Public Consultation on Prostitution-Related Offences in Canada

The Government of Canada is seeking the public's input on the criminal law's response to adult prostitution (i.e. the sale and purchase of sexual services from persons 18 years of age or older). This online consultation is open from February 17 to March 17, 2014.

My responses are below. Please go to this link and provide your own.

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Consultation Questions

1. Do you think that purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: Purchasing sexual 'services'????? By framing this question in this way there is an implication that providing access to a bodies orifices is something that is required - like a tune up on an automobile. So yes, I think that purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence. Sex is not a 'service'. It is a consensual act conducted *between* adults. Our society should be working actively to reduce demand by penalizing the people who regard sex with others as a service to be purchased rather than an act to be enjoyed between consenting adults.

2. Do you think that selling sexual services by an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: No, I don't think that selling sexual services by an adult should be a criminal offence.

3. If you support allowing the sale or purchase of sexual services, what limitations should there be, if any, on where or how this can be conducted? Please explain.

Comment: There should be no limitations on the providers. By criminalization of the purchasers the providers can work with authorities to eliminate the purchasers they wish to remove from their clientele.

4. Do you think that it should be a criminal offence for a person to benefit economically from the prostitution of an adult? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

Comment: All pimps and brothel owners should be criminalized. Body guards should not be criminalized.

5. Are there any other comments you wish to offer to inform the Government's response to the Bedford decision?

Comment: I find it dismaying that this issue has been framed around the notion of sex=work. Any enlightened adult knows that good sex should be an act that allows mutual enjoyment. If it is reduced to 'work' then it is a sad reflection of how distant our Canadian society is from recognizing this.

6. Are you are writing on behalf of an organization? If so, please identify the organization and your title or role:

Comment:

Moderators, Rangers and Elders: Oh My!

The internet is on fire after a woman was threatened on the internet with rape and violence after successfully persisting in petitioning the bank of England to get a woman on one of their banknotes that didn't earn fame due to the luck of whose uterus she came out of. I'm not going to link to the current discussion or the petition that arose out of this latest all too familiar incident. But I will say I signed it but I left a comment.  This post is meant to elaborate on my comment.

I am 46 and sent my first message across the internet in 1986. I was a young university student studying math and taking a mandatory computer science course at the now quite well known for technology University of Waterloo. I didn't know that I was on the internet at the time and that term wasn't even coined yet. I was on an inter-university-governmental communication system that was spread all across North America. After 1986, when I was taking further courses in computer science (I ended up minoring in it, it fascinated me), I was exposed to vast repositories of knowledge and discussion on these systems. After graduating with my first degree and working for a year, I knew I had to come back and learn more. I chose to go into an engineering program at the same university that specializes in understanding systems. From 1991 - 1999 I pursued graduate work in the Management of Technology. I completed a Master's degree and am ABD on a PhD in the topic.

So I basically have over a quarter century of lived and studied experience in this space we now call the internet, or just the net. That's a fair amount and really makes me an elder.

I cringe using this word, elder. Inner voice: Who gives me the right to call me that? Newfound Voice, Calmly: "Your education and experience are legitimate, own it. Just because no-one is paying you to say or write this stuff doesn't mean it doesn't need to be said."

My personal growth in the last few years has taken me on a fascinating journey of self realizations and awakenings. The personal has become political in all sorts of ways. My longevity on the net has made me afraid of ego. I've been victimized online. I've only been not anonymous online for the past 8 years due to cyberstalking that occurred in around 1997. That terrified me and shut me up.

Even after I removed my anonymous shield I've been leary. However, my recent journey has led me to the point of I just don't care anymore. I will say what I want and if you think my motivations are ego driven I can assure you, with the core of my being, that they are not. What I see is driven by my raison d'etre, driven into me in my youth and surfacing regularly throughout my life:  I want to see the world left in a better condition than when I arrived. I don't want to be part of the problem anymore, I want to be part of the solution.

Pussyfooting around egos is not working. Ego is not part of the solution. Ego = ME. Community = WE. I have come to the point in my life, with Daughter grown, that I am willing to actually die for this belief in the necessity of community.

I see a lot of ego in Social Media. I might even argue that it is literally out of control. This latest fiasco over rape threats has highlighted this fact because some of the detractors to the abuse button petition are people who have benefitted from calling out abusers. If their 'skill' is replaced by a button, how will they garner attention? They don't say this, of course. There is a new Newspeak and many internet users are expert at it.

Back in the discussion board days there were moderators appointed that had experience and longevity and were respected by board group members. This doesn't exists in the mainstream social media sites of today and if it does on the lesser known platforms (like on reddit or 4chan) the sites themselves are still largely patrolled by men who think 'post your local weather girl pix' are fine. If I were to call that out I would be called a prude and told to get over myself. I have backed away from these environments long ago because as a woman I have been targeted for too long. 27 years is a long time and it is most of my adulthood. I am tired. But now I'm seeing that a critical mass of women is developing online and perhaps now is the time we can try and put measures in place that ensure online spaces are safe.

I believe all communication systems, throughout millenia, need appointed moderators. Moderators that might be paid but are appointed by users not shareholders in the capitalistic marketplace. Moderators that have a full understanding of the limitations and strengths of healthy terms of service agreements and can work with employees to improve them. In the early 90s there were tons of people kicked out of discussion groups for behaviours that today get called trolling and laughed off. A rape threat would have incurred banning them for life immediately.

I fear that our ego celebrity driven world is making the online space too toxic for women. I also fear that the online space is the only way women can gather enough in numbers to truly liberate future women from human trafficking and violence. Men run everything, still. Everywhere, still. Twenty years ago on the fledgling internet there was a much greater understanding of inappropriate behaviour online. The community was so small that 'policing' it was manageable. It is now out of control (like I said before).

I hope some social media company somewhere takes this suggestion to heart. We need moderators. If they are looking for a current very successful model in order to develop a strategy they could look at the Ranger community at Burning Man. It has long fascinated me and as with many things Burning Man, it is quite innovative.

My Slow Media Diet

At no other time in history have we had so much information.  It is like a primordial soup of information out there.  And I am the first to admit that occasionally I drown and have to be resuscitated with a good solid dose of self imposed solitary confinement away from all of it.

I did that this past weekend.  And upon my return I reflected that each and every time I return to the 'soup' I think...."Wait just a gosh darned second...I don't need this shite....most of it is not life enhancing."

It is the 'most' bit that gets me each and every time.  The fact of the matter is that there actually is some utility in the information and that marginal utility is what prevents my digital suicide each and every time I contemplate it.

I enjoy (need) to hear about the day to day activities of loved ones that are not near.  I enjoy (need) to hear about the activities of loved ones that are near too.  I also find that most of my news is obtained via social media streams and I love the fact that I can mute certain streams if they no longer meet my needs.

I need interaction.  I believe we all do.  Forcing oneself into isolation is an activity encouraged only in small doses and in today's dispersed and time-deficient world we interact electronically alongside face to face.

This week's viral article on "Listening to Complainers is Bad for your Brain" reminds me of the essence of my discomfort with all of this information:  It is, for the most part, negative.

In the last year I have consciously chosen to try and live-talk and e-post only good news stories except when my blood pressure simmers to the point of needing to climb to the top of the rooftop and literally scream my displeasure.  A negative article or comment from me is the equivalent of a gorilla pounding her chest.  I am a passionate (and, um, unmedicated) person so this tends to happen on a regular basis.

Slow media is a lifestyle that encourage others to do the same.  Thoughtful and conscious consumption and production of media could radically change our world while maximizing the opportunities for significant and positive world change that technology affords us.

Hero Worship

Me with Michele Landsberg, a personal hero.

Last night I went to a showing of Miss Representation here in Toronto that was hosted by Crankytown.ca and Fresh Restaurants. In a curious twist of the universe and its gazillions of electrons, one of my own personal lifelong heroes attended as well. I am beaming with her in the above picture.

If any of you know her then you will not be surprised at her lofty status in my own story. She is a feminist. She was the only feminist in any mainstream Canadian media throughout my childhood. Her weekend columns were shared ritualistically and often aloud at the dining room table by my mother with a pot of coffee on lazy weekend mornings in our pyjamas. My mother often vocally cheered for her. She also often remarked on what a pioneer this woman was. My young fertile ears soaked this in.

I blame my mother, and Michele Landsberg, for my 16 yo daughter coming home one late night last summer and saying: "Thanks Mum, you've made me a feminist and boy am I angry." She was upset by the contradictory manner her male friends treated the females in her larger social group. I knew that my most compelling role as a parent had been fulfilled at that moment. Thanks Mum. Thanks Michele.

A couple of years ago I added Michele as a friend on facebook. My political connections on facebook had grown to the point that her name kept being suggested as a friend. I sent her a message informing her of her pivotal role in my formative years and how honoured I was to be connected virtually with her. She wrote back and thanked me, THANKED ME !?, for giving her the inspiration to keep plodding away finishing her latest book (Writing the Revolution, which is now on my to read shelf).

That message from her impressed me even further. Michele has a long road behind her of inspiring and serving the voices that are misrepresented in our culture. And last night, she shared with me her views on this awareness raising film in a manner that continues to reflect her absolute dedication to humanity: "Everyone needs to see this film."

Namaste Michele. I pledge to light my torch with your flames and soldier on towards the day when we can all stand up and say: WE Represent.

Nourishment 101

"Her eyes were quivering." I am a voracious reader so I no doubt have read this description more than once in my life. Until this past Friday night I hadn't witnessed it first hand without emotions overwhelming me simultaneously so the trite description didn't immediately spring to mind in real time.


I have a certain type of face.  The type of face that strangers regularly approach for directions.  And the type of face that says:  You can confide in me; I am all ears and empathy.  I can thank genetics for this - it runs in the family.  At times it can be uncomfortable but it is always a moment of real communion with a fellow human.


I had such a moment on Friday night.  I attended the approximately bi-monthly, and for now, roving St. Jamestown Community Café.  I learned about this endeavour at the monthly (intentionally roving) Foodie Drinks.  The organizers I met (Nancy Slamet and Lucas Lu) certainly captivated my interest and I attended not only to support their efforts but also as a detective.  I was sussing out the vibe in order to bring back info to my upcoming community association meeting.  The St. Jamestown Community Café is hoping to eventually create an incubator model for other cafés and since Nancy herself interned at the long time successful Queen Street Commons café in Kitchener, I have tremendous faith in the likelihood of the success of the St. Jamestown Community Café.

St. Jamestown community café Friday November 18th, 2011.

I spent most of the evening parked in the same chair munching down on delicious and healthy food that attendees purchase using a pay-what-you-can system so that anyone, with any means, can come participate in the café.  The pay-what-you-can model has been utilized in a few well known establishments and I foresee a huge increase in it's use due to changing worldwide economic circumstances and the increasing popularity and acceptability of social enterprises.

While I stayed stationary at the same table, the cast of characters surrounding me completely turned over three times.  I first enjoyed an amusing rapport with three long term residents (30+years!) from the community.  These three women have raised children and buried husbands together.  The only one with a walker departed by getting up and dancing her way to the front of the room (where the musicians were providing an excellent foot tapping show) before returning to collect her walker and go home.  I was still giggling when a much older woman with a walker came through the door.

The elder woman's paid caretaker saw my now empty table and got the woman seated and her walker stashed away before going to collect her a plate of food.  The woman settled quite close to me and I asked her her name.  She told me and was quite delighted to find out that I knew it was italian since one of my own neighbours that is about the same age (91) has the very same unusual italian name that has fallen out of favour since the earlier part of the 20th century.

This woman was as sharp as a tack and her immediate familiarity with me was a little daunting but quite enjoyable.  We meandered our way through the niceties and I found out that she too is a long time resident of St. Jamestown and in fact moved to the area after her mother died in Kapuskasing, ON.  She was 20 years old so that means that she has lived there for over 70 years!  A veritable walking history book!

In the course of the conversation I thought to ask her if she had any children.  That is when her eyes started quivering and I simultaneously thought of the trite phrase whilst panicking at what I was to find out.  "Yes, my daughter.  But she left me.  Five years ago.  I buried her.  She had taken a job since she was broke.  She hit her head.  Her work didn't phone a doctor, and so she just went to bed that night.  AND DIED."  I capitalize since by the end of this halting speech the tiny frail woman was wailing.  And I was bawling.  And during the course of her delivery I had instinctively reached out and grabbed the tiny arm and felt the life force of this woman humming along, albeit in vast amounts of pain.   I could not choke back my sobs.  So we sat there and cried a bit with me holding on to her arm with both hands now - an awkward but universal type of embrace that is instinctive to humans sharing pain.  After a few minutes I said that I applauded her courage to get up every day and go out and that no mother should ever have to bury a child.  After a few more weepy minutes we gravitated away from the subject and she entertained me with stories of her life as a cleaning woman in Toronto and her cat and the bedbugs that her nursing home is fighting.  She left after eating a healthy sized meal for a 91 year old and I hope to see her again.

The last cast of characters at my table were also fascinating and engaging people.  Two of them were the musicians finally enjoying their repast after entertaining us so wonderfully.  In fact we were all so engrossed in conversing with one another we were literally kicked out (laughingly)!  I had not realized that the tables were being packed up around us and ours was the very last table to be dismantled and put away.

Kudos to the St. Jamestown Community Café.  If my experience can be considered representative of other attendees, I have no doubt that your community development efforts will be successful.  I left the event nourished completely in both body and spirit and I can't imagine any other measure of success that such an effort would desire.

#OccupyEarth Pledge

1. I promise to actively pursue the creation of a local community council (representing 200-2000 people in my same geographical proximity...one building or one block or one suburban/rural area).   I also promise to serve as an actively engaged member for at least 3 years of my life (in flexible allotments/commitment times).  An upper maximum allowed to serve on council  might be for 10 or 15 years but only in 3 year consecutive allotments   Democratic process should  provide for the mechanisms to create and pay for this type of civic structure.  All of the numbers are arguable....the point is to engage the citizenry and make it easy to be heard.
2. I promise to ensure that Zero Carbon Footprints should be embedded in policy.  At each and every level of government.  And, in your household - use carbon offsetting donations if you cannot go offgrid.
3. I promise to share what I can and when I can:  money; food; time; resources.
4. I promise to be emotionally available and actively listen.  I will actively pursue real (face to face) connections frequently.  The goal is daily (and very flexible).
5. I will honour my body and it's need for healthy fresh food, rest, and exercise.  The goal is daily and also very flexible.

Unofficial advice for Occupy Protestors (Canadian especially).

I was at the second organizational meeting for #OccupyBayStreet #OccupyToronto held last night at OISE.  I also went to the legal workshop and the media workshop.  Here are some thoughts if you are planning on heading down to your local assembly tomorrow for 10 a.m.:

1. Bring whole milk, dawn detergent, containers:  http://www.pepper-spray-store.com/relatedinfo/antitdote.shtml.  #Remember #Toronto #G20.  Alternatively, bring maalox(liquid) and baby shampoo.  Bring apple cider vinegar and a scarf to breathe through in case of tear gas.
2. Bring very little cash, $50 max in smaller denominations.  One piece of picture ID.  If stopped by police ask if you are being detained.  If you are being detained ask why.  You do not need to answer questions.  Do not show i.d. unless you are arrested and ask for a lawyer before saying anything.   #G20 #Lessons  If you or your bags get searched announce loudly that you do not agree to the search but do not resist.  Do not carry anything that may give cause for arrest (knives, drugs, etc).  Read through this Canadian legal guide for activists for more information and advice.  The legal # for #OccupyToronto is 416-833-6137. Consider writing it on yourself, somewhere discreet.
3. Protein bars/meal supplies for personal use and/or gifting.   Consider also gifting the Food Committee with a bag or two of fresh fruit or vegetables.  Preferably local.  A reusable water container and a bowl and spoon will also be required if you want to obtain replenishments there.  Larger food or cash-in-kind donations (please see this wish list) can organize with @OccTorFoodies.
4. Wear comfortable and warm clothes and shoes.  Dress in layers.  As waterproof as your budget allows.
5. In-Case-of-Emergency (ICE) contact information :  ICE numbers on your cell.  Who to call in case of the worst case scenario.  Your cell may be searched.  Remember that.
6. Portable musical instruments and the ability to play!  Voices count as instruments!  Bring song & chord sheets!  The Common Thread Chorus will be out so look for them.  Bring your crafts too....and think about giving a workshop while down there for anything you feel qualified enough to.
7. Signs - be creative, find your voice. Weatherproof it.
8. Media:  at this time no-one is speaking on behalf of the movement so if you get asked to go on camera or give a quote by a member of the media make sure you emphasize you are speaking for yourself.  And just because they ask doesn't mean you have to. In fact, the more people that do not speak will create more of a media frenzy and might help to increase our support.  Think carefully before agreeing to anything and contact the media committee if you are unsure or unclear.  The last thing the movement needs is some angry wing-nut on the cover of the Sun....but if that happens I'm sure it will not kill the movement.
9. Try not to be photographed or videotaped alone by any media.  Group shots encourage participation.  Solo shots do not.
10. This is a powerful movement but that should not preclude the fun factor.  Being friendly, inclusive and accommodating always works better.  Yes, we are angry but we are not assholes.  This is a peaceful assembly.  We all have our reasons to be there.  We all share one thing in common --->  HOPE.  Don't forget this.  And don't be a litter bug either - and this includes cigarette butts :)

Apples and Snakes

I am not religious.  Not anymore.  I had a good long three decade run at it with most of it being a willing and consenting participant (i.e. as an infant/small child I had no choice).  My certificate of annulment from my brief mid-twenties marriage attests to the purity of faith I once had as well as to the success of the brainwashing efforts.  As does the certificate of baptism that my daughter has.  As a teenager I used to go to Saturday evening masses with my best friend when neither of my parents had darkened the church doorstep for months.  My relationship with the church fizzled out before my daughter's recollected memory starts so she has bypassed the brainwashing track and for that I am truly grateful....as is she.

However, I do miss the comfort of the ritual.  I was part of many church choirs and I miss the music.  I went to a catholic funeral a year ago and belting out the hymns was marvelous.  I didn't participate fully in this mass due to knowing that the partaking of the sacraments is a personal witnessing for christ ritual that holds no meaning to me anymore. But I was fascinated to see friends participate even though I knew they hadn't partaken of any sacrament in years and according to the 'rules' as I know them the body of christ portion of the ceremony should have been off limits to them.  All of these friends were in their second or third marriages without annulments and I'm pretty sure their new relationships weren't chaste.  So they are 'living in sin' and not regularly obtaining the sacrament of reconciliation to clear that blemish in order to partake of communion.  In fact, I'm not sure when the last time any of them had been to church (probably a first communion or confirmation service).  Their participation made it clear to me that in today's secular world most people regard church ceremony as more pomp and less - or no - circumstance.

Setting aside the pomp versus circumstances debate, I don't regret for a single minute the time I spent with mother church.  It gave me early insights into the history of humanity that I don't think I would have obtained since I was pigeon holed at an early age into the mathematics/science fields.  My knowledge of humanities subject matter remains an autodidactic journey which is enormously pleasurable albeit a bit frustrating when the next gap is forged open, yet again.

That knowledge of humanities' history becomes handy when seeing clear affronts to morality. Like this kind of shyte.  Knowing that the core of humanity can be boiled down to the Adam and Eve Garden of Eden parable delivered concisely in the first book of the bible helps to frame these affronts.  Let's recap that shall we?  Snakes are tricky. Apples are tasty. Some humans can't resist.  Consequences can be profound and innocent bystanders are affected also. But at least we can blame someone (the starting line of most christ centred religions). 

When I look at that repulsive soft drink ad campaign, or in fact at much of our modern culture,  I see lots and lots of snakes. And just because I can blame someone (or something) doesn't mean that anything will change. And even if I ignore them,  the consequences will affect me and my daughter and her generation and the generations to come.   So basically nothing can be done except to try and ignore the tasty apples cleverly profferred by the snakes and concentrate on the bounty elsewhere. Because, despite being extremely tricky, those snakes haven't figured out how to obliterate the bounty overflowing in each and every human being's mind.

P.S.  Try to imagine what our world would now look like if the starting line of the Adam and Eve religions had been placed at recognition of the abundance of our planet and our need to sustain this for all time despite the appearance of tricky snakes with their tasty apples.

Occupy Toronto: Top 10 Reason List.

fubar by 1944, acronym from fucked up beyond all recognition. Said to be military slang originally. (via)

occupy mid-14c., "to take possession of," also "to take up space or time, employ (someone)," from O.Fr. occuper, from L. occupare "take over, seize, possess, occupy," from ob "over" + intensive form of capere "to grasp, seize" (see capable). During 16c.-17c. a euphemism for "have sexual intercourse with," which caused it to fall from polite usage. (via)

I am going down to Bay Street next Saturday.  If that's where the gathering actually happens (no decisions as to location yet, I will watch for information on occupyto.org. and @OccupyToronto).

Reason 1:  I am part of the 99%.  I'm pretty positive that so are you.
Reason 2:  This is not about left versus right.  I have many issues with the 'left'.  And many with the 'right'.
Reason 3:  I am 44 and unemployed.  Most lower paying jobs require long periods of standing or the ability to lift 50 lbs.  This is no longer feasible due to me having multiple sclerosis.  Despite my condition being quite mild these are limitations that I must honour in order to maintain maximum physical comfort and sanity.
Reason 4:  Despite a master's degree in engineering I have been unable to find a job.  I have met many middle aged people in similar circumstances.
Reason 5:  I have met thousands of regular Canadians this past year in the course of my working in temporary jobs (for the federal election, Census 2011 and the Ontario Election).  We live in an amazing area on our planet...so many cultures living next door to each other in peace.  I don't want corporate greed to destroy this special place we call Toronto.  We are a magical spot in the world.
Reason 6:  I have a 17 year old.  This is for her generation.
Reason 7:  The 20th century was about being 'soma-fied' into a way of life that is no longer feasible.
Reason 8:  The 21st century is about awakening .... or extinction due to overpopulation or climate change, likely both.
Reason 9:  The real survivor builds tribes.  The people down there next Saturday will be my people.
Reason 10:  It looks like a lot of damn fun.

If you are going next Saturday or wish you could go, feel free to leave a comment, anonymously even.  If you think this is a load of bull crap please comment (nicely) too.  #HarmoniousDifferences.