Sex - Politics, Choice, and Criminalization

Sex - Politics, Choice, and Criminalization

It's a pendulum swing, the way our democratic systems work. For a time, we elect people who say "No, no, no!" and "You cannot do that!" and pass laws which step all over the human right to self-determination. Then the pendulum swings back and we elect people who say "Let adults choose according to each one's own beliefs and conscience."

A couple of years ago, our former government (here in Canada) passed a law making paying for sex illegal. I don't ever remember hearing it debated, nor any public outcry about "getting back into the bedrooms of the nation" which we've kept private since the first Trudeau was Prime Minister. Nor any debate about how, with one sweep of the pen, we were making criminals of thousands of citizens. Most likely, this change in law (previously, only soliciting was illegal) was a misguided attempt to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable people, especially the young and the impoverished--the stereotype of who has to, or is forced to, or chooses to charge for sex. And most likely there was that underlying "holier than thou" attitude of "We know what is right and what is wrong and we will tell you what you will be allowed to do." I do have a thing about "holier-than-thou" attitudes. Inherited, I think, from my father who was a veteran who took pride in his ability to think for himself.

So how is this related to EMBERS? Well, when I wrote the story, paying for sex in Canada was not illegal. And now it is. When I wrote the story, I was not writing about a woman choosing to break the law. The money was irrelevant in a way. But the way Wyn chose to meet some of her physical needs without emotional entanglement was one of her forms of accommodation. For an artist she is quite balanced, right brain/left brain, both creative and logical. A bit rebellious perhaps, applying the old "what's good for the gander" argument of women's lib. "Men have done this forever. Who says we can't too?" Wyn is an independent woman who grew up in an era when positive attitudes towards sex were encouraged, indeed even expected.

The ability to balance being single and being sexually active is still a challenge for many women--those who think for themselves and those who have broken away from the institutions or the social (group) constraints which tell people what they can do. Because of course, the old out-dated mores are still alive, especially in smaller communities which are more homogeneous, where everyone knows everyone else and feels they have a right to have and to express an opinion about the choices other people make.