The Montreal portion of the Department of Justice consultation paper Street Prostitution: Assessing the Impact of the Law (1989) reported that one of the factors influencing the relationship between law enforcement and sex work is fear of AIDS. According to this report, police officers

do not like working undercover because they are afraid of surprise reactions by male and female prostitutes with AIDS. They are afraid the prostitutes will bite them or spit in their faces. ... Others have told us they would not try to conclude an arrangement to gather evidence against a man or woman who had AIDS ... the fear of AIDS influences the fight against homosexual prostitution most of all.244

June 1987 saw the first major police action to try to combat male sex work on Toronto's homosexual track. A 14-member undercover squad arrested 23 men.

Despite concern about the deadly AIDS virus police taking part in the sweep took no special precautions and those arrested will not be automatically tested for the disease, police said. However, one investigator noted that, unlike female prostitutes, none of the men who were arrested carried condoms as protection against infection.245

Almost 10 years later, police were continuing to aggressively confront not only visible forms of male sex work, but also less visible forms, such as male striptease. In one case police raided a Toronto club, charging 19 men.

"They asked a whole bunch of questions," one dancer said. "If we're paid to work in the club? Who makes the schedule? If the customers touched you? If you touched the customers? If I'd observed any prostitution?"246

This bust also raised concern about bathhouses because the bawdy-house charges used in 1996 were based on the same laws used against patrons of Toronto's gay bathhouses during the 1970s.

Overall, the hypocrisy which characterizes much of the enforcement of sex work-related laws in Canada can be in direct conflict with activities intended to educate people and prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.247

Footnotes

244. Gemme, R., Payment, N. and Malenfant, L., Street Prostitution: Assessing the Impact of the Law, Montreal, Ottawa, Department of Justice, 1989, p. 73. [back]

246. XTRA!, January 4,1996.

247. Achilles, R., The Regulation of Prostitution, background paper presented to the City of Toronto Board of Health, Toronto, City of Toronto Public Health Department, April 24, 1995.