A rchive Date
[ 26-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[It's time oldest pros went legit
By MICHAEL HARRIS
Ottawa Bureau
April 11, 1999
"One of the reasons women might be in danger is that in an illegal profession they are not able to go to the police to report crimes, such as abuse inflicted on them by either their johns or their pimps ... When a police officer is killed, the police rightfully spend their time and energy looking for the killer. When several prostitutes are murdered by a serial killer, the public responds by suggesting the police arrest more girls and get them off the street." - Norma Jean Almodovar
OTTAWA - I was walking through the Byward Market, when she stepped out of the shadows and said, "Looking for company?"
In my daily quest for fresh sea bass and fennel, for lemon-grass and the Parmesan to end all arguments, I had seen her on Dalhousie St. before. She looked like the girl whose homework I used to copy in Latin class: Long, brown hair and a face that would have been plain except for the eyes. They were so bright, you almost missed the pale, life-story scar on her cheek.
I wasn't looking for company, but I wasn't offended. Neither was she. She lowered her head and cupped her hands while I lit her cigarette. Her name was Jasmine. We talked for a bit before she went back to work and I headed to the car park to stow my groceries. After that, I'd wave to her when I saw her on the corner.
One night I was having supper at the Spiga, enjoying the street scene through the cafe's picture window. Some working girls showed up on the sidewalk, all bad taste and bounce. Sporting white, patent-leather miniskirts and thigh-high boots, they strutted for the passing traffic. Another customer complained to the owners and the next thing I knew the police arrived. It was about then that I noticed Jasmine.
There was something pathetic about the scene and I am not totally sure it wasn't me. (As the poet Wallace Stevens observed, sentimentality is a failure of feeling.) I tried to think of something, anything, that might keep her out of jail. I went outside and invited Jasmine and her friends to join my table.
Wise as Solomon
I couldn't tell whether they were touched or thought I was. In any case, my beau geste wasn't needed. The Ottawa cop on the scene was as wise as Solomon. He shuffled them away from the restaurant and the offended parties inside returned to their cold fettuccini. Dinner may have been ruined, but at least their world order was safe for the dessert course.
For me, contemplating the oldest high in the world is a divided enterprise. On one hand, I don't much care for the down-the-nose denunciations of working girls. (I have met too many corrupt, abusive, and despicable people in the honest professions and state-sanctioned relationships to comfortably believe that these women are any more menacing than the rest of us.) On the other hand, I have consistently argued against decriminalizing prostitution. Which is how I met Norma Jean Almodovar.
Norma Jean is the former L.A. police officer who became a call girl, an author and a politician fighting for prostitutes' rights. She and I crossed swords on a PBS television show on the legalization issue.
My argument came down to the fact that we can't legalize or decriminalize prostitution without inadvertently promoting it, which I said was clearly undesirable, the moral approach with a practical flourish.
Norma Jean argued from the real world of prostitution - from the street to the clinic to the courts - that dreary and dangerous circuit freighted with much unnecessary misery for prostitutes. She even quoted from A Vindication of the Rights of Whores, a book written about the Second World Whores Congress held in Brussels, Belgium in 1986.
Finally, she made a personal observation about my gentle profession: "Athletes, actors, construction workers, we all sell some part of our body, Michael," she said. "Journalists give brain-jobs."
Needless to say, I came off like Preston Manning lecturing Madonna about sex. To make matters worse, she knocked the stuffing out of me with unfailing grace, even inviting me to an educational conference of a prostitutes' rights group called COYOTE (Call Off Your Tired Ethics).
Scattered letters
To my discredit, I neither attended the conference or answered the scattered letters she has sent me over the years, poor treatment to a gal who wrote, "To Michael, All my best wishes, Norma J" in a copy of her best-selling book, Cop to Call Girl.
I thought of Norma Jean when I read Jane Armstrong's piece in the Globe & Mail a few days ago. In it, the sister of a missing streetwalker made a devastating observation about the disappearance of 23 prostitutes in Vancouver's downtown east side, possibly the victims of a serial killer. If 23 college girls had gone missing, she said, they'd call out the army. But when it's female alcoholics and drug addicts who sell sex to keep reality at bay, well, let's just say we don't call out the army.
So I have changed my mind in this running debate about morals and sexual commerce.
Assuming that this world is never going back to Ann of Green Gables rules, it is better to deal with life as it is, rather than how we might like it to be. From a public health point of view, decriminalizing the sex trade is a no-brainer. And if we are at all concerned about the safety of prostitutes, as we should be, legalization or decriminalization is a huge step in the right direction.
Putting down the newspaper, with those haunting mugshots of the missing girls from Vancouver, I walk to the window of my 14th-storey apartment. The evening traffic is letting up on the 417 and there is a half-assed rainbow over Sandyhill. Even though I have enough garlic and ginger to last a month, I find myself driving to the Market.
It occurred to me that I hadn't seen Jasmine in a long, long time
Michael Harris can be e-mailed at mharris@istar.ca or visit his home page.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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