Phaedrus

Also, if you're using the Tor Browser Bundle, a lot of plugins are disabled by default - especially Flash. This is because a lot of plugins come with trackers that will destroy your anonymity, and anonymity is what Tor is all about. Convenience is secondary to that. If you just want to circumvent geographical restrictions, as fStop said, a VPN or proxy service is your best bet.

I think general discussions like this are OK (but I may be wrong, and if this thread suddenly vanishes that would probably be why :) ). What's verboten is sending people to other boards as a means of working around the no-negative-stuff rule here.

Well, I guess this is mandatory, especially since I didn't actually know who sculpted it. Next: Paul McCarthy, since he's in the news today.

A sculpture in Paris It's inspired by the shape of a Christmas Tree, apparently. It's definitely not a 25-foot-high buttplug. Okay? Here's another one of his works...

Yes, it will become law, but the thinking and hoping is down to two things: how the courts will interpret the stupidly vague legislation, and LE's attitude to actually enforcing it. Neither of these is really knowable in advance. I don't see why. What's been criminalized is paying for sexual services, and that's not something that happens without payment. Just arranging a meeting? I don't see why that won't still be legal. As others have said, if you don't discuss particular services then nothing illegal has happened. How much of an impact this will have will vary between clients. The ones that are happy to meet someone they think they'll like and let the encounter evolve will be able to operate pretty much as they do now; the ones who are anxious to ensure that particular services are available are going to have a much harder time of it. As for sending emails or PMs now: any conversation you have now, or at any time before C36 becomes law, is just as legal as it was last week, or last month, or last year. The pre-Bedford laws are still in place for now. Nothing in C36 is retrospective, so it can't be used to prosecute anything anyone did before the day it becomes law. PM/email away! I actually think this is a very good idea: the more you can build a list of contacts and expectations and relations now, the better off you'll be later. Why would that change? A change in the law doesn't affect who the ladies are. They'll still be the same people. This is absolutely true. And I'd add: LE are answerable to the community in which they operate, and to some extent their priorities will reflect the concerns of that community. And most of the community doesn't know that the independent SP discreetly working in an apartment downtown, or the clients that see her, exist... and so LE gain little from taking action against her or her clients. The more visible sections of the industry - street workers and their clients in particular - are far more likely to be targeted. Although it should be noted that Alan Young, when testifying before the Senate last month, described C36 as "legalized entrapment". That one will go to the judges, I think. But it's fair to say that new entrants to the business will have a far harder time establishing themselves in a post-C36 world than they did beforehand, unless they can find a well-established provider to publicly vouch for them.

You're absolutely right. But I see this constant effort to deceive as pretty solid evidence that the truth is not on their side, and - just as important - they know it.

We'll miss you, Vitto! Good luck with whatever you're up to next...

I don't think it'll fly. Although the CPC refuses to acknowledge the existence of sex workers who aren't heterosexual cis-gender females, I think the language in C36 just talks about "people", and so all the laws that apply to female providers apply to male ones too.

Yes, there's issues at 1000. See this thread: http://www.cerb.ca/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=114185

Happy Birthday, CK! And thanks for all your work on the Diary!

Um... why are you caressing the turkey? :) Just askin'...

On discretion: don't worry about it. Discretion is a large part of what you're paying for, and the providers absolutely understand that. They don't want attention drawn to them, either. You should definitely make up your mind whether or not you want to go through with a visit before doing too much else. Bear in mind that the ladies get quite a lot of tire-kickers and time-wasters, and while they'll be sympathetic to nervous new clients, they'll have limited patience for endless questions and very little at all for anyone who books and then doesn't go through with the appointment.

I'd like to think that the community will survive relatively unscathed. C36 is about advertizing and buying sexual services; neither of those things is part of most of the conversations we have here. I'm not sure how that squares with what Mod said earlier in the thread about "known escorts", but I hope we'll find a way around it. Some creativity may be required.

That's certainly their intent. However, since they've failed to define "sexual services" in the bill, and the Senate doesn't look like it's about to, this stuff will end up being decided by the courts. What SCs do in the meantime will be up to them, and may well depend on what local LE decide they're interested in making a fuss about (or not). Seeing each other naked? I see no good reason for that. You can have sex under the covers, in the dark, and strictly for procreative purposes only. Seeing anyone else naked is not required. :)

She seemed to me to be fairly contemptuous of people in general, not just clients. I'm not sure that she represents escorts any more than she represents the rest of humanity.

Welcome to the board, Carrie! I hate to be the bearer of bad news (and I may be wrong), but I suspect most ladies won't answer this in public. They all have their ways of screening potential clients and things they do to ensure their own safety, but those won't be revealed here as they generally don't want to make it easier for the undesirable would-be clients to circumvent them. The board has a SP-only section, where I'm sure these things do get discussed more openly - the FAQ has details on how to get access. That might be your best bet.

I don't see why. I'm not aware that there's anything in C36 that's retrospective, so it can't be used to prosecute anything that happened before it became law. That includes ads and recos dating from before then.

So what you're saying is that you need plausible deniability if need be. Is that right?

The more I think about this, the more I'm thinking that it's thoroughly objectionable. This is what's crystallized it for me: It's not just Berlin saying this. I've seen it in quite a few places over the last few days - I may even have linked to one or two myself - and every time I see it, it makes me want to scream. Privacy IS a right. To be sure, there are those who disagree. Companies want to know everything about you so that they can sell you stuff more effectively. Some groups and organizations just don't give a damn - look at the periodic pictures of celebrities in various states of undress that periodically go flying around the Internet (and the more mainstream press, sometimes). But the worst of all are the governments and various other organizations who want to strip away your privacy to enhance their ability to control what you do and don't do. Oh, to be sure, they have their good excuses. It's to protect us against the terrorists under the bed. It's to find criminals. To find drug dealers, pedophiles, traffickers (think of the children!). It's to punish those hypocrites who want the rest of us to do as they vote, not as they do. It's to catch those who do bad things, say bad things, think bad things. No. Yes, I know, this is where libertarianism gets hard. If you want to stand up for rights, you have to stand up for those rights for everyone. For the terrorists, for the child-rapists, for the MPs who voted for C36 while seeing sex workers themselves. Everyone. Because as soon as a right is removed for one reviled group in society, it becomes that much easier to remove it from a slightly less reviled group, and the next, and then all of us. That's why laws that remove people's rights are *always* officially aimed at Public Enemy No. 1, whoever that may be (it seems that terrorists are the current favourite). Well, you'd be amazed who's a suspected terrorist, when someone really wants to see what you're up to or put you back in your place. Yes, YOU. I'd have thought sex workers and their clients should be among the last people to advocate the removal of privacy as a right, both because many of us have much to lose as a result, and because we're pretty high up on the list of people from whom that privilege will be stripped once that becomes a common thing. Be careful what you wish for.

Or not. Megan Walker's a nasty piece of work. DNFTT.

Well, okay then. If you insist.

Not mine, my friend... :)

Congratulations, Daniel!

Welcome, Holly! The ladies would be better placed to answer this than me, but... I suspect not too much. And if they did, they seem to have historically been concerned with "Looking out for you", and "Making sure you're not being coerced". How that squares with booking appointments, wasting your time and the intimidation involved is... unclear to me. However, last time they did this they managed to target some local providers who are not just clearly of age and independent, but also quite heavily involved in pro-sex-work activism, which says quite a bit about either their motives or their cluefulness (or, more likely, both) Actually, on that subject: did any of our CERB ladies get hit with a visit this time around? I see Ottawa Police sat this one out, although Gatineau were involved...

If you're asking, "Can you fight a law's validity because it does some tangible harm to you which contravenes your Charter rights?" then... yes. That's exactly what the Bedford case did with the old laws, and it's exactly what'll happen to the new ones sooner or later if nothing else happens to them first.