So, earlier this week Madam Justice Susan Himel ruled that the current laws regarding prostitution violent Canada's Charter of Rights (specifically the right to be safe) and struck them down.
The fact is that the sex trade already enjoys a quasi decriminalized status already. Police turn a polite blind eye towards "massage parlours" (read: sex) or high priced "escort services" (read: sex) and have been doing so for decades. But the current laws on the books are such that if one of these escorts were to be beaten within an inch of her life... well it's still technically illegal to be selling your body, so calling the police throws her into a bit of an uncomfortable situation.
Sex workers are already expected to declare their income like the postal worker or the burger flipper. Why not bring them into the spot light? For once, I actually enjoyed reading a Margarent Wente column, who makes exactly this point.
What sickens me isn't that Parliament struck down Susan Himel's ruling; kind of saw that one coming a mile away. What enrages me beyond mere disgust is that they appealed it on such a flippant basis. Our wonderful Madam Himel listened to arguments and evidence presented by the indomintable Terri-Jean Bedford, the dominatrix who brought the case in front of a judge. And this is only one judge's ruling, let us be fair. By all means, if you disagree appeal it in a court of law, debate it intelligently, perhaps even convince the courts that prostitution should stay in the dark alley it's been lurking in.
I can't really say it better than Dan Gardner did (linked a few lines up):
"Many ministers and MPs expressed emphatic opposition to the judgment. Mayors and police chiefs worried about the legal vacuum that may result. Spokespeople for business associations expressed dismay. Talk radio hosts swelled with righteous fury. The editorialists at the Globe and Mail were also alarmed. Not at the possibility that the law is helping to butcher women, naturally. No one was alarmed about that. No, it was the perceived constitutional impropriety that had the editorialists frowning vigorously."
Here's the thing: You have a constitutional right to agree or disagree on the basis of whatever arguments you'd like to follow, support, present, whatever. But you have a societal responsability to examine the world you live in, the culture that created you and that you help to create, to examine your own responses to controversial topics, and to decide on the basis of truth what to do about it. Truth, people. Not gut reaction, not mob hype. Truth.
We have sex. We are biologically programmed to have sex, and biologically lucky enough to take pleasure from it, unlike penguins and llamas (Disclaimer: I have no idea if penguins or llamas like sex or not). There is a very good reason why prostitution is called the World's Oldest Profession. Because it is! And there's a very good reason why it is. The fact that most of the arguments against legalizing it center around the shadier aspects of human trafficking, child exploitation, drug use and violent crimes is an unfortunate peripheral. Is forcing children into sex work wrong? Yes. Is trafficking in human bodies wrong? Yes. Is sex wrong? No. And it's my humble opinion that the sooner we can make the culturally forward-thinking decision to accept our bodies in all their sweaty, sticky glories, the sooner we can divorce sex work from the dark alley, and bring it into clean, regulated, safe brothels where it belongs.
We should be free to have an opinion about anything. But at least have the decency to debate it properly, and be open to changing your mind. Be reasonable.
