is a true-life account of a teenage girl.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: "Go Ask Alice" was originally published by Prentice Hall in 1971 as the work of an unnamed author "Anonymous". The original edition contained a note signed by "The Editors" that included the statements, ""Go Ask Alice" is based on the actual diary of a fifteen-year-old drug user...Names, dates, places and certain events have been changed in accordance with the wishes of those concerned." The paperback edition first published in 1972 by Avon Books contained the words "A Real Diary" on the front cover just above the title, and the same words were included on the front covers of some later editions.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Upon its publication, almost all contemporary reviewers and the general public accepted it as primarily authored by an anonymous teenager. According to Lauren Adams, "Publishers Weekly" magazine was the only source to question the book's authenticity on the grounds that it "seem[ed] awfully well written". Reviews described the book as either the authentic diary of a real teenage girl, or as an edited or slightly fictionalized version of her authentic diary. Some sources claimed that the girl's parents had arranged for her diary to be published after her death. However, according to Alleen Pace Nilsen, a "reputable source in the publishing world" allegedly said that the book was published anonymously because the parents had initiated legal action and threatened to sue if the published book could be traced back to their daughter.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Not long after "Go Ask Alice"s publication, Beatrice Sparks began making public appearances presenting herself as the book's editor. (Ellen Roberts, who in the early 1970s was an editor at Prentice Hall, was also credited at that time with having edited the book; a later source refers to Roberts as having "consulted" on the book.) According to Caitlin White, when Sparks' name became public, some researchers discovered that copyright records listed Sparks as the sole author—not editor—of the book, raising questions about whether she had written it herself. Suspicions were heightened in 1979 after two newly published books about troubled teenagers ("Voices" and "Jay's Journal") advertised Sparks' involvement by calling her "the author who brought you "Go Ask Alice"".


title: Go Ask Alice

text: In an article by Nilsen, based in part on interviews with Sparks and published in the October 1979 issue of "School Library Journal", Sparks said that she had received the diaries that became "Go Ask Alice" from a girl she had befriended at a youth conference. The girl allegedly gave Sparks her diaries in order to help Sparks understand the experiences of young drug users and to prevent her parents from reading them. According to Sparks, the girl later died, although not of an overdose. Sparks said she had then transcribed the diaries, destroying parts of them in the process (with the remaining portions locked in the publisher's vault and unavailable for review by Nilsen or other investigators), and added various fictional elements, including the overdose death. Although Sparks did not confirm or deny the allegations that the diarist's parents had threatened a lawsuit, she did say that in order to get a release from the parents, she had only sought to use the diaries as a "basis to which she would add other incidents and thoughts gleaned from similar case studies," according to Nilsen.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Nilsen wrote that Sparks now wanted to be seen as the author of the popular "Go Ask Alice" in order to promote additional books in the same vein that she had published or was planning to publish. (These books included "Jay's Journal", another alleged diary of a real teenager that Sparks was later accused of mostly authoring herself.) Nilsen concluded, "The question of how much of "Go Ask Alice" was written by the real Alice and how much by Beatrice Sparks can only be conjectured." Journalist Melissa Katsoulis, in her 2009 history of literary hoaxes "Telling Tales", wrote that Sparks was never able to substantiate her claim that "Go Ask Alice" was based on the real diary of a real girl and that copyright records continued to list her as the sole author of the work.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Urban folklore expert Barbara Mikkelson of snopes.com has written that even before the authorship revelations, ample evidence indicated that "Go Ask Alice" was not an actual diary. According to Mikkelson, the writing style and content—including a lengthy description of an LSD trip but relatively little about "the loss of [the diarist's] one true love", school, gossip or ordinary "chit-chat"—seems uncharacteristic of a teenage girl's diary. The sophisticated vocabulary of the diary suggested that it had been written by an adult rather than a teen. Mikkelson also noted that in the decades since the book's publication, no one who knew the diarist had ever been tracked down by a reporter or otherwise spoken about or identified the diarist.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: In hindsight, commentators have suggested various motivations for the publishers to present "Go Ask Alice" as the work of an anonymous deceased teenager, such as avoiding literary criticism, lending validity to an otherwise improbable story, and stimulating young readers' interest by having the book's anti-drug advice come from a teenager rather than an adult. Sparks said that while there were "many reasons" for publishing the book anonymously, her main reason was to make it more credible to young readers. Although the book has been classified as fiction (see Treatment of book as fiction and non-fiction), the publisher has continued to list its author as "Anonymous".


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Sparks was involved in a similar controversy regarding the veracity of her second diary project, the 1979 book "Jay's Journal". It was allegedly the real diary, edited by Sparks, of a teenage boy who died by suicide after becoming involved with the occult. The publisher's initial marketing of the book raised questions about whether Sparks had edited a real teenager's diary or written a fictional diary, and recalled the same controversy with respect to "Go Ask Alice". Later, the family of real-life teenage suicide Alden Barrett contended that "Jay's Journal" used 21 entries from Barrett's real diary that the family had given to Sparks, but that the other 191 entries in the published book had been fictionalized or fabricated by Sparks, and that Barrett had not been involved with the occult or "devil worship".


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Sparks went on to produce numerous other books presented as diaries of anonymous troubled teens (including "Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager" and "It Happened to Nancy: By an Anonymous Teenager") or edited transcripts of therapy sessions with teens (including ""). Some commentators have noted that these books use writing styles similar to "Go Ask Alice" and contain similar themes, such as tragic consequences for spending time with bad companions, a protagonist who initially gets into trouble by accident or through someone else's actions, and portrayal of premarital sex and homosexuality as always wrong. Although Sparks was typically listed on these books as editor or preparer, the number of similar books that Sparks published, making her "arguably the most prolific Anonymous author in publishing", fueled suspicions that she wrote "Go Ask Alice".


title: Go Ask Alice

text: In a 1998 "New York Times" book review, Mark Oppenheimer suggested that "Go Ask Alice" had at least one author besides Sparks. He identified Linda Glovach, an author of young-adult novels, as "one of the 'preparers'—let's call them forgers—of "Go Ask Alice"", although he did not give his source for this claim. "Publishers Weekly", in a review of Glovach's 1998 novel "Beauty Queen" (which told the story, in diary form, of a 19-year-old girl addicted to heroin), also stated that Glovach was "a co-author of "Go Ask Alice"".


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Following Sparks' statements that she had added fictional elements to "Go Ask Alice", the book was classified by its publishers as fiction (and remains so classified as of 2016) and a disclaimer was added to the copyright page: "This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental."


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Despite the classification and the disclaimer, "Go Ask Alice" has frequently been taught as non-fiction in schools and sold as non-fiction in bookstores. The publishers also continued to suggest that the book was true by including the "Editors' Note" stating that the book was based on an actual diary, and listing the author as "Anonymous", with no mention of Sparks. As of 2011, a UK paperback edition published and marketed by Arrow Books contained the statement "This Is Alice's True Story" on the front cover.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: "Go Ask Alice" has been a frequent target of censorship challenges due to its inclusion of profanity and references to runaways, drugs, sex and rape. Alleen Pace Nilsen wrote that in 1973, "Go Ask Alice" was ""the" book that teens wanted to read and that adults wanted to censor" and that the censors "felt the book did more to glorify sex and drugs than to frighten kids away from them." Challenges began in the early 1970s following the initial publication of the book, and continued at a high rate through the ensuing decades.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Some challenges resulted in the removal of the book from libraries, or in parental permission being required for a student to check the book out of a library. According to "The New York Times", in the 1970s it became common practice for school libraries to keep "Go Ask Alice" off library shelves and make it available to students only upon request, a practice which was criticized as being a form of censorship. A 1982 survey of school librarians across the United States, co-sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, found that "Go Ask Alice" was the most frequently censored book in high school libraries.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Decades after its original publication, "Go Ask Alice" became one of the most challenged books of the 1990s and 2000s. On the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s, "Go Ask Alice" was ranked at number 25; on the ALA list compiled for the 2000s, it rose to position 18.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The likely authoring of the book by one or more adults rather than by an unnamed teenage girl has not been an issue in censorship disputes. Nilsen and others have criticized this on the basis that the dishonesty of presenting a probable fake memoir to young readers as real should raise greater concerns than the content.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The ABC television network broadcast a made-for-television movie, "Go Ask Alice", based on the book. It starred Jamie Smith-Jackson, William Shatner, Ruth Roman, Wendell Burton, Julie Adams, and Andy Griffith. Also among the cast were Robert Carradine, Mackenzie Phillips, and Charles Martin Smith. The film was promoted as an anti-drug film based on a true story.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: The film was first aired as the "ABC Movie of the Week" on January 24, 1973. It was subsequently rebroadcast on October 24, 1973 and the network also made screening copies available to school, church and civic groups upon request. The film drew generally good reviews (with one critic calling it "the finest anti-drug drama ever presented by TV"), but was also criticized for lacking the complexity of the book and for not offering any solutions to the problem of teen drug addiction. The adaptation by Ellen Violett was nominated for an Emmy Award.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: In 1976, a stage play version of the book, adapted by Frank Shiras, was published by The Dramatic Publishing Company. The play has been produced by various high school and community theatre groups.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: A 2012 novel called "Lucy in the Sky" was published anonymously, featuring the story of a preppy Santa Monica student who falls into drug addiction and alcoholism. Critics compared the book with "Go Ask Alice" and viewed the 2012 book negatively, considering it a modernized copy of "Go Ask Alice" rather than its own story.


title: Go Ask Alice

text: Stand-up comedian Paul F. Tompkins' 2009 comedy album "Freak Wharf" contains a track titled "Go Ask Alice" in which he derides the book as "the phoniest of balonies" and jokingly suggests it was authored by the writing staff of the police drama series "Dragnet". The album title comes from a passage in the book in which the diarist refers to a mental hospital as a "freak wharf".


title: Go Ask Alice

text: American band Ice Nine Kills drew inspiration from the book for their song 'Alice' on the 2015 album "Every Trick in the Book".


title: Sexual roleplay

text: Sexual roleplay is roleplay that has a strong erotic element. It may involve two or more people who act out roles in order to bring to life a sexual fantasy and may be a form of foreplay and be sexually arousing. Many people regard sexual roleplay as a means of overcoming sexual inhibitions. It may take place in the real world, or via an internet forum, chat-room, video-game, or email—allowing for physically or virtually impossible erotic interests to be enacted.


title: Sexual roleplay

text: How seriously the play is taken depends on the participants, and the scenario may be anywhere from simple and makeshift to detailed and elaborate, including costumes and a script. The role-play may involve a fantasy based on any social role and could incorporate any kind of sexual fetish desired by the participants. Examples include items of clothing experienced as erotic or one or more participants being nude. The role-play may involve elements of dominance and submission including sexual bondage and erotic humiliation.


title: Sexual roleplay

text: Depending on the play scenario, the roleplay may be before spectators, and bystanders may be unknowing participants in a roleplay. For example, the roleplay may involve house guests or may be taken out of a couple's home and into, say, a bar, street, park etc. A role may require, for example, one or both partners to flirt with a stranger, or for one partner to seduce the other partner's friend, etc. It may also call for one or both partners to, say, strip in a car or park.


title: Sexual roleplay

text: The popularity of the Internet has also allowed for online sexual encounters, known as cybersex, which may involve roleplay. In a 2015 US survey, up to 22% of respondents stated that they had performed sexual role play in their lifetime.


title: Sexual roleplay

text: Many of the most common sexual roleplays involve a power differential and form part of the dominance and submission aspect of BDSM. Roles can be general designations of power positions, or very specific, detailed fantasies. Some people, such as those living the Gorean lifestyle make use of an entire imaginary world. The controlling player is often called the top or "dominant" while the controlled individual is called the bottom or "submissive". It can be considered dangerous and therefore a safeword is advised to continue the safety of other(s) in such acts.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly is a fictional character from the toyline, comic books and animated series. He is a mercenary who works for the Cobra Organization as a saboteur. He is portrayed by Ray Stevenson in the 2013 film "".


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly's given name is unknown. Even Cobra Commander doesn't know his real name or what he looks like. Firefly is a ninja master, a saboteur, and an expert in all NATO and Warsaw Pact explosives and detonators. He always places his charges in the proper location for maximum damage. His fees are paid into a numbered Swiss bank account and are always paid in advance. He makes no guarantees, and gives no refunds.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly also tends to go together with Black Out and Munitia as H.I.S.S. (short for "Hierarchy of Infiltration, Stealth, and Sabotage").


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: The members of the Phoenix Guard were Cobra agents in disguise, but for Cobra Commander's elaborate ruse to succeed, each member of the team needed doctored military records and manufactured personal histories. Firefly's fabricated identity was Snake-Eater, real name Jason B. Lee, most likely an alias, as his birthplace and serial number were classified. Snake-Eater's specialties were ranger, counter-intelligence and cartography. He attended basic training, advanced infantry training, Airborne School and Ranger School all at Fort Benning, and also completed the Special Forces Qualification course at Fort Bragg. General Rey noted him to be brutal, impulsive and unpleasant to be around, but could not deny his great skill in the field.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly was first released as an action figure in 1984. A new version of Firefly was released in 1992. The figure was repainted and released as part of the Battle Corps line in 1993. Firefly has 11 action figures plus two convention exclusive figures in the 3¾" line, one 12" figure, and two 8" figures. He is most commonly seen in a ski mask and BDU fatigues. He is popularly shown in urban or grey camouflage, although only 4 of his figures portray him in that manner.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: A version of Firefly with no accessories came with the Built to Rule Cobra Sand Snake in 2004, which followed the "" story line. The figure featured additional articulation with a mid-thigh cut joint, plus the forearms and calves of the figure sported places where blocks could be attached. The same figure was also recolored and released with the Built to Rule Cobra Venom Striker.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly appeared as a Kreon in the 2013 G.I. Joe Kre-O toy line as part of the Check Point Alpha playset. The set includes Check Point Alpha along with Law & Order and a Cobra motorcycle piloted by Firefly.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly's father was owed a debt by the Koga Ninja Clan. When his father died, Firefly was taken in by the ninja. Training with them he eventually earned Master status, and took the name "Faceless Master". Soon after Cobra Commander approached Firefly with a job: kill the man known as Snake-Eyes. Cobra Commander blamed Snake Eyes for his brother's death. Traveling to the Arashikage dojo where Snake Eyes was training, Firefly realized that he was no match for Snake Eyes.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly approached the assassin Zartan for help. In a case of mistaken identity, Zartan kills the Hard Master, leader of the Arashikage, instead. The Hard Master's nephew, Storm Shadow, was blamed and he fled the dojo, dishonored and branded a traitor.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: On another mission for Cobra Commander, Firefly was left in the Florida Everglades by the Commander. Running into Destro, who had also been left behind, the two returned to Cobra's base in Springfield, stopping for multiple battles with the Joes. They then plan revenge. First they attempted to return to the Commander's good graces by attacking Snake Eyes' mountain lodge. The Cobra agents were surprised that Snake Eyes wasn't alone and fled. When Firefly arrived in Springfield, he took part in the trial of Billy, Cobra Commander's estranged son, who had tried to kill the Commander. Storm Shadow freed Billy before a verdict could be reached.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: The Soft Master arrived in Springfield, tracking down his brother's killer. Firefly and Scrap-Iron chased down the Soft Master launching two missiles at him. They killed not only the Soft Master but also Candy, G.I. Joe agent Ripcord's girlfriend. Billy lost an eye and a leg. Ripcord was captured soon afterwards, but not before he transmitted the location of Springfield back to G.I. Joe HQ. Firefly was one of the last Cobra agents to leave Springfield. Firefly took more jobs from Cobra, fighting the October Guard in Afghanistan and fighting the G.I. Joe Team in the Baltic Sea and atop a glacier. He also tried to steal the Vector Jet from the Joes, but was stopped by Maverick. He also fought to secure a man made island near Cobra Island, but the unstable island soon sank just before the G.I. Joe Team could force the Cobra forces off the island. Dr. Mindbender took the blame for the failure in exchange for Firefly saving him. Firefly then attempted to steal top secret computer disks from the U.S. Government. He was stopped by the original G.I. Joe, General Joseph Colton.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Soon after Cobra Commander returned, and locked most of his enemies, including Firefly, in a freighter and buried it underneath a volcano. Firefly was later revealed to have escaped, using Battle Android Troopers to dig out of the freighter, and putting his uniform on the dead body of Serpentor. Firefly then brain-washed the Red Ninja, former Arashikage ninja, into following him. Snake Eyes broke the ninja free of the mind control, and they chased down Firefly, looking for vengeance. Firefly was again thought to be dead, and was not heard from for years.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Later, it is learned Firefly had been operating out of Cobra Island for some time. He has kept Road Pig and Zarana prisoners there, until the Cobra ninjas Slice and Dice found and free them.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Firefly appears several times in the Devil's Due series. He steals a heavily modified Battle Android Trooper from a squad of Joes and Dreadnoks. To do this, he risks killing himself and hundreds of innocent people.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: After Cobra was defeated Firefly reappears, working for the "Nowhere Man" and recruiting soldiers for a new army. Snake Eyes, his student Ophelia and the elite Hammer Team try to stop him. Ophelia and all but one of the Hammer members are killed. The survivor, Sean Collins, becomes Snake Eyes' new apprentice.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Later, in Tokyo, the two ninja face Firefly. He reveals that Derenko, a Hammer Team member long thought dead, is the Nowhere Man.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Serpentor, revived after his death in the Marvel series, launches a global attack from Cobra Island. It is revealed that Firefly and Derenko were recruiting for the Coil, Serpentor's new army. The combined might of a newly reformed Cobra and a newly reinstated G.I. Joe Team crushes the Coil, though not without fatalities for both organizations. Serpentor also dies. After a fight with Zartan, Firefly escapes one more time.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: In "America's Elite", a satellite crashes into Chicago, killing thousands. Snake Eyes finds Firefly there, but he escapes capture.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: Later on the Phoenix Guard is created by Secretary of State Garrett Freedlowe, as an alternative force to replace G.I. Joe. It turns out that Freedlowe is really Cobra Commander in disguise, and that the Phoenix Guard, with the exception of their commanding officer General Rey, are all Cobra operatives. Firefly is involved as the member called "Snake-Eater". The Phoenix Guard attacks The Rock, G.I. Joe's secret base of operations. While the rest of the Phoenix Guard is captured following the G.I. Joe counterattack, Firefly manages to escape yet again. Firefly is later captured by Scarlett and Snake Eyes in Japan, and incarcerated in "The Coffin", a maximum security prison in Greenland. He later escapes imprisonment during Tomax's raid on the facility. Firefly fights Snake Eyes one on one during a battle in the Appalachian Mountains, and holds Snake Eyes at bay, until Storm Shadow throws a sword in Snake Eyes' direction. Snake Eyes grabs the sword and swiftly cuts Firefly across the chest, leaving him lying on the ground shaking.


title: Firefly (G.I. Joe)

text: "G.I. Joe Reloaded", is a reboot of the G.I. Joe continuity. Firefly destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge, tried to assassinate Hawk, was part of a plot to steal the U.S. Constitution, and attempted to destroy Saudi oil facilities. During the last mission he was captured by Rock 'n Roll, whose girlfriend had been killed during the Golden Gate attack.