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:

An open letter to the University of Oregon regarding the censorship of a Women's liberation activist

To whom it may concern,

I am appalled to hear that your institution is considering not only banning Ms. Kieth to talk at your school but also that your senate is considering writing a letter of condemnation regarding her views.

The liberation of the majority female humans on this planet is far from over and has even regressed due to increased globalization and staggering human trafficking. To subvert this silenced reality for millions of females by allowing the voices of the extremely privileged few that have the resources and media at their beck and call merely cements the silent torture of every female raped in a country that allows so-called 'child brides' or allows a father to sell an owned daughter to the burgeoning sex slave industry.

If academia now pursues the milieu of those that fail to recognize the reality for millions of biological females on this planet then the state of education of our first world youth is in much dire shape than my twenty years of teaching tertiary level students has led me to believe.

Lierre Kieth has committed a constructed 'crime' consisting of questioning the validity of gender usurping biological sexual reality. Gender is a theoretical construct. Biological sex is a scientific fact.

If your institution allows a theoretical construct to erase a scientific fact, I might as well tear up my (hard earned) two science based degrees in the name of the liberation of women since your banning or condemning Ms. Kieth would in effect erase all meaning of scientific and theoretical discourse in academia.

Sincerely,

Orla Hegarty B.Math, M.A.Sc.

Dissilient

Dissilient

Bursting apart. 

Bursting open.

I had to travel to two deserts on two continents to achieve this.

The seed has cracked. 

I am wide open.

And the light is shining in.

Alone

When I tell you that I have never felt so alone in my life as I did in the Temple at Burning Man I do so with liquid squishing out of my tear ducts.

I live alone. I've raised a kid on my own. I've owned 3 houses on my own. I showed up to Burning Man, a middle aged woman, on my own and camped, on my own, in the desert. And last year I drove across Canada on my own camping.

So this feeling of being alone, the terrible poignancy of it, struck me sideways. The resonance of it, over two weeks later, had me waking up in tears this morning.

It is a feeling I no longer can run from. It found me in the Temple in the desert and it is not going away. That's what I recognized this morning as I woke and recoiled from the desolation of being faced with that alone feeling first deeply etched into my soul in the Nevada desert.

For alongside that memory of stark barren aloneness is a treasure chest of memories on the Playa that assure me that I am not alone, I am lovable, I am worthy and my life has meaning - my mere existence is a gift in this universe.

My pilgrimage to Burning Man has shed new meaning on old identities: yours, mine and ours. And despite the discomfort, I am willing to continue the exploration. The journey is fascinating!

Pondering on the Playa

She was fully clothed but wearing an object strapped around her hips and it jiggled towards me as I sat on the Playa watching her walk towards me.

I had once briefly worn such an object, years ago, courtesy of my drag-king performing lesbian sister. The sight of it made me leap up and run towards the young woman and grasp this familiar eerie-real-skin-feel toy and exclaim "aren't these great!". Impulsivity is a weakness with me, admittedly.

Her reaction was immediate and intense. 'She' was a she-he. A trans-man. She-he felt violated. Her-his pain was real. I empathetically responded albeit mystified.

In the drag-king lesbian community a flaccid strap-on is a prop worn under clothing in order to provide a bulge. When I wore it I enjoyed a playful small taste of what it would be like to have external sexual organs although without any sexual sensation. The young trans-man I met on the Playa last week felt that this object WAS her-his sexual organs despite the lack of any hard-wired neuro-connectivity.

She-he then admitted she-he was being a douche for walking around exposing her-his real-fake sexual organs.

Witnesses to this interaction were as perplexed as I was. Some of them hugged me as I proceeded to flashback to the terror I felt at the #radfemriseup conference where we received threats from people like her-him.

Later in the week a man dismissed me outright when I queried his statement regarding a two year old being transgendered. I asked him how was it possible that a toddler, years away from sexual reproduction, could feel or act as a gendered human. He literally walked away, frustrated that I could not understand the 'logic' of his claim regarding a two year old 'feeling' misgendered.

These two interactions made me realize how imperative it is to work towards eliminating the ever increasing the gender as a construct entrenchment in modern society. If we don't do so we risk, once again, the subjugating of females to mere objects of  sexual satisfaction or reproductive sows - as is it is still the case throughout much of our world.

Truth is
Beauty

Photo credit to
Trey 
Radcliffe

Obsessive Garlic Disorder

I developed a serious case of this newly identified (to me) syndrome this past weekend.

I attended Mooseman: a precompression Burning Man regional event. Five days of survival camping in the forest of Haliburton. No water. No electricity.

The first 36 hours of the event were like a roller coaster of new experiences - both positive and negative, both personal and interpersonal. The first night I met some truly lovely people around a very large fire held in a large circle of stones. The following day I experienced a few interactions that were less than ideal. My physical challenges were brought home to roost and I considered leaving in case they worsened. The team of onsite Rangers helped mediate what was a challenging and baffling situation for me and I ended up staying due to their support. Two of the 10 Burning Man principles were driven into me throughout the beginning part of my experience at Mooseman:  Radical self-reliance and Radical inclusion.

On the Saturday of the event after I had rested (I was exhausted from the emotional roller coaster and physical demands of survival camping set up!) I ventured back to the sacred circle. I was told that there was garlic braiding down at the main house (the owner of the property) and that it was a lot of fun.  I decided I would rather take a walk through the forest which was set up with four theme camps and I wanted to see what they looked like in their finished state (I saw the skeletons of these camps on a Thursday night walk about).

The effort put into these theme camps is dumbfounding and humbling. One of the camps, Powder Monkeys, had a pirate theme and the decorations and plounges were so creative. This camp also hosted a Baconade on the Sunday morning and everyone who participated in that achieved Peak Bacon. There were two types of bacon, bacon dip, bacon brownies, bacon apple pie, bacon/cheese roll-ups, bacon chocolate chip rice krispies, etc.

On the way into the forest there was a Toga Toll Camp. These lovely people provided a candy tray that they also took throughout the event at times. There was bug spray on offer and other provisions if needed. Did I mention that all Burning Man events operate on a gift economy basis? No money exchanges hands. Every participant is expected to gift what they can and high octane volunteerism is the norm.

I didn't spend as much time as I would've like to at the Big Rig Rockin Robin's Truck Stop Jamboree. They had built a replica of a truck complete with a truck stop diner and a country store that I shoplifted a pocket knife from (I had lost mine). They had some fine trombone jamming happening on Saturday night when I was there.

Lastly there was a Hammock Camp at the end of the forest trail. Peace and tranquility was found in one of the hammocks hanging there :)

On Sunday afternoon after dancing in the forest for a few hours to some wonderful beats I remembered the garlic braiding and wandered down to the main house (past the coffee cafe which served delicious free coffee all weekend long!). Outside of the house was a circle of chairs and instruments of garlic disorder. I stood and asked the three people about what was going on and shared a bit of my food justice passion with them. Doug, the owner of the property, saw a fellow food spirit and he eagerly invited me to sit down and try cleaning some garlic myself. Silvie, another Mooseman attendee, patted a chair and proceeded to show me how to clean the garlic (rub the stalk and bulb with love to remove the dirt, trim the hairy end and brush out the dirt). In the course of learning this new skill, Doug, Silvie, another young man and I got into a wonderful conversation that alternated between philosophy, therapy, camaraderie and hilarity.

After a few minutes of this pleasant learning - interactive engagement Doug became perturbed while I was talking. I wasn't staying on task since I use my hands while I talk. He told Silvie to take me down to the shed to see the enormity of the garlic cleaning task at hand.

Have you ever seen 1700 bulbs of garlic in various stages of 'processing'? Doug had already informed us that it takes 20 passes through human hands to fully process garlic (now you know why most of it comes from China since it is so labour intensive!). So when I rounded the corner into the shed I saw how massive the operation was and how many uncleaned bulbs there were - well, that was when the disorder struck me.

I returned with Silvie and spend the next few hours mastering the art of conversing while cleaning garlic bulbs at a steady rate. I was rewarded with a fine meal from Lynn (Doug's partner) that included potatoes freshly harvested from their garden and the opportunity to braid my very own set of bulbs which I later purchased on my way out of the event.  The ideas, love, inspiration and garlic imbued soulfulness of the experience will last my lifetime. In fact, the whole weekend will. The final of the 10 principles of Burning Man was cemented into my heart that afternoon and sealed with the burning of the Moose effigy that night:

Immediacy

Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience. (source)

Unbraided but cleaned fruits of our Obsessive Garlic Disorder

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.