Following the North American trend of replacing rule of law with rule of (wo)man, Ontario Superior Court Justice Susan Himel threw out rules against brothels, pandering and living off the proceeds of prostitution. There is no mention of whether laws pertaining to soliciting prostitution will be similarly rejected, but given that the main stated concern of both sides was the safety of the prostitutes (obviously, lucre is the primary motivating factor for the hookers themselves), I seriously doubt clients will get any breaks.
In a number of Western countries, there have been moves to decriminalize prostitution even as laws pertaining to soliciting prostitutes are beefed up or retained. This is only one of the recent examples of collaboration between conservatives and feminists. Basically, the conservatives bring their burning desire to white knight for whores (i.e. sublimated sexuality) to the table, and the feminists say: “well, we have a deal for you — just let those poor little angels alone and we’ll give you all the authority you could ever want to smash up those bad, bad men who violate the pure, innocent little creatures.”
Seems the conservatives bite every time, and never learn. Wouldn’t surprise me if some hookers threw in a freebie for the attorney general every now and then to sweeten the deal and possibly gain some blackmail leverage.
Although most hookers are not exactly feminist ideologues, they do tend to lean in that direction. And feminists themselves are obsessed with prostitution. There are three reasons for this:
1. Lots of feminists are lesbians, and like fooling around with hookers themselves.
2. There’s a lot of money in the business.
3. Controlling access to the “sex trade” gives feminists a good deal of control over men.
In short, it’s a racket, and it’s for the benefit of women, so of course it’s a feminist issue.
Not once have I ever seen a conservative or feminist – or even a politician of any sort for that matter – condemn prostitutes for preying on men. There’s always this dark subtext of the “bad customer” lurking out there somewhere in suburbia, his dark fantasies hidden behind his otherwise respectable, middle-class lifestyle. Yes, there are some sick men out there who murder prostitutes, such as Gary Ridgway, AKA The Green River Killer, and the Pickton brothers with their “Piggy Palace” up in British Columbia. Incidentally, while Ridgway was true to the serial killer “lone wolf” stereotype, the Picktons were essentially pimps who counted a number of women as associates in debauchery. Vancouver prostitutes knew the Pickton farm quite well, attended parties there frequently, and at least a few of them likely knew that people were being killed there — it’s pretty hard to hide dozens of murders within a subsection of society. Ironically, Justice Himel is using the Pickton case as a justification for tossing out the laws regulating prostitution, but her removal of rules against brothels will only make it all the easier for guys like that to set up stables on their own property.
However, the vast majority of johns are just guys who want to get laid, which means they are pretty normal. Of course, wanting to get laid does not equate to visiting prostitutes, but for some men it is the most expedient solution, and there are plenty of women willing to oblige them for a fee. But first, we ought to be clear about who came up with the idea, and who is really responsible for the sex trade. Most men, at least those who live in cities, have probably been propositioned by prostitutes at one point or another in life. I can’t even remember how many times it has happened to me, but I do remember that women were propositioning me before I was even a legal adult. Men don’t generally think “I want to give that woman my money;” they think “I want to have sex.” The idea of bartering money for sex originated with the female, hence the profession is an example of female ingenuity. The risks, like the risk of being a fisherman or logger, are taken on knowingly in the expectation that potential profit outweighs those risks. And it is the profit that is exactly the motive behind these moves hookers are making to remove laws regulating their business.
What these Canadian prostitutes are demanding is that the government deregulate their industry without lowering the risk to clients — actually, if the article is any indication they want to raise clients’ risk:
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.
How much do you want to bet a hooker will never threaten to call the cops if a guy doesn’t give her more money than initially agreed upon?
Of course, any hooker with an ounce of business sense won’t do that, but they will be counting on the risks to clients to keep fees up. If prostitution were simply legal and unregulated on both ends (or totally ignored by authorities), it would become so cheap that only the best could support themselves. I’ve read that Russian hookers will sometimes perform simply for a sandwich and a can of soda pop.
So we have to see these feminist rulings for what they truly are: more moves to tilt the field in women’s favor. Women’s safety isn’t really a concern, the risks and problems prostitution can pose for men aren’t even considered at all, and the real goal is simply to use the police and courts to prop up the sex trade by foisting the risk onto clients, and, in a very real sense, by taking on the role of the pimp (historically it has been common for policemen to engage in pimping, so that’s nothing new). That Susan Himel, an officer of the court, went along with this is little surprise. After all, as powerful females such as Sonya Sotomayor are wont to proclaim, she is a woman first, and a judge second.
