May 25, 2007 04:30 AM
by Emily Mathieu from The Star
Right now across the country an insidious army in oven mitts and aprons is working tirelessly to strengthen the ranks of the Canadian pimp.
Thanks to them, the purveyors of women’s and men’s flesh are multiplying like gremlins across our city centres and suburban enclaves. Well they are if you like to take a dead-serious, literal interpretation of the Canadian Criminal Code.
Forget full-length fur coats and a misogynistic attitude, in Canada all it takes is tucking into a slice of fresh baked banana bread, provided it’s baked by a prostitute, to transform a person into a pimp.
That’s the spin provided by Valerie Scott, a former sex worker and part of Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC), a national activist group based in Toronto. According to Scott, if the ingredients in the above mentioned-bread are purchased by a prostitute, eating the bread is a violation of Section 212 of the Canadian Criminal Code labelled “living on the avails.”
Or in layman’s terms, no pun intended, reaping rewards from sex work, basically being a pimp. It basically applies to anything bought or supported through money earned through prostitution and could mean criminal charges and potentially a sentence of up to 10 years, according to Scott.
In March the women of SPOC started the process of suing the federal government to toss this section, along with two others laid out in detail on spoc.ca, out of the Criminal Code. Their argument is that, as taxpaying citizens, prostitutes (who are required to file income tax) have the right to the protection, love and comfort offered by friends and family and denying that contact could lead to harm.
So why uphold a section of a law that discourages prostitutes from baking, making a partner lunch or buying a coffee for a friend?
If you take the position that a person who trades flesh for cash is so steeped in sin their corrupt morals can be transmitted through a tray of cookies the concept makes perfect sense.
With that in mind readers may want to pause and consider the harm a bake sale could cause. If a prostitute started dealing in wholesale cakes, it could be the end of civilized society as we know it.
God forbid, please feel free to insert the moral authority of your choice, marginalized women and men be allowed to participate in the kinds of daily activities the rest of society enjoys. If baking or buying a buddy a beer gets the green light, what’s next – starting up a toddler soccer league?
We also should consider the well being of the children, not the children of prostitutes of course but the impact they could have on everyone else’s.
These kids may be too young for criminal charges but anyone who has grown up living on the avails (diapers and graham crackers aren’t free, you know) will probably amount to no good. Fortunately the law discourages prostitutes from having an adult living in the home, roommate or romantic partner, so the amount of interaction these kids can have with the rest of society is dramatically reduced. Thankfully no one’s proved social isolation at an early age has ever resulted in negative consequences, or that one might be hard to debate.
Nobody panic, no matter what your stance; nothing is changing right away. The court process SPOCs involved in is going to take at least four years, provided it’s uncontested. In the meantime that pimping problem still needs to be addressed. Who knows how many have been created through cooking alone since the women went to court in March?
Of course the concept that eating banana bread could actually turn someone into a pimp is a bit of a stretch. But it’s something to mull over the next time you’re licking the icing off a cupcake, or letting a friend buy you a cup of coffee.
Whether people should be allowed to sell themselves for the pleasure of others is complicated argument. But maybe their right to enjoy simple pleasures, to bestow them on others shouldn’t be something we get to dispute.
Emily Mathieu is a Toronto freelance writer who enjoys reading literary classics, volunteering and rocking out to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”