Thursday 15 January 2009 10:34 hrs
 
This is the inside of the bus to Peterborough.

Sex workers frequently require transportation. Consequently, a good driver can be a sex worker’s best friend.

This is the person who can be trusted to know where you live, who knows what address you were last seen entering. They possibly even know the name and phone number of the last person you were seen with.

In this case, I’m being driven by a unionized employee of the legendary Greyhound Coach lines. This is a serious name in organized transportation.  Even so, this guy doesn’t know my name, and doesn’t care about me or the cargo I checked into the bottom of his bus. Nor does he pay much attention to what I'm carrying as I board his bus.

First, some quick review.

Sex work in Canada operates within a reality distortion field that makes it (sex work) difficult to observe.

One of the most visible forms of sex work is street prostitution. A novice observer will do well to begin the observation there. Technically it is not illegal to work as a prostitute, even on the street. You just can’t communicate with anybody about it.

The vast bulk of sex work in Canada operates in plain sight, but society pretends it’s not there. The evidence is hard to ignore though. Just open the back of any weekly entertainment paper in Canada, such as Toronto’s Eye Magazine.

Since sex work is not illegal per se, it is not illegal to travel across Canada doing sex work. And so I can sit on the Greyhound Bus and quite comfortably allow myself to be shepherded towards my date with destiny.

Longtime observers allege that sex work is inherently unsafe in Canada. Not only is communicating for the purposes of prostitution illegal, you can’t set up a house of prostitution either.

This means that you can’t get together with some friends, rent an apartment on Huntley Street (for example) and go to work. You must take your chances on your own with your dates, people who are often likely to be strangers.

I cannot help but think about the safety issue as I sit on the Greyhound with my back to unknown dangers lurking in the seats behind me. There have been several incidents of passengers being attacked on these busses. I feel tired, but I won’t go to sleep.

Instead I try to cut into the script for the Heavy Metal Blues 5 minute promo.