Terri-Jean Bedford brought her trademark riding crop Wednesday for her appearance before the Senate justice committee considering C, the new prostitution law. Social conservatives, shelter workers and former sex workers argue that sex work is inherently exploitive, degrading and violent.
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We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Honourable members may or may not be more prone than the average person to seeking comfort in the arms of representatives of the oldest profession. They certainly have more opportunity than most, being away from home and spouses for long periods of time.
Some of the current cohort have succumbed to temptation and are well known to local prostitutes, according to the sex workers themselves. I promise. At times she used her crop as a gavel, smacking the table to emphasize her point. When a senator interrupted her, she refused to stop talking. Bedford does have a list of names, compiled from sex workers across Canada, and I am told she is carefully considering which names to release and how to manage that delicate process, after the bill receives royal assent.
This would shame the hypocrites who secretly go to prostitutes while publicly moralizing against sex work or vote for laws that endanger sex workers. Many of the arguments for this law are deceptive and hypocritical. Senators and MPs continually conflate sex work with human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children, which are already illegal.
