By Peter Berton

YNOT – Prostitution is legal in Canada, but however contradictory the concept may sound, solicitation isn’t. Collectively the country’s laws make it impossible for prostitutes to conduct their business. Advertising or even talking in public about the sex trade is illegal, and laws relating to public welfare prevent escorts from hiring bodyguards or screening customers openly.

Courts have struck down many of the more flagrantly contradictory clauses in the law, but the federal government is appealing those decisions.

The absurdity of the situation irks Carrie Moon, an Ottawa-based MILF performer and professional escort. One of the most outspoken advocates for her industry, Moon was delighted to vent her frustration for YNOT.com recently. Clearly, the woman is more than just another pair of all-natural 38F breasts.

YNOT.com: Is it fair to say that you find the current laws governing sex in Canada absurd? Why?
Carrie Moon: Yes! I do get on my soapbox now and then about the ridiculous fact that if you have sex willy-nilly with thousands of people for free, there’s no problem. But the minute you charge for it, you can’t talk about it (in public) or have a business card to give out.

Prostitution is legal in Canada — as it should be everywhere — but soliciting isn’t. If I can have a garage sale or bake sale on my front lawn, why can’t I advertise my other “homemade” services? Speaking of homemade skills: If I have certain skills like bookkeeping, tutoring or babysitting, I can put an ad up anywhere, including my local grocery store board.

Also: Why is it that newspapers, housepainters, politicians and religious representatives can knock on my door and solicit me? I find that highly annoying. I should be able to go door-to-door and offer my services.

I’m not serious about that, but I don’t think people should be allowed to solicit at my door for their services. Flyers are bad enough. Another pet peeve of mine is the kiosks in the malls where people openly solicit me as I walk by to get me to try their hair straighteners, hand creams or other services.

I get that people don’t want to be solicited, because I don’t. I just don’t think [sex workers] should be singled out as a profession to be the only ones to be criminals where others can annoy me on an otherwise pleasurable shopping adventure or in the comfort of my home.

Let’s dig into this a bit. When it is legal to solicit in Canada, and when is it not?
It is never legal to solicit in Canada. You may advertise on escort service websites or in newspapers in the escort section, or even in the yellow pages of the telephone book, but I can never legally go up to someone and hand a business card for my services.

I am legally allowed to correspond by email about my services or discuss them on the phone but not “in public.” Theoretically, I could be arrested if I do this.

What about having sex for money? Again, when can you do it and when can you not?
Under our pimping and pandering laws, you can have sex for money so long as it is not “procured by someone else.” This I agree with, if it’s true pimping. If, however, you have an “agent” or work for an agency, I consider it to be that I am hiring an agent, not that an agent is “pimping me out.”

This works well for people who don’t like the organizational part of arranging appointments or just don’t have the time. I personally prefer to be my own agent.

Prostitution is legal in Canada. So why do people get arrested for doing sex work?
Yes, prostitution is legal in Canada, but everything around it is not: soliciting, communicating, anything covered under the bawdy house laws, all of which are outdated. If the true intention of those laws was upheld, the laws would be amended to allow a woman — or man — to have rights over their body and the sex they choose to have. The laws would focus only on human trafficking and the pimps who sell someone else’s body.

The real victims are ignored while politicians use their clout to focus on high-profile prostitution stings because of the income they produce. They only want a part of the money. They don’t really care about the plight of slave labor.

It is my perhaps unpopular belief that politicians and police are paid off to allow human trafficking. Unfortunately, we have a mindset as a culture that certain people of “other races” or of “this profession” don’t matter.

When we turn a blind eye to sex as a need in our own homes, we turn a blind eye to all of it. I blame religion, mostly, for this idea that sex is dirty, when in reality it’s the ignorance of sex that can be dirty. This includes not teaching people how to have sex safely and to stop feeling bad about themselves for their normal desires.

What is in the Canadian mindset that explains these contradictions? Or is there no explanation?
Canadians are known for being polite. “They won’t say shit if their mouths are full of it” is a saying that comes to mind. This is not something to be proud of. In fact, not saying something that’s on your mind eats away at you; takes your self-confidence and self-worth and buries it.
There is a way to get what you want: Say how you feel and do so while leaving the other person’s ego intact. But we are taught from a young age to be “seen and not heard.” This is even more evident with regard to sexual topics.

The Canadian mindset is such that if we don’t have to see about it and hear about it, it doesn’t exist. We are also complete hypocrites about almost everything. How many women don’t have sex with their husbands after they have kids or go through menopause but expect their husbands to be celibate as well?

I hear this story countless times when husbands lament that their wives won’t even talk about sex — or go to a doctor when their hormonal changes or physical changes in their body make them feel like never having sex again. They are fearful of looking at what is going on with their bodies and that their husbands may look elsewhere. And they bury their worries and never talk about the problem openly.

It’s a shame, but I hope our culture is changing. I recommend watching shows like Eat Yourself Sexy and How to Look Good Naked for a great example of how to get a woman’s body back in shape — and to feel like someone you desire to look at in the mirror, and your husband will too.

Is there a way you could finesse around all these absurdities? Say, by having clients hire sex workers as performers in adult films, with the clients co-starring? Would this be legal?
I’ve often thought this might be a way around the laws in the U.S., but then I found out it’s actually only legal to produce porn in [Los Angeles]. It happens in many other states, but technically it’s not legal there either. So again, the lunacy abounds.

In the U.S., it’s only legal to be a prostitute in the brothels in Nevada. Independents aren’t legally allowed to earn a living, so owning a bawdy house and profiting from selling another’s body is legal in one particular zone of one particular state.

Besides, many clients wouldn’t consent to being videotaped even if they signed a contract stating they would be given the only copy to destroy right after. Fear of having the tape used in some other way or a copy made would be too much on their minds to relax and enjoy the encounter. This is why they come to someone like me in the first place: to let everything go for an hour or two, or even 30 minutes of their day. And it’s a treasure they can replay in their minds for the rest of their lives. [laugh]

Seriously though, if the laws were to change in Canada, I would absolutely love to open up an old-fashioned brothel-style establishment where the girls dressed like they did in the old days in at least part of the hotel, complete with bustiers and crinolines with me atop the piano singing a few sexy jazz or blues numbers.

Girls with short skirts and high heels would of course be in another area of the brothel, but the old “whorehouse” like the ones they had in New Orleans and many other towns and cities in the old days would be awesome.