Ex-Labour councillor, 51, launches bid to become Crime Commissioner 

An ex-Labour councillor turned ‘soft porn’ star who wore ‘sexy police gear’ to read erotic poetry on her YouTube channel wants to stand as a Police and Commissioner.

Anna Semlyen, 51, who was elected as Labour councillor in 2011, set up Anna’s Authentic Arts during the first and got into revealing positions whilst reciting ‘erotic poetry’ in her bedroom.

The former councillor, who usually dons scantily clad outfits in her videos, has since attracted 46,000 views and 740 subscribers, and admits she first started the ‘mixed arts’ channel because she was feeling ‘lonely’ and ‘depressed’.  

One particular video at the height of lockdown, titled Safer Sex Covid Style, saw the mother-of-one wearing a homemade bikini created from face masks while filming the jaw-dropping ‘adults only’ poem.

Now, she is fighting for one of the top policing jobs to increase ‘woman safety’, ‘road safety’ and to prevent a ‘medical apartheid’.

She is standing for the Police and Crime Commissioner role in North Yorkshire, which was vacated by the departure of Philip Allott over comments he made after the murder of Sarah Everard.

Ms Semlyen, from York, who has a 20-year-old daughter, put her name forward for the £74,440 a year position after Mr Allot stepped down following a backlash after he urged women to be more ‘streetwise’ following Sarah Everard’s death.

She said: ‘If you look at women’s safety overall – it’s not just sexual safety but road safety.

‘The number of women who are experiencing problems to do with the patriarchy and the entitlement of men, not just the males gaze but comments that are unwanted all the way up to rape and abuse and murder, as happened to Sarah Everard, is more concerning than ever.

‘Phillip Allot made comments about arrest procedures that were totally inappropriate.

‘He was telling women to understand their arrest rights, tube and for that, he had to resign. This is why women’s issues are at the forefront of this election.’

She said her manifesto would focus on women’s safety from sexual predators and implementing a speed limit of 20mph on residential streets and in town and village centres.

The Yoga teacher’s channel, which has 79 videos in total, offers a variety of erotic poems with titles such as ‘Period Sex’ and ‘Blowjob’.

And she believes she could use her channel to highlight the fact that policing ‘isn’t working’.

She added: ‘I worked very hard on sexual feminism on my channel because it’s saying the voice of what women are really thinking, which men don’t often hear.

‘They often watch porn where the woman’s voice is being muted, and she’s not an intelligent, interesting woman with an opinion.

‘We can have multiple organisms, but men generally get serviced by women and have babies.We don’t necessarily ask for what we want in the bedroom enough.

‘We want better sex, we want more sex, we want more orgasms.’

In particular, Miss Semlyen believes that women aren’t discussing masturbation enough, nor the language surrounding it – something her channel sought to highlight, especially during Covid.

She added: ‘Everybody w***ed a lot in lockdown, let’s be honest.And we’re not even allowed to talk about it, are we?

‘Even though that’s something most people do most weeks or days.

‘The whole sexual language is set up around men because women don’t discuss it because we’re frightened of being raped or downgraded.’ 

Her plans to stand in the by-election, which takes place on November 25, have been hampered by the requirement of a £5,000 bond which candidates lose if they do not get more than 5% of the vote.

She added: ‘I looked into it further and found there was a £5000 entry fee, a bond, and you only get this money back if you poll at least five per cent of the first preferences, which obviously requires a lot more money to do your campaigning.

‘I was appalled at the wealth barrier that exists to even stand as a candidate.’