Escorts: Love for Sale in Toronto
By Antonia Zerbisias
Prostitution has always been with us. The world’s oldest profession has sometimes been celebrated, other times censured, almost always stigmatized. Even while elite courtesans moved among royalty, less fortunate women scrabbled for a living in the streets. Today is not much different. But what we know is based largely on hearsay and sensation, bad movies and crime series, with the focus on the most downtrodden. This book is not about those women. Rather, it is the story of the top level of the love-for-sale subculture – the world of high-end escorts. They are the courtesans of our time – discreet, educated, sophisticated and very much in control of their own fates. Who are they? And what are their lives really like? Through exclusive interviews with Toronto escorts and their clients, Star journalist Antonia Zerbisias uncovers this little-known society, painting a vivid portrait of a way of life that operates under the radar in our own city.
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By Antonia Zerbisias
Prostitution has always been with us. The world’s oldest profession has sometimes been celebrated, other times censured, almost always stigmatized. Even while elite courtesans moved among royalty, less fortunate women scrabbled for a living in the streets. Today is not much different. But what we know is based largely on hearsay and sensation, bad movies and crime series, with the focus on the most downtrodden. This book is not about those women. Rather, it is the story of the top level of the love-for-sale subculture – the world of high-end escorts. They are the courtesans of our time – discreet, educated, sophisticated and very much in control of their own fates. Who are they? And what are their lives really like? Through exclusive interviews with Toronto escorts and their clients, Star journalist Antonia Zerbisias uncovers this little-known society, painting a vivid portrait of a way of life that operates under the radar in our own city.
When you subscribe to Star Dispatches, you'll receive new eRead titles, for only $1/week. That's only $1 per week, with a minimum subscription period of 1 month, to explore news and features from a new and unique perspective. Single copies of Star Dispatches eReads can be purchased for $2.99 at starstore.ca or itunes.ca/stardispatches
Excerpt:
Escorts: Love for Sale in Toronto
In October 2012, just as I began to research this book, a prostitution ring operating out of a Zumba dance studio was busted in quaint and prosperous Kennebunk, Maine. The publicly shamed clients consisted of some 150 members of the local gentry, including businessmen, a high school hockey coach and a former mayor, whose idea of dancing was the horizontal mambo.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector-General reported that, last April, when Secret Service agents accompanying President Barak Obama to Colombia were caught with hookers, it was not a one-off affair. In fact, the presidential bodyguards had also been bawdy in El Salvador, Panama, Romania and China.
Prostitution scandals are not as common in Canada. But it’s not because we Canadians are, like our winters, frigid. The escorts I introduce in this book, although they don’t name names, spend time with some familiar political and business figures. The difference is that, unlike in the U.S., prostitution is not a crime here.
What is illegal is what sex workers say is necessary to work safely in the industry: living on the avails of prostitution which, ostensibly, is to keep pimps from exploiting sex workers; owning, operating or occupying a bawdy house, i.e. any place regularly used for prostitution, whether it’s a sex worker’s home or a condo shared with others; and public communication for the purpose of prostitution. The trouble is that living on the avails can catch up those who support, drive and protect the prostitutes. It can also lead to the arrest of a prostitute’s dependent parents, partners or children. The bawdy house law jeopardizes the safe environment that prostitutes can build for themselves. And the communication law can mean that a streetwalker, who is already at risk of assault, robbery or murder, has to get up close and personal in a stranger’s car before she can assess whether a client poses a danger.
Thanks to a constitutional court challenge by three sex workers in Ontario, the laws were overturned in 2010. But a 2012 government appeal has left them in limbo. In October, the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would be deliberating on the case. Its decision, expected at the end of 2013, could revolutionize sex in this city. But whether anybody would want a hooker down the hall, or a brothel next door, is another matter. And yet polls consistently show that a majority of Canadians would only shrug if prostitution were decriminalized.
Whatever the outcome, the laws pertaining to child exploitation and human trafficking, which are not being challenged, will remain unchanged.
When I took on this book, I was determined it would not present clichéd images of sex workers. No grimy hotels. No dubious “spas.” No shots of girls doing their “stroll” or leaning into car windows. As one of my interview subjects told me, “That’s so 1980s.” The girls (and boys) who used to prowl the Carlton, Church, Gerrard and Jarvis circuit, leaving spent condoms on the lawns of yuppified upper Cabbagetown, are mostly gone. Although accurate numbers are unknown, 80 per cent of sex work has moved indoors, according to academics who conduct field research into prostitution all over the world.
Soliciting has gone digital, with websites and chat forums devoted to the trade. From airport hotels to Yorkville condos to boutique hotels, happy endings are happening all day, all night, all over, at the click of a mouse, at the ping of a text message.
While the trade’s bag of tricks may have changed, the business remains the same.
There’s no way to know if prostitution is the oldest profession but it’s certainly always been with us. From the Bible’s Hagar to Mary Magdalene, and from Catherine Deneuve’s turn as Belle du Jour to the popular British TV series The Secret Diary of a London Call Girl, prostitutes have been a constant in society and popular culture.
Even in Toronto.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector-General reported that, last April, when Secret Service agents accompanying President Barak Obama to Colombia were caught with hookers, it was not a one-off affair. In fact, the presidential bodyguards had also been bawdy in El Salvador, Panama, Romania and China.
Prostitution scandals are not as common in Canada. But it’s not because we Canadians are, like our winters, frigid. The escorts I introduce in this book, although they don’t name names, spend time with some familiar political and business figures. The difference is that, unlike in the U.S., prostitution is not a crime here.
What is illegal is what sex workers say is necessary to work safely in the industry: living on the avails of prostitution which, ostensibly, is to keep pimps from exploiting sex workers; owning, operating or occupying a bawdy house, i.e. any place regularly used for prostitution, whether it’s a sex worker’s home or a condo shared with others; and public communication for the purpose of prostitution. The trouble is that living on the avails can catch up those who support, drive and protect the prostitutes. It can also lead to the arrest of a prostitute’s dependent parents, partners or children. The bawdy house law jeopardizes the safe environment that prostitutes can build for themselves. And the communication law can mean that a streetwalker, who is already at risk of assault, robbery or murder, has to get up close and personal in a stranger’s car before she can assess whether a client poses a danger.
Thanks to a constitutional court challenge by three sex workers in Ontario, the laws were overturned in 2010. But a 2012 government appeal has left them in limbo. In October, the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would be deliberating on the case. Its decision, expected at the end of 2013, could revolutionize sex in this city. But whether anybody would want a hooker down the hall, or a brothel next door, is another matter. And yet polls consistently show that a majority of Canadians would only shrug if prostitution were decriminalized.
Whatever the outcome, the laws pertaining to child exploitation and human trafficking, which are not being challenged, will remain unchanged.
When I took on this book, I was determined it would not present clichéd images of sex workers. No grimy hotels. No dubious “spas.” No shots of girls doing their “stroll” or leaning into car windows. As one of my interview subjects told me, “That’s so 1980s.” The girls (and boys) who used to prowl the Carlton, Church, Gerrard and Jarvis circuit, leaving spent condoms on the lawns of yuppified upper Cabbagetown, are mostly gone. Although accurate numbers are unknown, 80 per cent of sex work has moved indoors, according to academics who conduct field research into prostitution all over the world.
Soliciting has gone digital, with websites and chat forums devoted to the trade. From airport hotels to Yorkville condos to boutique hotels, happy endings are happening all day, all night, all over, at the click of a mouse, at the ping of a text message.
While the trade’s bag of tricks may have changed, the business remains the same.
There’s no way to know if prostitution is the oldest profession but it’s certainly always been with us. From the Bible’s Hagar to Mary Magdalene, and from Catherine Deneuve’s turn as Belle du Jour to the popular British TV series The Secret Diary of a London Call Girl, prostitutes have been a constant in society and popular culture.
Even in Toronto.
