While prostitution is not banned in Canada, it is saddled with so many draconian restrictions that it could hardly be called legal.
From CBC:
An Ontario court has thrown out key provisions of Canada’s anti-prostitution laws in response to a constitutional challenge by a Toronto dominatrix and two prostitutes in 2009.
Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice ruled Tuesday the Criminal Code provisions relating to prostitution contribute to the danger faced by sex-trade workers.
What a novel idea! Actual concern for the welfare of adult prostitutes.
Dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch had argued that prohibitions on keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of the trade force them from the safety of their homes to face violence on the streets.
If only such liberty could dribble down across the border into the “land of the free”.
“We don’t have to worry about being raped and robbed and murdered,” [Valerie Scott] said. “This decision means that sex workers can now pick up the phone, and call the police and report a bad client. This means that we no longer have to be afraid, that we can work with the appropriate authorities.”
Moreover, sex workers can set up guilds and associations, health standards, workers’ compensation programs, as well as pay income tax. “We want to be good citizens and it’s time, now we finally can,” said Scott.
It’s only a matter of time before the anti-prostitution crusaders show up to pee in the punch bowl. If there’s anything that pisses of the rescue industry, its a hooker who refuses to be a victim.
Wait. They’re already there:
Some conservative groups such as REAL Women of Canada, which had intervener status in the case, argued that decriminalizing prostitution may make Canada a haven for human trafficking and that prostitution is harmful to the women involved in it.
Maybe I’m just not paying attention, but I rarely hear anyone proclaim how men are supposed to think and behave as if they were all mindless drones subservient to one central intelligence. And yet, you can’t read an article about any kind of sex trade without some organization defining what’s right and wrong for all members of the female sex. I can certainly see why some women get irate when some religious crusader or militant feminist implies that they are too fucking stupid to make their own decisions. What I can’t understand is why all women don’t get irate at such a suggestion.
“I rarely hear anyone proclaim how men are supposed to think and behave as if they were all mindless drones subservient to one central intelligence. And yet, you can’t read an article about any kind of sex trade without some organization defining what’s right and wrong for all members of the female sex. I can certainly see why some women get irate when some religious crusader or militant feminist implies that they are too fucking stupid to make their own decisions. What I can’t understand is why all women don’t get irate at such a suggestion.”
I can’t understand it, either. If I had a hundred dollars for every time I was told how I “should” think, or that I was “setting the cause of women’s rights back a hundred years”, or that I was a “traitor” for reading Camille Paglia, I probably wouldn’t have ever had to become a prostitute.
I’m a fan of Camille Paglia. In fact I have a couple books by her, although I don’t think I read either of them cover to cover. I don’t have the literary background needed to understand them. She has libertarian tendencies and a sense of humor. She was also one of the few liberal voices that railed against some of the goofier feminist theories. Every woman has heard of Gloria Steinem, but practically no one outside of academia has heard of Camille Paglia. What a shame.