My previous post featuring an old pro-domme advertisement, and a comment left on it from Simon, reminded me of this post by the brilliant femdom artist Sardax. It describes the process of seeking a pro-domme in pre-internet days and features the below image, showing the typical sex worker cards you might find in a phonebox or dodgy newsagents.
I remember visiting London in the 90’s and seeing examples of these, but it was a practice already beginning to die out. Unsurprising, given the limited information a card could offer. After all, who’d fancy calling a number on the basis of just “Gas Mask, Leather, Rubber, Boots, etc.” It’s not a lot to go on. The “School Girl Uniform for Sale” is another intriguing one. Did you turn up expecting to put it on? Or for a middle aged sex worker to be wearing it? My favorite is the “1/2 hour of hell” which both catches the eye and gives the advertiser a lot of leeway in delivering the service. It’s the mystery box of cards.
I too visited London at that time and managed to swipe a few cards. That was before I learned that you could get a bit of a kicking if you were caught doing so by the people who placed them there!
Later, I was delighted to find a copy of The X Directory which proved a much safer way of enjoying some great cards.
Yeah, I’d heard they’d get unhappy if their cards were removed. I believe they paid people to go and fill the phoneboxes, so removing the cards meant spending on that service. Not heard of the X directory. Was that a magazine?
-paltego
The X Directory was a book full of cards – mainly kink – that had been collected between ’84 and ’94. I just Googled it and saw it’s now fetching over 100 GBP. Makes me glad I kept hold of my copy!
Interesting. Not heard of that before. Definitely a unique publication. Thanks for sharing.
-paltego