The National Population Study on Prostitution (1984) found that 92% of Canadians agreed that prostitution will always exist no matter what is done.284

The time is past for moral, religious, or political arguments against prostitution. The reality of the present situation is that prostitution is becoming less and less important because of these concerns and increasingly important because of AIDS, i.e., what is important is not stamping out prostitution but modifying the sexual behaviour of clients and prostitutes to reduce the risk of spreading AIDS.285

In 1985 Danny Cockerline was quoted as saying that most people who become infected with HIV or other STDs "are getting it for free."

By blaming prostitutes for the transmission of AIDS among the heterosexual population, we forget that they are working women and men who attempt to maintain as much control over their working conditions, including hygiene, as possible. We ignore the fact that prostitutes, like non-prostitutes, don't want to contract an STD or AIDS.286

The 1998 document HIV/AIDS and Discrimination: A Discussion Paper, discussed the patterns of stigma and discrimination faced by sex workers in Canada.

The HIV epidemic has heightened and exposed the vulnerability of sex workers to discriminatory attitudes, attention and regulation. Sex workers have been characterized as vectors of transmission, a phrase that ignores the fact that many sex workers use condoms more consistently than other populations, that they frequently exercise more responsibility than their clients, and that they are generally at higher risk of infection from their clients than vice versa.287

Yet sex work has never been accepted in Canada. Nelson (1943), in one of the first published arguments regarding sex work and sexually transmitted diseases in Canada, wrote:

The only procedure which will prevent the spread of infection by prostitution is the active and constant and effective repression of prostitution, in whatever guise it may operate.288

Fifty-six years after Nelson's published argument, it is only appropriate that the last word go to Gerald Hannon, Canadian professor, writer and male sex worker:

The thing is we will always be here, and we will always be here because you will always need us. You need us because you need sex, at times, when it is not possible or convenient to get it from anybody else. So you can choose. You can choose to damage us with laws [and] you can choose to damage yourselves in the process, because hypocrisy always brutalizes. You can choose to damage your institutions, you can choose to damage the communities in which we live, or you can choose to accept. You can choose to work together with us for ... some kind ... of future. ... The choice is really up to you.289

Footnotes

284. Peat, Marwick and Partners, A National Population Study of Prostitution and Pornography, Ottawa, Department of Justice, 1984. [back]

286. Danny Cockerline, quoted in Brock, D., "Prostitutes are Scapegoats in the AIDS Panic," Resources for Feminist Research, 1985, 18, 2, p. 14.

287. Bastow, K., "Prostitution and HIV/AIDS," Canadian HIV/AIDS Policy & Law Newsletter, 2, 2, 1996, pp. 12-14, cited in de Bruyn, T., HIV/AIDS and Discrimination: A Discussion Paper, Joint Project on Legal and Ethical Issues Raised by HIV/AIDS, Montreal, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and Ottawa, Canadian AIDS Society, 1998, p. 63.

288. Nelson, N. A., "Prostitution and Genito-Infectious Disease Control," Canadian Journal of Public Health, 1943, 34, 6, p. 257.

289. Hannon, G., St. Lawrence Centre Forum. Prostitution -- A Profession Like Any Other? Discussion sponsored by the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes, Toronto, October 29, 1996.