To the delight of civil libertarians and libertarians alike, the Canadian courts have been leading the world in dealing with conflicts between privacy principles and morality legislation. I am serving as an expert in the review of Canadian polygamy laws in British Columbia. In the meantime, the Ontario Superior Court may allow three prostitution laws to die this Saturday.
In September, the Court struck down the laws. The federal government is charging that this is nothing short of a “social experiment unprecedented in this country.” However, it is also a frank acknowledgment that consenting adults came engage in sex for money as a consensual choice. Currently, an individual can have sex with any number of partners but can be arrested if they accept anything of value in exchange for sex. They can receive gifts as part of a “relationship” no matter how fleeting but not as payment.
The Court previously noted that criminal laws force prostitutes in the shadows where they are easy prey for abuse and even homicides. Once legal, protections and regulations can apply to the world’s oldest profession. With the demise of the laws, street walking will be legal.
Source: Star
Jonathan Turley
lotta,
“See, what needs to happen with prostitutes in Canada is first, legalize their trade so that they get protection under the law, and then organize them so they make some decent money. They need a union! And while you may be ROFLYAS by this point, I’m serious as a heart attack about it. Then if men or prostitutes want to take their chance in an alley for $5.00 that’s on them.”
Yes, YES, and YES …Unionization is the next most logical step after legalization and the best step to guaranteeing that prostitution has a voice in future legislation that may affect its members.
pete: “there’ve been more comments on this post then there are whores in canada.”
——-
8) Slowly but surely.
Canadian Eh: “The vast majority of prostitutes here in Canada are earning $5 – $25 a trick and performing their services in alleyways and the back seats of cars with no protection available to them. I suspect this will ramain the case even with prostitution de-criminalized.”
——-
An ad hominem argument but potentially relevant:
During the years I did union work I explored the possibility of moving to the Netherlands. Having a job promised or trade with the potential to get a job was a requirement, one I felt I could do easily. My work entailed working with and helping people in a variety of way including researching the law, writing various legal documents, being a verbal advocate for people in a number of hearing forums, researching social agencies to assist people outside of the job when needed to mitigate behaviors affecting the job, working with other advocacy groups to coordinate assistance for individuals etc. etc.
Since both drug use and prostitution was legal in the Netherlands I examined what that entailed because if drugs were treated as primarily a medical problem there would be support services and the same should hold true for prostitution as a legal endeavor. Oh, joy! The drug users had the Junkibund- it performed most, if not all, of the same services for drug users that I performed for workers. Prostitutes were accepted into at least one union and had at least couple of large social support services.
I figured, all things being equal, if I did migrate at least I would have enough qualifications for a job in the Junkibund or the technical end of the sex worker trade. 🙂
See, what needs to happen with prostitutes in Canada is first, legalize their trade so that they get protection under the law, and then organize them so they make some decent money. They need a union! And while you may be ROFLYAS by this point, I’m serious as a heart attack about it. Then if men or prostitutes want to take their chance in an alley for $5.00 that’s on them.
Right now, the Netherlands has a big problem with organized crime having moved into both the drug and prostitution business. They are working diligently to root out the crime and have closed down many business of both types that they believe are fronts for criminal activity. They are revising their law to put even more safeguards against organized criminals in the trade out of business. Good for them. They’re not wasting their time chasing down every prostitute, john or toker just to make their arrest record look good. I hope they succeed, I’d like to see a civilized approach to vice succeed.
there’ve been more comments on this post then there are whores in canada.
@Kay: Because you are making shit up.
@Annie: Children intuitively know if their father has engaged a prostitute? You made that up without any evidence and stated it as fact, and it is a lie, because you know you have no evidence but you are going to argue the point anyway. The reason you will do that is because your positions are illogical so you cannot argue them fairly or with reason. But because you don’t want to give up your emotional stance, you will resort to saying anything, including outright lies.
@Canadian: If prostitutes do it for the money, as I think most do, the amount of money must be significantly more than those particular women can earn doing just about anything else.
There is a condition of sexual obsession in some women (and some men) that might make *those* women like prostitution. But then again, if its all about the sex, in their heels I might prefer fresher men I *didn’t* think were regular customers of prostitutes.
Whatever, average across escort services is fine. Being a legal call girl (escort) in Canada earns five to twenty times as much as a minimum wage job with fewer hours. I can see, from their side, why *some* of them might think that is a fine deal; easy money for an easy life with time to spare.
@Kay: I don’t care why you were jailed, you already let the truth slip out, you were jailed for sassing a judge on his bench and he used his power to punish you and teach you a lesson. That was totally stupid and a result of you not comprehending HOW SHIT REALLY WORKS. Get over it already, don’t turn a few months sentence into a life sentence. Admit stupidity and move on, I’ve done it myself at least four times on bigger ticket items than that. Sometimes we do stupid things that cost us lots of time and lots of money. GIVE UP already.
So what are your estimates of market size?
Tony C.,
For shame! As a good capitalist, you should know market size impacts price! Although, I have to admit is seems a bit counter intuitive that a smaller market would have lower prices but maybe the overhead savings is just that great.
I could make a really tasteless joke about transportation costs, but I’ll stop while I’m being just merely tasteless.
@ Tony C……I have worked with woman who have worked for both a local Escort Service as well as operating their own ” businesses”. The amount that you quoted may in fact be an average across Canada for Esscort Services, but definately not for street sex workers. The amounts I’ve quoted are local btw….I live in a mid sized Ontario city. It is very possible that the services in larger cities ( ie. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver ) charge more.
In the 3 weeks that USMS in Wisconsin held me without a criminal charge, and without putting me in their Prisoner Tracking System, I shared a cell with a woman who told me she was a “crack whore”. She seemed really broke. She was obsessed with food, she was trying to gain weight so she would have a cushion when she got out.
Tony C ” Your inability to comprehend logic or the world the way it is has already landed you in prison once, and if you don’t get some help I wouldn’t doubt you end up there again.”
Get this straight — I don’t have a criminal record. I was extorted and basically kidnapped by USMS. I can’t even say “framed” because I wasn’t tried. I got a letter from USMS yesterday saying that they don’t even have a record of three weeks that they held me. I wasn’t arraigned and by their own statement they didn’t create Prisoner Tracking System records in the one state that they detained me. You can verify for yourself on PACER if you want that there were no criminal charges against me.
Furthermore I have the manual for the USMS Prisoner Tracking System. It shows homosexual act with man, homosexual act with woman, seduction of adult, anarchism, sedition and possession of liquor as criminal offenses.
I don’t understand why you are picking on me.
What have I made up, Tony?
@Canadian: That is not what I have read from multiple sources and even an academic study of prostitution in Canada; the last was a few years ago, forwarded to me by my sister (a sociologist), and claimed the average earnings were $125/trick.
Academic studies are pretty careful about their data, embarrassment because of a mistake by an order of magnitude (as you suggest they made) could be harmful to an academic’s career.
I think you are either misinformed or misinforming.
@Annie: Right, they are psychic. Bullshit.
@Annie: It isn’t paternalism and I don’t care about her gender, she is making shit up to argue her point. Like you do. You are showing your inferiority complex by thinking the attack is gender based, I am showing my egalitarianism by doing with her exactly what I would do with a man that was making shit up: calling her a liar.
@ Tony…..Actually the ” Escort Services ” charge in the neighborhood of $130 for the first hour that the ” escort’s ” services are used the cost then drops to approximately half that amount for every hour thereafter. The ” escort ” actually receives a cut of that fee not the entire amount. The estimate of $170 / hr. is highly inflated. So yes, the ” Escort Service acts as a brokerage. The service also provides a driver for the escort who doubles as their safety net while on the job. Keep in mind, the women working for the escort services are hired out of a pool of applicants and need to meet pretty specific physical characteristics to be hired. The vast majority of prostitutes here in Canada are earning $5 – $25 a trick and performing their services in alleyways and the back seats of cars with no protection available to them. I suspect this will ramain the case even with prostitution de-criminalized.
Children intuitively know, Tony.
Your paternalism is showing Tony. Woman needs psychiatric help because she does not agree that prostitution is a rewarding career.
@Kay: As for Johns, the reason that statement was stupid is this: A married man with children having sex with a prostitute is not going to advertise that fact to his children. You act as if his infidelity somehow infests every action he takes, and that is so crazy it is just stupid. Many a politician or businessman or actor has been considered a role model for years on end only to find out he was cheating on his wife the whole time, and even the wife did not know it. Jesse James and Sandra Bullock, anyone?
If even their adult, sane, independent and competent wives did not know, I doubt his children would know.
So your claim comes down to some kind of magic tainted morals, which I reject. An imperfect man can teach his children to be moral and upstanding without issue. Children don’t learn by examples they don’t see and know nothing about.
I think you are just disgusted by prostitution and will say anything to attack it, whether it is logical or makes sense or not, you just hope something works. That makes you a liar. You don’t care if what you say is true, as long as it works on somebody. You are the person without morals, because if you are against something you will just start making shit up if you feel in danger of being proven wrong.
@Kay: I can assert unproven claims all day. Why not say the same exact thing about hairdressers? What leverage do they have over their boyfriends, salon owners, and cab drivers? Why not say the same thing about waitresses? Do you think they don’t have husbands and boyfriends? Do you think they can’t have jerks for bosses?
What exactly would it be about LEGAL prostitutes that make you think they can’t take care of themselves?
You say “there should be some sort of record…” Why exactly should their personal finances be any of YOUR damn business?
You really need psychiatric help, I swear. Your inability to comprehend logic or the world the way it is has already landed you in prison once, and if you don’t get some help I wouldn’t doubt you end up there again.
If there are legal prostitutes making so much money then there should be some sort of records of them actually having savings.
I think the idea that they make so much money is a sop to Johns to make them feel less guilty but that the pimps, brothels, madams, cab drivers and boyfriends take it from them.
@Kay: Prostitutes in Canada earn $170/hr, see the ‘reader’ link.
If they work one hour a day, they make more than a shop clerk or hairdresser; they earn $850 for 5 hours of work, versus about $300 for a minimum wage shop clerk working 40 hours a week. Plus the shop clerk pays taxes. Legal prostitutes in Canada earn five to twenty times the minimum wage.
It sounds to me like prostitutes could make the same money as a hair dresser, shop clerk etc. that they are making as prostitutes. That’s why you don’t hear about the new businesses started by prostitutes with their savings. I think that what happens is that the other parties — the pimps, brothels, cab drivers, boyfriends etc. — take the money. Or it goes to drugs.