Massage Parlours/Bawdy Houses/Brothels

[cyclo 30131]

There seems to be a common misunderstanding that massage parlours offering hand jobs/happy endings are not providing prostitution services and therefore are not classified as "common bawdy houses" under the prostitution laws of the Criminal Code of Canada. The following comments illustrate this point of view.

 

"Note however, that in some places (like Ottawa) some massage parlors are licensed by the City and thus have a permit to operate, as long as they only go so far (ie no oral or FS)."

 

"You cannot get "full service" at a massage parlor, that would be illegal."

 

"... to Offer BJ or FS to the gentlemen... this would make the spa a brothel which are clearly illegal..."

 

Since many cities license erotic massage parlours/body rubs, and everyone knows what goes on inside them, it's understandable that this would lead to the mistaken belief that everything is legal.

 

A hand job is a sexual service. Providing sexual services for money is prostitution. Any location where prostitution commonly occurs is a common bawdy house. Therefore massage parlours commonly providing hand jobs... are providing sexual services... and therefore are engaged in prostitution... and therefore the massage parlour is a common bawdy house.

 

There's a legal distinction made between "erotic" services and "sexual" services. (I know, I know... it's a fine line ;-) ) Municipalities can regulate "erotic" services through zoning and licensing. These include strip clubs, adult video stores and massage parlours for example. They can't authorize "bawdy houses" since the Federal Criminal Code of Canada prohibits them.

 

Another way to understand this is that a lower level of government can't adopt laws which are inconsistent with those of a higher level of government. This is a basic principle of constututional law. Therefore a municipal massage parlour license can't authorize a massage parlour to provide sexual services, including hand jobs, because that would make it a "bawdy house" and bawdy houses are illegal under Federal law.

 

As stated in a Library of Parliament Research Publication on prostitution, "... municipalities walk a fine line between federal and municipal/provincial jurisdiction and must be careful not to take any measures that might deal with actual prostitution. Part of this balancing act consists in maintaining the illusion that escort services and massage and adult entertainment parlours are not fronts for prostitution-related activities."

 

As for why massage parlours don't get busted, it's for basically the same reasons that the police look the other way with most indoor prostitution. If you operate discretely and the neighbours aren't disturbed, the police aren't going to go looking for trouble. They've got plenty of other crimes to investigate where there are real victims. This includes prostitution where there is real and obvious harm being done such as underage prostitution, violent pimps, and foreign sex workers who are trapped without their passports.

 

Since it is so rare for police to bust a massage parlour, this gives the impression that they are all legal. But, they do get busted occasionally, so what causes the police to take action in a very few cases and look the other way in the majority of cases? I've attached a few links to news stories about massage parlours that were busted. These were all in inappropriate locations that drew complaints (next to daycares, ground floor of a condo). There are of course other examples of massage parlours being busted. These usually involve foreign women working in massage parlours who are being victimized or under aged girls.

 

It's not my intent to scare either massage attendants or clients with this information. Clearly the vast majority of massage parlours generally operate without any problem. I do however think that we should all be knowledgable about prostitution law (and sexual health information) so that we can assess the risk of our activities. Avoiding massage parlours which are likely to draw complaints from neighbours is a simple step to take.

 

The upcoming Supreme Court of Canada decision on prostitution laws will likely affect the current legal status of massage parlours as bawdy houses. So if you work in or frequent a massage parlour, you should be interested in the outcome of that case.

 

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/839283/inside-a-calgary-bawdy-house-evidence-of-happenings-at-massage-parlour-found-online/

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/massage-parlour-busted-in-residential-building-1.1240820

 

http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/police-lay-prostitution-charges-at-gatineau-bawdy-house-1.574116

 

One final point. When massage attendants and clients discuss sexual services/price in the private massage room of a massage parlour this is not considered public solicitation. The private massage room has the same status as a hotel room. It's a private space, not a public space.

[qwertyaccount 15793]

Most of us wouldn't be able to use the "Bill Clinton" defense :)

 

When Is Sex Not "Sexual Relations"?

By Richard Lacayo

When Bill Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones case, he said he had never had "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky. But Lewinsky has reportedly testified to a number of acts that most people think of as sex. Can both statements somehow be true? Is it possible that the two of them had intimate contact, yet Clinton still did not perjure himself? In the intricate world of the law, a world of hairsplitting distinctions where the President is famously at home, it just may be so. Here's why.

At Clinton's deposition, Jones' legal team asked Judge Susan Webber Wright to approve a very precise, three-part definition of sexual relations. Clinton's attorney Robert Bennett objected to the whole definition, but to the last two parts especially, as being too broad. Wright agreed to disallow parts 2 and 3, leaving only the first, narrowest definition of sex in place.

With that, Clinton may have been given the room to offer a technically "true" denial to the question of whether he had sex with Lewinsky--even if she happened to perform fellatio on him. The truncated definition characterizes sex in terms of a checklist of body parts, including the genitals, breast and thigh. Oral sex would not necessarily require the President to touch anything on Lewinsky that appears on that list. Strange as it may sound, under one reading of the definition, Lewinsky could have been having sex with him (because she was "touching" the President's genitals) while at the same moment, he was not having sex with her. (At the deposition, Clinton wasn't asked if she had sexual relations with him, just if he had them with her.) Isn't the law a wonderfully intricate device?

There are problems with the legalistic defense. For one thing, if Clinton and Lewinsky did have oral sex, is it really likely that he did not touch any body parts mentioned in the Jones definition? (Lewinsky has testified that Clinton fondled her.) And because that definition says that a person engages in sex if he or she "causes" contact with the genitals of "any person," it could be argued that Clinton caused Lewinsky's contact with his, even if he did not otherwise touch her. He could reply that she was the cause, or at least the active partner, while he was merely the passive receiver, but that makes him seem like either an implausibly shrinking violet or a very cool customer. Beyond all that, Lewinsky's secret grand-jury testimony may simply be so detailed and explicit that it leaves no room for loopholes.

Even if the word-wiggle keeps Clinton out of the perjury trap, it won't help him politically because it doesn't account for his Jan. 26 televised insistence that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." When he spoke before the cameras, the lawyerly definition of sex wasn't in force. And in a recent TIME/CNN poll, 87% of those questioned said that oral sex was, well, sex. Hiding behind the ultimate tortuous legalism could help the President get through his testimony, but it won't pass the laugh test with the American people--which is why Clinton won't be parsing the meaning of "sexual relations" in any public statements. --By Richard Lacayo.