One of the experts who gave testimony, Rising Angels founder Katarina Macleod (which helps exiting sex trade workers, and is herself an ex-sex worker), had this to say:
" Prostitution *is* violence against women and these are "not normal men" who seek them out."
Thanks a lot for your judgmental blanket assessment of the entire population of johns. I suppose you'd be equally as happy hearing that all escorts are damaged goods (why not push it further and say that they're all crack addicts living on the street?)
All of this is so insane when I consider the way I got into this hobby. This girl, acquaintance of mine for a number of years, one day admitted to me that she was an escort. She came, as far as I know, from a nice home in the west island. She told me about the business and the way she did it. She stayed in the business just over a year, to buy herself a brand new jeep, and then left. She told me that one day some guy came up to her, gave her his card and let her know about the opportunity. She refused at first but then reconsidered.
A lot of these arguments being thrown around in these hearings make close to zero sense:
1) No woman, given the choice between escorting and an equally well paying job, would do escorting.
Not only does it assume that no woman ever gets into this business because she likes her job (ie: the "even if she came to it of her own free will, she must be broken goods and mentally sick"), but the above statement alludes to a reality that only exists in economic fantasy land. Given the opportunity to be degraded in the position of minimum wage service worker or being a $200/hr escort, there is a not an insignificant number of individuals who feel by far more respected in the second profession. The assertion that prostitution is last resort of drug addicts that live in squalor and that it should be criminalized does little to prevent those individuals from entering that state in the first place.
The hearings only talk about men who brutalize and disrespect prostitutes. This is so ironic for someone who has sometimes paid hundreds of dollars to be disrespected on a number of occasions, leaving me to ask who is really getting exploited here. Again this doesn't seem to reflect the realities of people on this forum so I guess I should think that making me into a criminal will do great things for those poor exploited native women.
Another fun fact, the day the married man gets busted for being a john (and we're talking about lawyers, stockbrokers, and politicians, a well known fact from some of the girls I've known), there goes his chances of having a happy family, there goes his kids, his career. You're going to drive many of your most economically contributing individuals into the ground and what will be left of them afterwards?
What about those men who are naturally promiscuous? (Erm, most if not all men?) The fact is, everyone can get laid. But between going clubbing 3 times a week. Spending ridiculous time, effort and money to get laid instead of running your economy and putting relatively much less effort to get the same thing, I'd rather not waste everybody's time. "Seducing" a girl with the idea of just fucking her 2-3 times (sometimes with her reticence because she understandably doesn't want to give up her goods too soon) then never returning her calls (worse: getting tear soaked voice mails or even getting stalked, it's happened), is to me a FAR FAR more enormous sign of disrespect and a waste of time than having a relatively quick, consensual and easy transaction with a willing party (who's often better looking and more skillful anyway).
Monogamy is on the way to the graveyard and you're breaking up one of the only medications for men who aren't comfortable with the idea of giving their increasingly career-centered wives the entire monopoly on sex.
Anyway on a more realistic note, it will be interesting to see the real effects on demand and supply when this law passes. If it detracts men, then prices will go down. If it detracts women, than the opposite, so that only the wealthier can permit themselves the right to un-hypocritically purchase sex (the rest has to waste time with dates and club pick-ups). What will it do for those who are already illegally being forced to do this against their will?
EDIT: "Prostitution is a form of violence" JESUS
