The Bootlegger

the bootlegger

Demand For Adult Services Should Be Supplied Legally

In 1969 at the age of eighteen I was a young soldier stationed at a NATO base in what was then West Germany during the Cold War. When I arrived I immediately got the feeling that I had been transported to the future; everything was ultra-modern compared to the quaint town of London Ontario from which I came. Things were low-cost, efficient, and convenient. I was soon informed that this was also the case with quick visits to the local fun house where women would entertain a man for about thirty deutschmarks, about six dollars at that time. This was a perfect opportunity to learn about sex, which I had never had before. I found out that the activity was completely legal in Germany, and de-criminalized in Holland and Denmark. There weren't many North American-style clubs where men would watch nude dancers and waste hours getting drunk: efficiency is paramount in Europe and everybody is in a hurry. The most impressive thing to me was that the ladies of the night were licensed, inspected for health violations, and were required to report their income and pay taxes in this occupation.

The Canadian government is not known for radical acceptance of change but they should follow the example of more enlightened countries when dealing with popular vices that are not going to disappear anytime soon no matter how stringently laws are enforced against them. The first lesson came during prohibition when the U.S. and Canada found that people were going to drink alcohol or die trying. The consumption of liquor was banned for Canadians at one point, but Canadian alcohol products were legal for export, a moral hypocrisy that fed more money to criminal organizations in America. Inevitably alcohol prohibition was repealed and liquor could be sold in lounges and restaurants as a respectable part of socializing.

The same situation exists in the oldest trade in the world, prostitution. Without regulation, it is another cash-rich industry left to be run by whoever happens to take control. The streets are rife with danger for sex-trade workers and they need security; very often they are exploited and there is a movement afoot to legitimize activities like erotic massage, escort services and prostitution as a human right in order to give more power to the women (or men) involved. The bawdy house laws offer no protection on issues of health and safety and so three former and current sex-trade workers have brought forward an action to have those laws declared unconstitutional. Sections of the Criminal Code that deal with living off the avails of prostitution, keeping a bawdy house, and communicating for the purpose of prostitution have been challenged by the women's lawyer Alan Young.

To counter this 2009 action, three anti-prostitution groups are seeking to intervene: the Christian Legal Fellowship, Real Women of Canada, and the Catholic Civil Rights League. These religious groups are not content living a sin-free life as laid out in the Bible but must impose their moral position on everyone with a close-minded ignorance of the inner workings of biker gangs looking for sources of revenue and victimizing those who can't go to the police for fear of retaliation. Pimping is something that exploits women who have found themselves with only one way to exist and others that need short-term relief coming from situations of extreme poverty and trying to get established in society the only way they know how.

The dominance of financially ruthless white collar bootleggers like Joseph Kennedy Sr. who was also a power broker on Wall Street and later a U.S. Senator saw to it that once liquor was legalized again after the repeal of prohibition, no other intoxicating substance could become legal. This applied especially to marijuana. Propaganda linked cannabis to insanity and criminal behavior, with movies like "Reefer Madness" proclaiming that once a person smoked it, he would become an instant maniac and rapist. This effectively caused a serious stigma on the product, with serious fines and jail sentences being handed out for the smallest quantity. The competition was thus eliminated from encroaching on the territory of the liquor corporations. The selling of marijuana wasn't stopped; it was taken over by the criminal element who then found that more addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin had a higher profit margin and fewer packaging problems.

If there were some organized efforts to help human beings get themselves together, the problem of government debt could be solved by legalizing prostitution and collecting taxes. Not only would it be a large source of government income but it would also eliminate the costs of law enforcement, court prosecution, and imprisonment costs. The government currently lives off a cash cow in the form of cigarettes – the most addictive and available deadly drug that is for some reason still allowed to be sold although tobacco causes thousands of deaths. Alcohol is misery for those who can't control their drinking. It's time for victimless torts like erotic massage and escort services to become accepted into the mainstream of economic life.

About the Author

Toronto Author and SEO Consultant Pat Boardman presents these observations about the adult entertainment industry in respect to firms such as Adult Access Entertainment a respected adult services listings company who operate Beef Baron and Flesh Gordon's Restaurants and Lounges in London Ontario and area.