Hay-on-Wye's former brothel keeper helps sex trade research (From Ledbury Reporter)

Hay-on-Wye's former brothel keeper helps sex trade research

8:50am Tuesday 8th January 2013 in News By Lauren Rogers

A FORMER brothel madam from Hay-on-Wye is helping university researchers look at the student sex industry.

Becky Adams, who went to primary school in Glasbury and then to Brecon Convent, was a brothel madam who ran escort agencies and adult shops in Buckinghamshire for 25 years.

The 44-year-old, known as Madam Becky, is now working with the University of Swansea on a three-year project looking at why students enter the sex trade. The student sex workers project began in June after securing £489,000 from the Big Lottery Fund.

Madam Becky, who wrote about growing up on the Herefordshire border in her award-winning book Madam, entered the sex industry in the mid-1990s. 

The mother-of-two and grandmother believes financial pressures have made it more acceptable for young people to turn to sex work, ranging from erotic dancing and phone sex to escort work and work in the porn industry.

She has advised young people not to get involved but, if they do, to plan an exit.

The university project is being carried out in collaboration with the Terrence Higgins Trust, the Integrated Sexual Health Clinic, Cardiff and Vale NHS, NUS Wales and Newport Film School.