Courtesan Conundrum

by Joseph and Keith

In dating, in casual relationships, in selling sexual services, and in marriage, tensions exist between the sexes. For reasons of personal worth (self-esteem), self-preservation and reproduction, the needs of each sex are slightly different. Historically, women had fecundity (fertility) and men the protector/provider role. In all societies, men and women trade things they value. This was (and is) functional and has resulted in the successful perpetuation of our species. 

Today in Canada, the legal tensions are particularly acute. Many men are reluctant to risk losing everything in divorce. Dating has become a legal minefield for the cautious perceptive man; if his date has an extra drink, he can be charged with rape. If his date is a co-worker, he runs the risk of a sexual harassment lawsuit and job loss. If his date accidently or fraudulently becomes pregnant then he risks eighteen (or more) years of involuntary servitude enforced by the Family Court. The Attorney General funds the Family Maintenance Enforcement (some say 'Extortion') Program, a collection agency that jails men who are unable to pay court-ordered child support.

With dating and marriage bringing such high risks, men may prefer to have their needs met in a non-marriage professional environment where the costs are known in advance. Men may seek the services of prostitutes to avoid being subjected to the lawyer-enriching divorce industry. Our legislators, mostly lawyers, seem reluctant to allow men to avoid any legislated 'sex and money traps'.

[The hazards of marriage and divorce are viewed as sufficiently serious that men's groups have proposed enactment of a "Marriage Notification Bill". The proposed Bill would require prospective husbands be properly informed of the dangers when applying for a marriage license. All federal political parties are currently studying this proposed Bill.]

Given all this, many prefer a straightforward 'date' with a prostitute, but even those men are now under threat of another financial rape in the form of "Shame the Johns" asset seizures. New government policies targeting "johns" are probably more honest than all previous official attempts to control and profit from prostitution; because the intended target has always been men - and their money. The law now permits publishing men's names and seizing their assets.

The justification given is that the "Shame the John's" campaign addresses child prostitution, but decoys are exclusively adult policewomen. The program is conflation of child abuse and prostitution in nearly every report, memorandum and statement. According to a Ministry spokeswoman, "It is not the intent of the Attorney General to combine child prostitution with adult prostitution". We are asked to believe that the linkage in those documents is entirely unintentional.

Child prostitution is a form of child abuse, and not related to adult prostitution in any relevant way. The Attorney General's 'accidentally' linking child-prostitution with adult prostitution serves only the feminist agenda by manipulating public opinion against men in general and by equating the entire sex profession with child molestation. This arouses strong emotions, clouding the issue and deflecting discussion away from reasoned public policy. When asked, the Ministry of Attorney General declined further comment on this matter.

According to representatives from Seduction Unlimited escort agency, they regularly receive job applications from adults who have never worked in the business. Some are married, applying with their partner's support. Underage applicants are rejected (S.I.N.s are checked). None have any illusions about what the job entails and job satisfaction is roughly equivalent to any other profession. Consequently, many people who are "living on the avails" are the families of prostitutes, including their children. No reasonable person would advocate arresting the families for 'pimping'.

Approximately 95% of prostitute's customers are men, 70% are single. If the government's intention is to reduce all prostitution then perhaps a less dangerous Family Law environment would increase the desire for wives and reduce the demand for prostitutes. Sex for money may be a poor substitute for a fulfilling marital relationship, but there is no doubt that many men find it a prudent option.

Pierre Elliot Trudeau said, "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." Prostitution occurs in all societies, but will be more prevalent in any society with a legal climate that targets men. The law ought to be silent on the subject of all adult consensual sex. What is truly immoral is legislation that makes all adult sexual relationships legally perilous to men.

Joseph is a Director of the Victoria Men's Centre

Keith is a member of the Vancouver Island Libertarian Association

[Published in the Victoria Times-Colonist on May 7, 1998. Page A19]

Responses!

Spare us

Re: the May 7 opinion piece by Joseph Maiello and Keith Weaver. This "men as victims" stance is pathetic and so terribly dangerous that I am amazed it was allowed to be printed.

The "hazards" of being male that this pair speaks of are summarized as male victims being unable to make choices for themselves to not drink too much alcohol and have sex with new partners; to not date people that they work with; and to not always take responsibility for birth control. They speak of women as evil, manipulative golddiggers. This is misogyny, fellas.

My partner and I are raising a son. We are committed to teaching him to respect himself and to take responsibility for his actions in life. I hope that he will proudly call himself a feminist someday. To me, this means he will understand the roots of female oppression in our soci ety, the gains made with the persistence of courageous women's groups, and the constant struggle that is still necessary to fight patriarchy.

I hope he will speak out against violence against women, advocate for male responsibility for birth control, and question the lack of balance in the low representation of women in the higher echelons of society.

Perhaps if these men could hear the stories of girls and women who have been date-raped, sexually harassed or abandoned with children to raise on her own, they may actually loosen their grip on feeling victimized. And maybe these fellas could learn the real numbers of children who are prostitutes and whether the adult women and men who prostitute live without fear for their lives in this business.

If sex is all you're after, fellas, you can save all your hard-earned money by simply using your left or right hand. Better to use them for this purpose than putting down the pathetic dribble that I just read.

Prostitution starts with children

I hope Joseph Maiello of the Victoria Men's Centre and Keith Weaver of the Vancouver Island Libertarian Association did not have the vote of the membership when they wrote the opinion piece that child prostitution is neither related nor relevent to adult prostitution.

All too often a child prostitute grows up to be an adult prostitute.

If the above men, especially the libertarian, were caring and concerned, they would donate time and money to help these unfortunates, who often lead short and brutalized lives, to regain their dignity and help heal them of their past abuses and poverty.

The pimps may have told Joseph and Keith that adult applicants for prostitution jobs were not child abuse victims, but accurate stats should be sought not from them but from therapists and by direct interviews with those caught in prositution.

R.F. MacIsaac, president, Vancouver Island Human Rights Coalition.

No more Poor-me

Joseph and Keith ridiculous polemic, "Prostitution, child abuse unfairly linked" (May 7), would be more appropriately titled "Kidding ourselves: The Poor-Me Male Syndrome."

Their piece has as much to do with the real issues of prostitution as their politics have to do with anything other than covert misogyny.

The authors claim to be discussing prostitution as labor, yet they are too busy blaming everything from divorce and rape on women to even mention issues of decriminalization and safe working environments for sexual laborers.

By pulling several centuries worth of biologically essentialist mythology into their ramblings, the authors reduce the complex issues surrounding prostitution down to the idea that men buy sex they are fraught with anxiety over the way women allegedly control public discourse. This notion is laughable as it is frightening.

If Maiello and Weaver actually lived in the real world, they would have have to recognize that yes, societal power does run along gendered lines, and this power is maintained and perpetuated by the always mysogynist, patriarchal system.

Until our society decides on equity as its defining vision, prostitution, child abuse, divorce and rape will work hand-in-systematic hand with that of the dominant ideology.

It is time Poor-Me Males wake up and smell reality

Julie Lambert, Victoria.

Enlightening read

Thank you for publishing the recent commentary by the spokesmen for the Victoria Men's Centre (Voices, May 7). I found it enlightening to read the views of the sociopaths of our community on relations between the sexes.

Art Vanden Berg, Victoria.