Street Working Prostitution

 

What is Prostitution?

 

Prostitution in law is defined as having sex for money and/or goods.  Of course this does not apply to everyone:

-                     Pornography actors have sex in front of a camera for money.  Is this prostitution? No. Is it sex for the exchange of money? Yes

-                     Movie actors sometimes have stimulated sex for a movie in which they are paid.  Even thought the sex is faked, nipples still get licked, groins grind together, thighs and navels are kissed, penis’s become erect as well as nipples, and faces become flushed.  This is not prostitution but it is sex for money.

-                     A woman has an opportunity to move up in her company of employment.  She knows she can secure the position (which pays more), if she sleeps with her boss, someone that she once dated but never slept with. Is this prostitution? No. Is this sex for money/ Yes, indeed!

-                     A woman is dating a wealthy older man. It is quite apparent that she is with him only for the financial security. He enjoys the company and intimacy of dating a younger girl.  She knows that if she ceases to have sex with him that he will be angry and dump her, thus no longer providing for her.  Is this Prostitution? No.  Is this sex for money? Of course.

-                     A man known as a player often sees and sleeps with many women at a time for financial awards and goods.  Is he a prostitute? No. Is he having sex for money and goods? Yes.

 

 

Why Is Prostitution Different From Any Other Profession?

 

First off it is known world wide that sex sells, yet sex is not looked at in a positive manner especially when it is regarding women taking ownership of their own sexuality.  Society dictates that women are not allowed sexual desires for it’s own sake but must be seduced with the promise of other currency, traditionally love or security.

 

            While prostitution is legal in Canada and a viable form of employment, it does lack the proper mechanisms, which would make it an acceptable career choice. For instance there is no formal training (besides having had sex before), the employers are generally not interested in your resume, you won’t get a dental plan, childcare or danger pay.  The laws in Canada do not protect the women involved and make it especially hard for women to work safely, for example, Communicating for the Purpose of Prostitution s. 213 is illegal act that makes any negotiation in a public space a criminal offense. This means that the prostitution is in a position of not being able to size up her client in relative safety in a hotel lobby, or a parked car instead she must wait until she is in a locked room with the client.

 This ban on communication is also a violation of the right to freedom of expression under Canada’s Charter of Human Rights.  1990 saw this ban upheld by the Canadian Supreme Court, citing that the violations of human rights are outweighed by community interest.  Another law making prostitution unsafe is the Common Bawdy House law s. 210, preventing women from working in their own home or other space that is familiar to them, thus limiting the amount of control the prostitute has over her surroundings.

 

Why do women resort to prostitution?

 

Women enter the prostitution industry for a variety of reasons, some because they are looking for a very lucrative and flexible job with a high salary.   Others do it for economic reasons since women are generally poorer than men, (women on average earn about .63 cents on every mans dollar). Plus, no matter how talented they are or how hard they work, it seems that women in the general work force sooner or later confront the “glass ceiling” that keeps them from moving up to the six figure executive position that are held almost exclusively by men. A prostitute can make more in one day then the average waitress or office worker can make in a week.

 

Unemployment, poor education, few available jobs, poor hourly wages, not enough access to subsidized daycare and affordable housing are all reasons why women choose prostitution.  Women who are homeless, without any help from the government, marginalized because of their race, find that prostitution is the only way out.  Young runaways are also resorting to prostitution as a way to survive and are also more likely to be coerced into the profession since there is a high demand for younger and younger girls.

 

Prostitution exists because there is a demand.  As long as that demand exists it will always be met, regardless of economic and social conditions.

 

What Makes Street Work Different Then Other Forms of Prostitution

 

Street working prostitutes account for 17% of prostitutes in Canada, the people who do this line of work are generally women and transvestites. Street prostitutes work on the streets, around night clubs, near harbours and around truck stops.  The services offered are usually oral sex in a car or in a secluded area, full intercourse is sometimes offered but again that would be in a secluded place or in a hotel room. Street working prostitutes  often have a lower social economic status and thus poorer.  Street working prostitutes seem to also have  lower levels of education. And they tend to use drugs much more then other prostitutes, (it is very hard to find an escort agency or massage parlour that would tolerate the use of illegal drugs), street prostitutes are much more likely to use crack, herion and alcohol.

 

  Although they tend to use protection more often then the average women who does not engage in prostitution they still have a higher rate of HIV and AIDs infection then those women who do not work the street. This is most likely due to the fact that most street pros use while they work making their inhibitions more lax around safer sex.  Also the Toronto Police have been known to confiscate condoms from street girls saying that the condoms will be used as evidence against them.  As well, the street girls do not have a lot of education around STI transmission and blow jobs thus they tend to engage in unsafe oral sex practices. 

 

Street prostitutes also face a much higher level of stress much higher then Vietnam and Gulf war vets even, street workers account for 15% of all suicides reported by Canadian hospitals. They also have a mortality rate that is 40 times higher than the average Canadian. They are also the most vulnerable of all prostitutes.

 

Who Uses Prostitutes?

 

-         Usually men married and aged between 30 – 50 years of age

-         They come from various social economic backgrounds

-         A survey polling men who use street prostitutes give the following as reasons for using the services of street prostitutes:

o       Solitude

o       Sexual Problems with their spouse

o       The desire to obtain sexual acts which their spouses refuse to participate in

o       The dire for sex with no strings attached.

 

 

 

 

Is Prostitution Degrading?

 

Whether prostitution is degrading is entirely depended on the women engaged in the profession.  Some women enjoy their work tremendously and do not support the idea that they are degraded.  As Norma Jean Almodovar author of the book “Cop to Call Girl: Why I Left the LAPD to make an Honest Living of a Prostitute” puts it: “That really depends on the individual involved or how one views sex.  It is not degrading to me because I think that sex is a positive, nurturing act, and whether it is given out of love or rendered as a service, as long as it is consensual it is still positive.  I cannot fathom how one could think that making another human being feel good for a fee could be degrading or demeaning unless it is degrading to make other people feel good.” 

 

 Of course that is not the attitude of most street prostitutes who have pimps and are usually forced into the profession.  Some women feel that they are being raped over and over again by there clients and that they are selling themselves, as one street worker puts it: “ I have been in this trade for 19 years and I say if men come to see prostitutes it is because it gives them a feeling of power.  They dish out the money, so they’re in command. You belong to them for half an hour or an hour.  They simply buy you, no obligation; you’re not a person, you’re just something to be used.” 

 

For women who have pimps and /or are forced into it and do not see a way out then of course it is a degrading trade.  Especially the way society views the women: as drug addicted street trash to be quite honest.  But any job can be degrading.  Personally I think working a minimum wage job for a major corporation (like Mc Donald’s), is far more degrading and exploitive then prostitution.  But it all depends on the individual, how they view sex, how they view themselves and whether or not they are doing it for themselves or someone else.

 

 

 

Pimps

 

13 % of all prostitutes have pimps 30% of street workers have them.  In legal terms a pimp is someone who lives off the avails of a prostitute. Which can include a wide range of people including escort agency owners, madams, husbands, elderly parents, and also children.

 

 When I refer to the word “pimp”, I am not talking about madams or escort owners, they are in a totally different class, I am talking about the men who coerced the girl into prostitution and who control them and their earnings.

 

Many women feel that they need a pimp for protection or to even work the street since working without one is rather difficult and not accepted.

 

Contrary to popular belief most pimps are not physically abusive, rather they tend to use psychological manipulation rather than violence to recruit and control a woman.  Speaking of recruiting, one of the most common ways a pimp finds girls is to have their “main girl”, female business partner, to spend time in a mall.  Then the “main girl” will meet teenage girls, strike up friendships and offer to take them to bars.  She does this 3 or 4 times.  After the fourth time the girl meets the pimp.  He does not say anything about prostitution.  He tells the girl she is beautiful and what not.  Flattery and gifts follow.  Then the new ‘boyfriend’ tells her that she owes money for the gifts.  And he tells her how to earn it.  If the girl refuses the “main girl” might threaten or beat her.  So the girl agrees to work the streets thinking the debt will soon be paid off.  But the pimp will find new sources of debt.

 

Profile of a Pimp

 

-     Pimps profit from prostitution. They have one or more prostitutes usually 2-4  girls at a time.

-         He offers shelter and meals.

-         He shows himself as attentive and welcoming.

-         Sometimes he will offer the prospect of a better life.

-         As trust ensues he will draw the girl more and more into prostitution and will find herself less likely to leave.

-         In Canada, drug dealers are often pimps.

 

It is very hard for a prostitute to leave her pimp since she has been brainwashed to believe that she will not be able to survive with out him and that the street life is the only life available to her.  Pimps will usually become violent at this point.  The weapon of choice for pimps is a hot coat hanger used to beat the girl.

 

The laws also make leaving a pimp and or reporting an assault hard to do since the law routinely ignores assaults against prostitutes.  They also face being persecuted and physically abused by a legal system that does not offer protection to them.  The police then just become another layer of abuse.

 

 

 

The Police and Prostitution

 

It is general knowledge amongst street prostitutes that there are individual police officers who are malicious and sometimes violent toward prostitutes.  They believe that the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force is hostile toward them.  This is not untrue.  The following is an example:

“A well known street prostitute was beaten and suffered a serious head wound, she had to walk to the hospital with blood gushing from her injury, she tried to hail a passing police car but the officer refused to help her.”

 

Many of our ‘finest’ will not take a report from a prostitute regarding an assault citing that it should be expected in their line of work.  Which is a reason why so few prostitutes will turn to the police for help and protection.

 

One of the biggest cases involving police misconduct on prostitutes is the “Sperm Whale” case.  “Sperm Whale”, as he is known on the street, was a police officer for the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force. He was a large aggressive police officer with violent tendancies who got off on power and humiliation.  He was investigated by the SIU for extorting sexual favours from prostitutes. He would often take a prostitute at gun point, get her to suck him off and then rob her of her money. One girl was assaulted and robbed by him and then given 30 seconds to run from him. He said that if he could catch her after the 30 second lead that he would arrest her.  “Sperm Whale” has since been let go from the force.

 

 

 

Street Prostitutes and Drugs

 

Drug addiction is one of the factors a women resorts to street work.  It is a very quick way for women to make money for a hit. A study done at Maggie’s with over a hundred Toronto based street prostitutes showed that 78% were drug users, 76% indicated that their drug use was related with their work and 60% said they would still work even if they got off drugs.

 Some people believe that drug addiction is a consequence of the difficulties arising from prostitution, of the disgust felt towards some clients. Most street prostitutes say that being drunk or high enables them to escape the pain and fear of working the streets. What makes this so dangerous is that while high people tend to lose their better judgment and may participate in high risk behavior such as unsafe sex.  Getting help for their addiction is rather hard for a prostitute due to the stigma of their work. Many drug and alcohol services do not create a welcoming and safe environment for them leaving the prostitute to view theses services as inaccessible.     

 

Street Prostitutes and HIV/AIDS and STI’s

 

Most people blame the prostitute for the transmission of STI’s and HIV in the sex trade industry when in fact it is usually the man who insists on having unprotected sex, most are educated men who do this, surprisingly enough.  Evidence from several countries support this fact and indicate that there is a widespread client demand for unsafe sex, some clients will even assault a prostitute for wanting to wear a condom. Clients see no need to be concerned with contraceptives or the prostitutes well being, and paying for this service absolves them of this concern. 

 

In Canada, prostitutes even street prostitutes only make up less then 3% of the HIV/AIDS population, which is even less then women who are not prostitutes. The Centre for Disease Control has conducted many studies on both legal and underground prostitution businesses, and the studies show that the majority of STI’s are attributed to high school and college aged people and that prostitutes have been practicing safer sex and condoms for years. Dr. Jay Hawk who has been researching the affects of STI’s and HIV and sex work has this to say:

 

 “In North America the prevalence of HIV in sex workers is generally only a few percent, and not significantly different than the HIV incidence in the population as a whole. While prostitution per se is not a significant risk factor for acquiring HIV infection, men who engage in high-risk behavior such as intercourse without a condom or blowjob with out one are at risk.  Always use a condom, your risk is no greater than your risk of catching HIV and other STI’s from your wife or mistress.”

 

In other words condoms are a tool of the trade

 

 The low HIV infection rate is probably due to all the education around HIV and prostitution, as well since condoms are a tool of the trade.  Prostitutes seem to be so aware of the risks of their jobs and their risks for STI’s and HIV that they tend to use condoms in their personal life as well as their professional life.  Of course this does not mean that all prostitutes use condoms.  Sometimes when there is no protection around and the hunger pains start a prostitute may have sex without a condom, as one prostitutes says: “It is better to die in 15 years of AID’s then 5 days of hunger.”

 

 

 

 

Violence and Prostitution

 

Everyone knows that street prostitutes face a tremendous amount of violence.  Often the violence goes unreported, due to the fear of being arrested for a prostitution related offence, and because the police do not do enough (if anything) when a crime is committed against a prostitute.

 

People tend not to view prostitutes as human beings, as someone’s child, someone’s mother or sister, they seem to be expendable in the justice system as well as in society in general. 

 

Clients can be a real danger to street prostitutes, some prostitutes have been raped at the hands of their client and left in a remote area.  Clients have robbed prostitutes, committed rape, assaulted prostitutes and have even murdered them. Most of the time a prostitute has reported the incident she has either been ignored, verbally assaulted for her line of work, or arrested for a prostitution related offence.  The following are examples of women who have tried to report a crime to the Metropolitan Toronto Police:

 

‘A homeless street prostitute was beaten and raped so badly that she ended up in hospital for several days and several months later still required surgery.  The hospital called the Metro Toronto Police.  The officer who responded to the call had arrested the woman in the past and during the arrest was violent toward.  He told her, in front of hospital staff, that she had it coming, he then turned around and left.’

 

A prostitute had been beaten over the head with a hammer by a client. The woman went directly to the hospital who called the police in the next day.  As soon as the prostitute was released she was picked up for an outstanding warrant related to a prostitution-related offence.

 

Prostitutes are also subjected to what is called “whore bashing”.  Whore bashing is a hate related act of violence and is an act of extreme prejudice fuelled by social stigma.  Whore bashing takes many forms from harassment from carloads of teenagers, to ‘dates’ gone wrong, to the “they deserve what they get” attitude, as well as the organized harassment of residents groups, vigilante groups and the police.

 

According to StatsCan a person who kills a prostitute has a more than 50% chance of getting away with murder.