Proudly Protecting Prostitutes
Canada needs a new direction

   

  
   

Left Overs
Yummy lain Reeve, OP Sub

 

Politics is plagued with a host of
sexually related issues. Many were
tempting to talk about in this issue,
including the overall sexualization of
society, abortion rights, and the age of
consent. One, however, is something
I’ve been thinking about for some time
now and it seemed worthy of bringing
up, as it seems to have fallen out of the
discourse over the past year or so.

In 2002, Robert Pickton was arrested
and has been implicated in the murder
of 31 women (to date), many of whom
were prostitutes from Vancouver's

downtown eastside. Being quite dis-
turbed at the time—especially since I
grew up and went to school a short
walk from the pig farm site—I joined
the rest of the city in questioning how
this kind of thing could happen. Like
many, I began to wonder how so many
people—no matter their lifestyle—could
slip through the cracks.

One suggestion that was floated was
that Canada legalize, or at least decrimi-
nalize, prostitution. There are several
reasons I continue to find this an
acceptable option.

The primary rationale for the legal-
ization or decriminalization of prostitu-
tion should be apparent from the
Pickton case. By taking prostitutes, male
or female, off the street and giving
them an atmosphere where people can
take care of—rather than abuse and
exploit—them would increase both their
safety and the odds that they can even-
tually escape from the sex trade. It is
also important to remember that vulner-
ability is only one part of the problem
exposed by the Pickton case. When the

vulnerability of the women is combined
with the relative complacency of the
police, it becomes a deadly combination.

Sixty-nine disappearances in under a
decade were not enough to spark major
investigation by police into the fate of
these women. This is because police
simply could not be bothered to sweat
over the loss of a few hookers. This
stigma is perhaps the most dangerous
thing of all. Decriminalization would
not change this overnight, but in a
decade or so, we would begin to see
some progress.

Most of the opposition to normaliz-
ing prostitution comes from a moral
base. Even though I am a big ol’ lefty, I
must admit that the idea of patronizing
members of the sex trade is something
I do find somewhat morally troubling.
However, I also have moral problems
with things like gambling, infidelity,
lying, exploitation, and many other
wrongs that are constantly accepted in
our society. Much like the issue of drug
decriminalization, which I do not
ardently support, I believe that our

moral hang-ups should not get in the
way of helping people now.

In other words, my moral obligation
to discourage indecent sexual acts is not
as strong as my moral obligation to pro-
tect vulnerable people from physical and
mental harm.

Prostitution may or may not be
inevitable in human society—I cannot
answer that question. What I do know is
that it is happening now, and will be for
some time, and we have the chance to
save people’s lives while it is happening.
I feel that not only should we do what
we can for people in these situations,
but that the best way to confront and
perhaps solve these problems is to
engage them and work from the inside.

It is the habit of societies to outlaw
the undesirable parts and damn those
involved in so-called immoral behaviour.
So far, this has doomed us to the
painstaking repetition of many of our
largest problems. Perhaps it’s time for a
fresh look.

 

Right Hook: Oh Those Poor Virgins

Is being a virgin bad? It depends on who you ask

   

 
    

Right Wing
JJ McCullough, OP Dom
There is no doubt that our contempo-
rary popular culture treats adult virginity
as a pitiful, tragic, or even hilarious
thing. After all, one of this summer’s
most popular movies was The 40 Year-
Old Virgin. The name itself was an
instant punchline. Consider that for a
second. The title was not The 40-Year-
Old Loner or the The 40-Year-Old
Single Guy, because those would have
had much less shock value. Being single
or lonely is one thing, but to go so long
without having sex, well that is simply
beyond pale.

Every major show on television,
from sitcoms to dramas, features charac-

 

ters who sleep with a myriad of sexual
partners. Each affair is reduced to a
throwaway gag, and sexual partners are
portrayed as (quite literally) mere sup-
porting characters in one’s life. If virgins
even exist in TV universes, they’re
inevitably all unattractive, anti-social
geeks. You can almost guarantee a future
plot line will center around how to get
Pointdexter some action. Virginity is
always presented as a problem to be
solved, and it’s always an involuntary
state.

Not that the non-fiction media’s por-
trayal of virginity is much better. The
only time you'll see virgins on the news
is as the tragic, slightly deranged subjects
of a breathless primetime newsmagazine
cover story. News networks love to
occasionally trot out exposés detailing
the tragic plight of the endangered
teenage virgin, with reports making
much fuss over how “unusual” and “iso-
lated” these rare creatures are. Their
motivations, in turn, are usually ascribed
to the teachings of some bizarre subsec-
tion of fundamentalist Christianity.
Thus, according to the primary outlets
of information most kids turn to, vir-

gins are either anti-social geeks, pathetic
loners, or brainwashed religious sadists.
All attractive lifestyle choices, I’m sure.

Virginity has gone from being a
virtue to a serious character flaw. There
was a time when teenagers or young
adults who chose to be virgins were
applauded as mature, disciplined, moral,
safe, and responsible individuals.
Instead, they are now stereotyped and
mocked simply for choosing a lifestyle
outside of the mainstream.

I may as well come clean. I’m a vir-
gin, and it’s never something I’ve felt
particularly ashamed of. When I look at
my non-virgin friends, few are ringing
endorsements of pre-marital sex.
Amidst all their proud backslapping and
sordid discussions of bedroom
escapades, few seem to have gained any
sort of deeper life fulfillment from los-
ing their virginity so quickly.

Once the line of virginity is crossed,
a permanent taboo is forever lifted from
your shoulders, in turn allowing sex to
simply become one more trivial,
ingestible commodity. After all, once
you loose your virginity you can never
go back, so what difference does it make

if you proceed to sleep with five, ten,
twenty, or more partners? It’s not like
you're losing “more” virginity—it’s
already long gone.

This commodification of sex is the
latest manifestation of a society where
all traditional notions of moderation,
patience, and self-discipline are increas-
ingly being sacrificed the meet the much
more pressing need for instant gratifica-
tion. Just as we can now bite into a fresh
hamburger minutes after seeing it adver-
tised on TV, so too do we now expect
the full sexual experience within days of
our first teenage twangs of lust.

The most devastating consequences
of such cavalier attitudes are well known
by now. From sexually transmitted dis-
eases, to unwanted pregnancies, to the
trauma of abortions, the list is long and
ominous. Yet they bear repeating, as too
many kids today, spurned on by images
in popular culture, believe they are invin-
cible. The “safe sex” industry has like-
wise done its part in creating a popular
mythos that sex is now something fully
tamed and controlled by man, to be

enjoyed without any risk whatsoever.
At the risk of sounding like an after