Belle de Jour reveals she was raped as a teenager

Former high-class prostitute Dr Brooke Magnanti has revealed she  was sexually assaulted as a teenager. The 36-year-old, who achieved global notoriety through her blog using the pen name Belle de Jour, spoke for the first time about the rape in an interview with Grazia magazine. Magnanti refused to divulge details of the attack but insisted the incident took place before her time as a £300-an-hour call girl. She told Grazia magazine: 'All I really want to say about it is that it was a very long time ago and that's pretty much it. 'You get over it and move on. I'm not after sympathy but more to reassure people. 'If you have been a victim of sexual assault... I do understand where you're coming from.' The author also explained she never underwent councelling following the attack because 'it wasn't really the thing back then.' Dr Magnanti worked from 2003 to late 2004 as a prostitute through an escort agency, pocketing a third of the fee for her two-hour sessions with clients, whom she met two or three times a week. While promoting her latest book on sex, she also revealed how she later met her husband through a website which adults use for casual sexual encounters. She has never revealed the identity of the man she married in 2010. However, she has admitted for the first time how she met him through the casual sex section of Gumtree, a popular classifieds website. That section of the website was closed down in January 2010 after hundreds of men complained that the forum was awash with call girls instead of genuine women looking for a fling. The man Dr Magnanti met is a 34-year-old from Birmingham who has a passion for ice-climbing. Big reveal: American research scientist Dr Magnanti, who outed herself as the £300-an-hour prostitute Belle, met the 34-year-old Birmingham man on Gumtree Big reveal: American research scientist Dr Magnanti, who outed herself as the £300-an-hour prostitute Belle in 2009, now lives with the 34-year-old Birmingham man in Scotland When she realised that she was developing strong feelings for him she told him she had slept with hundreds of men as a London call girl to pay off her student debts. By contrast, her husband has a rather less salacious sexual history. The pair, who met in Bristol, now live in the Scottish Highlands surrounded by apple trees and deer. Although Dr Magnanti is married, she said it is unlikely she will ever have children. 'Fundamentally I don’t feel that having a family is the best thing I have to offer the world,’ she said. She went on to admit that she would always be remembered for being a call girl and admitted she would be worried how her children, if she had any, would be treated. When asked about her current views on prostitution, she said: 'If you want to identify a population that has been consistently discriminated against, it is up there with racism, with religion. ‘There is the assumption that, once you have crossed this line, you never go back and that it says something about you as a person and your ability to do other things,’ she told the Daily Telegraph. Speculation surrounding her identity intensified after her blog and memoir The Intimate Adventures Of A London Call Girl were published. Dr Magnanti on prostitution: "If you want to identify a population that has been consistently discriminated against, it is up there with racism, with religion." Her blogs and books were later adapted into a TV programme, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper as Belle. In November 2009, Dr Magnanti revealed her identity after fearing her real identity was about to come out. Many were stunned to discover that she had a PhD from Sheffield University in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science. When she decided to break her silence she was working at the Bristol Initiative for Research for Child Health, researching the effects of exposure to pesticides on foetuses and infants. After the American-born former call girl revealed her identity, her father admitted he had used more than 150 prostitutes himself. Paul Magnanti said that letting her meet some of the prostitutes when she was in her twenties may have made her think that women who sell sex can have a 'human face'. In her latest book, The Sex Myth: Why Everything We’re Told is Wrong, Dr Magnanti discusses what she sees as misunderstandings surrounding sex. She argues how academics manufacture research into the sex industry which produce results that are selective and dishonest.