London has sex shops in Soho, dating apps on practically every phone, burlesque shows, fetish clubs and enough suggestive advertising to make a Victorian gentleman drop his monocle. We're a city that prides itself on being open minded, sexually liberated and thoroughly modern.

Until somebody actually mentions sex in conversation.

Then suddenly we're all terribly British about the whole thing. A nervous laugh, a change of subject, perhaps an urgent discussion about the weather. Anything to avoid admitting that adults might occasionally enjoy activities that don't involve brunch or watching Netflix.

It's a curious contradiction. London is arguably one of Europe's most sexually adventurous cities, yet we're still remarkably good at pretending otherwise.

Soho Was Naughty Long Before Dating Apps Existed

Anyone who thinks London's sexual liberation began with Tinder clearly hasn't spent much time studying the history of Soho.

For decades, the neighbourhood was associated with strip clubs, adult cinemas, sex shops and a thriving underground nightlife. Its reputation was built on precisely the sort of entertainment that respectable society preferred not to discuss over Sunday lunch.

These days, Soho is considerably more polished. The restaurants are expensive, the cocktail bars are fashionable and the property prices would make an old school Soho landlord weep with joy.

But traces of its mischievous past remain. Walk along Brewer Street or through the surrounding lanes and you'll find a neighbourhood that still understands the appeal of a little adult entertainment.

And it's hardly an isolated example.

London's relationship with pleasure goes back centuries. Georgian pleasure gardens offered opportunities for flirtation and social mixing, while Victorian London maintained a flourishing underground world of entertainment despite its famously stern public morality.

The British have always been rather talented at enjoying themselves privately while disapproving publicly.

Some traditions, apparently, are impossible to kill.

Everybody's Liberated Until Someone Mentions Escorts

Here's an interesting little social experiment. Sit around a dinner table in London and bring up casual dating. Nobody blinks. Discuss open relationships, dating apps or the latest celebrity affair and you'll probably have everyone contributing an opinion before the starters arrive.

Now mention escorts.

Watch the atmosphere change.

For all our claims of being progressive, professional companionship still occupies an uncomfortable place in British social attitudes. People have strong opinions about it, frequently without knowing much about the individuals involved.

Some see escorting as a legitimate choice between consenting adults. Others raise concerns about exploitation, inequality and the circumstances that lead people into the industry. Those concerns deserve serious consideration, particularly when questions of consent and personal safety are involved.

But the conversation often becomes so dominated by assumptions that the women themselves disappear from it.

That's rather strange when you think about it.

Women working as escorts aren't a single personality type, nor do they all share the same motivations or experiences. Some enjoy the independence and flexibility of their work. Others may have more complicated relationships with the industry. Treating every woman as either a glamorous fantasy or a helpless victim doesn't leave much room for reality.

And while London's adult companionship industry is hardly a secret, society still seems unsure whether it's acceptable to acknowledge its existence.

Agencies such as Peachy, a London escorts agency, operate within this curious social contradiction. The demand for professional companionship exists, yet the subject remains one that many people would rather discuss in whispers.

For a city that considers itself so worldly, we can be surprisingly bashful.

Dating Apps Have Changed the Rules. Have They Changed Our Attitudes?

Not so long ago, admitting you'd met someone online was considered mildly embarrassing. Couples invented elaborate stories about bumping into each other at parties rather than confessing that their romance began with a message sent from the sofa.

Now nobody cares.

Online dating has become so ordinary that meeting someone in a pub almost feels like an eccentric hobby. People openly discuss their Tinder disasters, Hinge preferences and Bumble conversations with colleagues who probably know far more about their romantic lives than is strictly necessary.

Yet technology hasn't necessarily made us more comfortable with intimacy. It's simply given us new ways to negotiate it.

We can swipe through hundreds of potential partners without speaking to a single stranger. We can discuss relationship preferences in a profile but struggle to communicate them face to face. We can spend an entire evening exchanging suggestive messages and then become painfully awkward when the person actually turns up.

Modern romance is a funny old business.

There's also the question of honesty. Dating profiles are full of carefully selected photographs, optimistic descriptions and people claiming to love hiking despite having last climbed a hill sometime during a school trip.

Perhaps sexual liberation isn't really about how many options we have. Perhaps it's about being comfortable enough to say what we actually want.

The Great British Double Standard

Britain has a peculiar habit of celebrating sexual confidence in theory while judging it in practice.

A man who dates several women might be described as enjoying the bachelor lifestyle. A woman doing precisely the same thing can still attract rather less flattering descriptions.

We've supposedly moved beyond these attitudes, but they haven't disappeared entirely. They've simply learned to dress a little more respectably.

Social media doesn't help. We're encouraged to display confidence, attractiveness and a carefully curated version of our personal lives, yet anyone who steps outside conventional expectations can find themselves subjected to an astonishing amount of judgement.

London is particularly interesting because its population is so varied. Different generations, cultures and communities bring different attitudes towards relationships, sexuality and personal freedom. What seems perfectly ordinary in one social circle might be considered scandalous in another.

That's not necessarily a problem. People are entitled to their own values.

The difficulty begins when personal preferences become universal rules about how everybody else ought to behave.

There is, after all, a considerable difference between deciding something isn't for you and insisting it shouldn't be for anyone.

London's Nightlife Has Never Been Particularly Innocent

Spend an evening in Soho, Shoreditch or Vauxhall and it's difficult to maintain the illusion that London is a city of shy romantics waiting patiently for marriage proposals.

From underground club nights to burlesque performances and adults only parties, the capital offers a remarkably broad range of nightlife for people with different tastes.

Take Ronnie Scott's, for example. It isn't remotely scandalous, but there's something wonderfully grown up about an evening spent listening to jazz in a dimly lit room with a drink and attractive company. Not every seductive night out requires a nightclub and a questionable decision at four in the morning.

Then there's the world of cabaret, where venues such as The Box Soho have built reputations around provocative theatrical entertainment and an audience that isn't easily shocked.

London has room for all of it. The sophisticated cocktail date, the spontaneous nightclub encounter, the extravagant evening out and the quieter pleasures of spending time with someone interesting.

For some, that might mean meeting a new romantic partner. For others, it might involve professional companionship, including women working as Mayfair escorts in one of the capital's most glamorous neighbourhoods.

Different arrangements, different expectations. The common thread is that adults have always found their own ways of enjoying London's social possibilities.

Perhaps We're Confusing Privacy With Shame

There's an important distinction that often gets lost in these conversations.

Being comfortable with sexuality doesn't mean wanting to discuss your private life with the entire office. Nor does being sexually open minded require participating in anything that doesn't appeal to you.

Some people are naturally reserved. Others are happy to talk about intimate subjects over a Sunday roast. Neither approach is inherently more enlightened.

Privacy is a choice. Shame is something rather different.

And perhaps that's where British attitudes still have some catching up to do. We don't need to know the details of our neighbours' romantic adventures, but we might benefit from being a little less fascinated by judging them.

The same applies to the escort industry. It's perfectly possible to discuss professional companionship, consent, working conditions and personal freedom without resorting to sensationalism or pretending the subject doesn't exist.

In fact, a more mature conversation might be rather useful.

Not every adult relationship fits a traditional romantic template. Some are casual, some are serious, some are unconventional and some are professional. Understanding those distinctions is considerably more productive than lumping everything together under the heading of scandal.

For Such a Naughty City, We're Still Rather Shy

London will happily sell you an expensive cocktail in a bar decorated like a Victorian brothel, advertise lingerie across the Underground and celebrate films packed with romantic intrigue.

But ask a room full of otherwise confident adults to discuss their actual attitudes towards sex, and suddenly half of them develop an urgent interest in their phones.

Maybe that's simply part of the British character. We enjoy a little mischief, provided nobody makes us explain ourselves afterwards.

Still, there's something refreshing about a city where people can increasingly choose how they want to live, date and form relationships. The freedom to make those choices matters, even when somebody else wouldn't make the same ones.

And perhaps genuine sophistication has less to do with expensive restaurants, designer clothes or knowing the right people than with being able to discuss adult subjects without blushing, moralising or making everybody feel terribly uncomfortable.

London has never been particularly innocent.

It's about time we stopped pretending to be.