Paterson: Co-op brothel still a dream for now
Facility would offer safety, security for sex-trade workers

  
Jody Paterson
Times Colonist
Friday, August 24, 2007


I've been trying to pin down the moment when I got so caught up in the issues of the sex trade.

The kick in the butt that got me moving was an interview 10 years ago with former sex worker Cherry Kingsley, when I was working full-time at the Times Colonist. She blew me away with stories from her tough, sad life.

But even in my fledgling newspaper days I was prowling the streets of Kamloops trying to find sex workers to talk to. So maybe it's just always been my particular fascination.

In those days, I was adamantly against the sex trade, and for all the reasons you hear in any discussion of it -- exploitation, victimization, terrible violence, suffering.

A lifetime of movies, news stories and documentaries about desperate, drugged-out women eking out a mean living on the streets had left their mark on me. I'd heard countless stories from women whose abusive childhoods had primed them to fall into the trade as adolescents, and assumed that all sex workers were victims in need of rescue.

But my views changed over my three years heading up Victoria's Prostitutes Empowerment Education and Resource Society.

Given the rare opportunity to learn about the industry directly from women in the trade -- including those who chose to work in it -- I came to see that our need to take a moral position against prostitution is in fact a major reason for why aspects of the trade are so dangerous and exploitive.

And now I find myself launching into the planning of a co-op brothel. Who'd have thought?

I'm working on the social enterprise with another former director of PEERS, Lauren Casey. She and I made it relatively unscathed through our intense 15 minutes of fame this week after news broke of our plans.

I think the media were all a little disappointed to discover there's nothing concrete to talk about yet, other than that the time has come. But planning for any successful business -- let alone one centred on the rather incendiary proposition that there are happy, healthy, adult sex workers out there -- simply has to proceed at a slow and painstaking pace.

What's the dream? A terrific work place for sex workers who are in the industry by choice, in which all profits beyond the cost of running the business are mandated to go to social causes.

We want the money to help fund the work PEERS does supporting disadvantaged sex workers wanting to leave the street trade. Street prostitution makes up just 10 to 20 per cent of the total trade, but that group of people are in desperate need of housing, drug detox and treatment, mental-health support, and any number of other services.

What the workplace will look like will depend on what we hear from sex workers when we get to that stage of the plan, but we've got a few ideas we'd like to test.

Like salaries instead of 100 per cent commission work. Vacation pay. Medical leave. Employment Insurance benefits. Workers' compensation coverage. Fair shifts, and regular time off.

A letter in the TC this week from a woman I greatly admire condemned our plan as a dangerous "normalization" of prostitution that could attract even more people into the business. I understand that concern.

But sex is a legal commodity in Canada -- and like it or not, the industry is thriving. We've done nothing to curb the demand that fuels the sex trade, and much to make it even more secretive, stigmatized and dangerous for the tens of thousands of Canadians who work in it. It's the height of hypocrisy that we buy sex with alacrity but take no responsibility for ensuring workers are fairly paid and well-treated.

Hundreds of functioning brothels are operating discreetly across the country. Some already provide a safe, fair work environment. But it's far from a given. Our need to deny the existence of the sex trade pushes workers into a twilight zone of wink-wink, nudge-nudge pretence that none of it is happening.

As for the money Lauren and I hope to make from our brothel project, even my younger, more black-and-white self couldn't have quibbled with the concept of using profits from the customers of the sex trade to fund programs and services for disadvantaged workers wanting to change their lives.

My time at PEERS underlined for me how very difficult it is to find money for that work. A person can only rage for so long at public and government indifference before looking for new ways around the problem. If you knew what I know about the great tragedies unfolding out there, you'd do the same.

I don't know how we'll make this brothel happen. But Lauren and I are both of a type to just keep slogging until things work out.

I think we'll find good people to help us. Work is already underway on similar fronts: Planning a co-op brothel in Vancouver, legal challenges going forward both nationally and in B.C. around the lack of safe, legal work places for sex workers.

So we'll begin, and see what happens. This country's done nothing for long enough.

patersoncommunications@gmail.com

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                             Who is Jody Paterson

Jody Paterson writes a column each Friday on the op-ed page of the Victoria Times Colonist.
She has been a journalist in Kamloops and Victoria since 1982 and has become known as an outspoken voice for those whose voices are often not clearly heard in the circles of power. During her 15 years at the Times Colonist she was a reporter, city editor, managing editor, editorial page editor and columnist.

In August 2004 Paterson left the TC to become executive director of PEERS, the Prostitutes Empowerment Education Resource Society, a non-profit organization that works on behalf of sex trade workers in the Victoria area.

Paterson has won several journalism awards over the years, including the B.C. Newspaper Award for best editorial in 1986 (when she was a reporter at the Kamloops Daily News) and the B.C. Newspaper Award for top columnist in 1996.

She came second at the Jack Webster Awards in 1986 for a piece on street youth, and second in the Special Project category of the B.C. Newspaper Awards in 1997 for a series on the VisionQuest canoe trip staged by RCMP and First Nations. The series also won her a commendation from the RCMP. Her columns won an honorable mention that same year at the B.C. Newspaper Awards.

She is a trained facilitator through the Prime Vision program, and is also an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto, having started out her working life as a piano teacher.



http://www.canada.com/victoria.....8b-a142-82c0d3dd3439

When did prostitution become a "profession'??  I absolutely detest the term "sex trade worker".... like it's a job they applied for.  What's wrong with calling a prostitute a prostitute??  

Sex-trade worker, lawyer, used car salesman and politician are all professions.

The customer still gets screwed.

I'm sorry to say, but I think Ms. Paterson and her colleague are dreaming. Being a prostitute and having to work the streets is by its very nature a dangerous way to make a living. And what makes her think that the pimps who control these unfortunate women will be happy to fork over profits from their repugnant profession to help get prostitutes - the same ones they're already exploiting - out of the trade??!

It's a nice idea that will never happen.  A lot of talk goes on in Victoria...but not a lot of stuff actually gets done.

Quoted from Holden West

Sex-trade worker, lawyer, used car salesman and politician are all professions.

The customer still gets screwed.

ha.

Get an old ferry.
Moor it at the foot of G/ville, Columbia, or someplace.
Turn a lounge into a club.
Turn the cafeteria into a restaurant.  
Turn one level into cabins.
Hey Presto!
A safe, secure, contained and controlled environment.
Oh... and,
LOTS of parking too