BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
March 09, 2014
Whipping up new laws for an old profession Canada.
Source: Ottawasun.com. - Ottawasun.com - Canada
CANADA - Is it a crime for a woman to sell sex for money? Ask a classroom of first-year law students this question and you’ll get quizzical looks. It is a trick question. I digress. Let me explain.
In December, Terri Bedford, aka dominatrix Madame deSade, successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to strike down some of Canada’s prostitution laws, arguing that they put women’s safety at risk.
When the court agreed, it must have been satisfying for Madame deSade to watch the Attorney General beg the court for a 12-month reprieve. Now, the government is scrambling to, ahem, whip up a new strategy before the end of 2014 if it wants to regulate the oldest profession in any way. The trick to the question is this: behind closed doors, buying and selling sex for money has never been criminalized in Canada. So what exactly did the Supreme Court of Canada change?
The law as it stands today criminalizes everything around prostitution, but not the sale or purchase of sex in and of itself. It is the public aspect of prostitution that is criminalized in a maze of words that a layman would find difficult to follow.
These laws are bound in sufficient shades of grey such that few johns know for sure if calling a dominatrix will land them in shackles. There are many examples of well-educated men snared in john sweeps targeting street prostitution. Didn’t they know that they could have avoided prosecution simply by calling a hooker and meeting her in a hotel room? It’s easy to get tangled in this complicated set of laws without a criminal lawyer, or dominatrix, to set you straight. Prostitution isn’t criminalized, yet it is. Sort of. Well, at least until December 2014.
Today, it’s a criminal act if a prostitute meets with a client in public to screen him. Thanks to Madame deSade, the court held this law to be more harmful than the harm it was meant to prevent. Prostitutes called as witnesses testified that most meetings with screened johns go down without incident.
The Supreme Court took notice and concluded: “If screening could have prevented one woman from jumping into Robert Pickton’s car...” Thus, prostitution was put out into the open, and women’s safety is at the forefront of the debate. Where does Canada go from here?
The approach that appears to be gaining the most traction is to follow Sweden’s lead, where women may legally sell sex, but men are prosecuted as purchasers. The goal of this approach, or so it is said, is to discourage women from selling their bodies.
Under this model all sex providers are, without exception, viewed as mere victims in this ordeal. Madame deSade certainly didn’t present herself as a victim of anything other than state regulation.
When you consider that the problem identified by the Supreme Court was not a social problem but rather a safety problem, you recognize that the Swedish laws miss this entirely and instead focus on gender: men versus women.
Those in favour of adopting the Swedish model will say that the laws are working. Fewer women are prosecuted (i.e. none) and more women are leaving the profession than ever.
However, this propaganda becomes difficult to swallow when you Google “Stockholm Escorts” and a Smörgåsbord of Heidis come-a-Fleiss-ing before your eyes. Clearly, legalizing the sale of sex does not have the net effect of encouraging women to leave the profession. It is far from being Swedish for common sense. To the contrary, it’s basic economics: remove the criminal barrier to entering a profitable market as a provider and selling sex is easier than ever.
True, there are fewer female criminals, but no fewer prostitutes, and many otherwise law abiding men now have a criminal record.
The Swedish model ensures that prostitution is hidden from the public with women’s safety, again, a mere afterthought. A better approach is necessary, lest Canada’s criminal landscape devolve into little more than governance by penile code.
Licence prostitution, regulate it, tax it. Put it out into the open where safety reigns paramount. As the saying goes, “sunshine is the best medicine.” That, and a good spanking from Madame deSade.
