Neither is the busty blond leering out from the E section of the telephone book.
Group-owned and controlled by its members, co-ops are the traditional purview
of credit unions, farmers and artists.
But a coalition of prostitutes in Vancouver sees no reason why it can't join
that list.
Tired of unsafe working conditions, the BC Coalition of Experiential Women is
exploring the idea of starting a sex workers co-operative, where the selling of
sex and its accoutrements would be controlled not by the need to pay off drug
debts or pimp fees but by the prostitutes themselves.
"We want it to be above board," said Raven Bowen, one of two authors of
Developing Capacity for Change, a report written to explore the concept and
need for a sex trade co-op in Vancouver.
"The whole idea is to pull the industry out from the shadows into a more, not
public, but legitimate environment."
Among the options being considered is an actual bricks-and-mortar establishment
that would offer a safe space for prostitutes to bring clients or act as a
booking agency for their solicitation.
Workers could share the cost of marketing and pool resources to buy supplies.
Job training would be provided, as would health and safety services.
Membership would have its privileges, but the group intends for the services of
the co-op to be accessible to all tiers of the sex trade - from the survival
worker on the corner to the high-class madam.
The report came out of a series of focus groups held with women working in
businesses called escort agencies or massage parlours in the Yellow Pages but
considered by many to be licensed sellers of sex.
Cities reaping thousands of dollars from the licensing of escort services while
politicians continue to balk at changing the laws surrounding prostitution is
the ultimate hypocrisy, said John Lowman, a professor at Simon Fraser
University who has been researching prostitution law for 20 years.
"I've talked to politicians who say 'well, we don't really know what goes on in
escort services,"' Lowman said.
"To which I've always responded well you better resign so someone who is in
touch with the realities of contemporary Canadian society can take your place."
The city of Vancouver has had numerous debates on the issue of escort agency
and massage parlour licences.
There are rules in place governing their operation, but regular inspections
aren't carried out.
"The conclusion is we will license any legitimate business as long we have the
understanding they are intending to operate legitimately," said Paul Teichroeb,
chief licence inspector for the city. "We're certainly not licensing any
brothels and escort agencies aren't permitted to carry out any activities on
the premises themselves."
The group behind the co-op said it could simply apply to be a massage parlour
or escort agency under city bylaws, but is not interested in running another
clandestine brothel.
Which means it'll need exemptions from the law or face getting charged by
police.
For example, said Sue Davis, the report's other author, the section in the
Criminal Code that prohibits living off the avails of prostitution could have
implications for a co-operatively owned business in which part of the money the
women make will be funnelled back in.
"There's a lot of legal questions we have to answer before we can move ahead,"
Davis said. "But we have to do something to take control."
Teichroeb said exemptions from municipal bylaws aren't granted - the entire
regulation itself would have to be changed.
On the federal level, said Prof. Alan Young of Osgoode University, gaining
exemptions from criminal law is all but impossible.
The Criminal Code would need to be amended or a constitutional exemption would
have to be granted in court.
"People can't just apply for exemptions from the law," said Young, who is also
handling a constitutional challenge to the prostitution laws filed in Ontario
last week
But they can push at it, as in the Charter challenge, and hope the courts make
a change as advocates for the sex trade say they're tired of banging their
heads against the doors of the House of Commons begging for new laws.
"The community has been so divided by the way lawyers and politicians have
controlled the sex trade," said Davis.
"We need to unite and start making the changes for ourselves."
Vancouver activist Jamie Lee Hamilton tried to push back at the legislation
seven years ago.
She opened Grandma's House, a not-for-profit society that offered condoms,
referrals, showers and food to prostitutes. And for a fee, the workers could
also use a room for their clients, a space similar to what the co-op group is
trying to achieve.
She was arrested and charged with running a bawdy house and had hoped to take
the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but the charges were later dropped.
"It's about providing safe spaces for women to work," Hamilton said.
"It has to be where it's not about profit but about people."
Though street prostitution is the public face of sex work, researchers
generally agree that 80 per cent of all prostitutes actually ply their trade
through indoor agencies, and it would be those workers that the co-op would
primarily target.
The report found that escort workers often live a life of indentured servitude
to the agency or their pimp.
Workers pay hefty fines for such transgressions as unmatched underwear or dates
who don't show up as promised.
All of the workers interviewed said they'd been fined or punished for
protecting themselves rather than providing services to a customer.
Nor do they keep the money they make - workers must shell out for advertising,
driver fees, security and laundry and have little or no say on how the money is
spent.
Police do crack down on escort agencies known to be breaking the law.
In February, a joint RCMP-Vancouver police team arrested who they believed was
the most successful pimp operating in the Lower Mainland.
Police estimated her agency made more than a million dollars a year.
But advocates argue that crackdowns only result in more women being on the
street.
Women like the 26 prostitutes Robert Pickton is accused of killing.
It's this case, said Lowman, that proves that spaces like the co-op and changes
to law are literally life-saving.
"How much longer can we just fail our women like this?," he said. "How many
more people have to die?"
