Prostitution law flies in face of gender equality
In 2014, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government passed Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, which for the first time in Canada, made “obtaining sexual services for consideration” a criminal offence.
The act may have been a Conservative initiative, but its contents were shaped largely by radical feminism. Ideologically driven, arbitrarily applied and empirically suspect, Bill C-36 should be jettisoned by the Liberal government. The act is simply incompatible with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s position on gender equality.
The preamble to Bill C-36 is infused with radical feminist dogma. The Conservative government expressed grave concerns about “the exploitation that is inherent in prostitution” as well as “the social harm caused by the objectification of the human body and the commodification of sexual activity.” Of import was the need “to protect human dignity and the equality of all Canadians by discouraging prostitution.” First and foremost, this would be accomplished by prohibiting “the purchase of sexual services.”
Similar statements had been expressed already in a 2007 report by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women: Turning Outrage into Action To Address Trafficking for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation in Canada. Because the committee agreed that prostitution was “a form of sexual slavery,” it recommended that men and women be treated differently under the law. Prostitutes, the committee suggested, were not criminals but “victims of sexual exploitation,” therefore only “consumers of prostitution” should be subject to criminal sanctions.
Similar rhetoric was forwarded by abolitionist feminist organizations in support of the federal government’s appeal of Bedford v. Canada, a 2010 Ontario Superior Court of Justice case that found the Criminal Code provisions surrounding prostitution were unconstitutional. Feminist interveners in Bedford suggested that prostitution was “a global practice of sexual exploitation and male violence against women that normalizes the subordination of women in a sexualized form.”
Prostitution, they claimed, “exploits and compounds the systematic inequality of women.” In 2013, leading up to an appeal of Bedford before the Supreme Court of Canada, the interveners staked out their position clearly: men were “the source of prostitution’s harms.”
From its inception, Bill C-36 was designed specifically to stigmatize and to punish the primary purchasers of sex — heterosexual men. Recall that back in 2014 then-justice minister Peter MacKay claimed the government’s aim was to “protect those who are most vulnerable by going after the perpetrators, the perverts — those who are consumers of this degrading practice.”
MacKay’s views aligned perfectly with radical feminist support for asymmetrical criminalization. Advocates of this abolitionist model — those who believe that prostitution is a “one-sided exploitive exchange rooted in male power” — endorse criminal penalties solely for men, the demand side of the transaction. Those who supply sexual services — women — are offered exit strategies. Try as they might, conservatives and radical feminists have difficulty explaining why men should be arrested, fined or jailed for consensual sex.
Moreover, abolitionists consistently have sidestepped credible evidence that contradicts their self-evident claim that prostitution is inherently violent.
For instance, in Sex Work in Canada, a report issued by University of Victoria professors Cecilia Benoit and Leah Shumka, the authors noted that “anywhere from 60-80 per cent of indoor workers report never experiencing any work-related violence.” In Nevada, where prostitution has been legal since 1971, the exploitation myth has been widely discredited. Of the brothel workers surveyed by sociologist Barbara Brents and her colleagues, 84 per cent felt safe in their job, were free to come and go and were not forced into the trade. In Queensland, Australia, a 2011 report by the Crime and Misconduct Commission acknowledged the conclusions of recent studies: “regulated brothels are the safest and healthiest work environments for sex workers.”
For those who subscribe to the oppression paradigm — the belief that prostitutes can be reduced to a single category of being universally exploited and violated — empirical findings and ethnographic research are irrelevant. Abolitionist feminists feel that paid sex constitutes violence, so from their perspective, personal conviction should dictate public policy and law. To borrow a line from Stephen Harper, they refuse to “commit sociology.”
Because radical feminist ideology informs Bill C-36, men now face incarceration for the “crime” of offering financial compensation for sexual services. As for women who wish to stay in the sex trade, they find themselves in more dangerous, underground environments that directly threaten their health — and potentially their lives. Phoebe Galbally, master of laws candidate at the University of Melbourne, puts it succinctly:
“The radical feminist perspective of sex work, as deployed throughout the enactment of Bill C-36, has the effect of undermining the capacity for women to consensually engage in sex work, directly criminalizes their status and provides no alternate means for their subsistence — a factor that is particularly problematic in light of the noted effects of poverty and social disadvantage in generating the need to engage in sex work.”
If Galbally’s conclusions are true, that would make Bill C-36, not the demand for sexual services, a form of violence.
For the Liberal government, Bill C-36 represents a political dilemma. Dubbing himself a “feminist,” Trudeau told CNN’s Poppy Harlow that “a feminist is someone who believes men and women should be equal and who believes that there’s a lot more work to do to get there.” He forgets that different branches of feminism disagree over the issue of prostitution. Liberal feminists largely support sex workers’ rights, whereas radical feminists refuse to acknowledge sex work as a form of labour. But if Trudeau sincerely believes in gender equality and equal treatment under the law, it would be hypocritical of him to support asymmetrical criminalization, a legal strategy that treats men and women unequally.
If new legislation were passed based on gender neutrality and the legitimacy of consent, Trudeau, along with new Justice Minister David Lametti, would quickly resolve four important issues. First, they would send a clear message that the health and safety of sex workers is being taken seriously. Second, men would not be treated arbitrarily under the legal system because of their gender. Third, the Liberals would reaffirm the position that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. Lastly, laws would no longer be informed by radical feminist ideologues, specifically those who view an evidence-based approach to legislation as an afterthought.