If my work is to be successful it will draw from a diversity of sources to reach the conclusion that the sex industry has played a critical part in the development of society in Toronto. I have gathered information from a wide variety of theorists as well as those whose approach is more practical. Most importantly perhaps is that I draw from the work of Phillipa Levine, Kamala Kempadoo, Jo Doezema, Dan Allman, Gloria Lockett, Julian Marlowe, Gail Pheterson, and others and will be operating on the assumption that discrimination against sex workers as a group is grounded in racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia. While there are certainly concerns, such as physical exploitation and transmission of infection, that are connected to the sex industry, it is my standpoint that these concerns are not peculiar to the sex industry and furthermore, that procedures to abolish the sex industry will make those involved less likely to seek outside help, and will hence worsen the problems associated with it. One factor shared by all instruments intended to abolish the sex industry is that they have all been ineffective. Approaches ranging from patriarchal-monotheistic anti-sex doctrines, outright criminalization of those involved in the sex industry, and certain factions of the feminist movement that view the sex industry’s existence as inherently oppressive to women, have at this time not succeeded in eliminating the sex industry. If these approaches have been successful at all it has been in pushing those involved in the sex industry outside of critical factions of society such as the legal system, spiritual communities, and the feminist movement, hence, causing them to be more oppressed.

There is a feminist stream, headed by theorists such as Kathleen Barry (see Kempadoo 1998, pp. 11-12), that views the commercial sex as a paradigm of women’s oppression via sexual subordination and economic marginalization. Proponents of this form of thinking believe that women will not fully be emancipated until the sex industry is abolished. I intend to challenge this viewpoint, as I believe, conversely, that it is the oppression of women that makes people concerned about the existence of the sex industry. Women in European society are, traditionally, not supposed to earn their own money or be agents of their own sexuality. Participation in the sex industry necessarily entails these two aspects, which is why I believe that it is the patriarchy that seeks to abolish it. While there is certainly much work to be done by feminists in terms of improving the working conditions of women, I feel that when this work takes the direction of abolishing the sex industry, it is misguided.

Additionally, there is a stream of thought that came heavily into play during the colonial era in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century and saw a resurgence in the 1990s that states that while women of European descent who are citizens of wealthy countries might be able to make the choice to participate in the sex industry as a way to further their emancipation as women, all other women throughout the world cannot. In this view, women who travel from countries formerly known as ‘second,’ and ‘third’ world countries to ‘first’ world countries to work as sex workers as well as many women from various sub-populations living within ‘first’ world countries who work as sex workers are seen as inherently exploited. While I am certainly not saying that I do not advocate greater economic oppourtunities for women throughout the world that would cease to cause women to work as sex workers for lack of other options, I also would like to challenge the racist assumption that some women lack agency. I believe that the separation of ‘first,’ ‘second,’ and ‘third’ world women in this regard is part of the same thinking that caused the feminist movement to initially exclude women who were not white.

One important element of my approach is that I will be utilizing some degree of a linear, historical approach (alongside other approaches, of course). I intend to trace the history of the fur-trade in Canada as well as other aspects of Canada’s colonial history as regards how these aspects caused the development of a lucrative sex industry in Canada. t industry in Canada and how its development was intensely connected to the sex industry.

Unfortunately, Much literature on the sex industry in Canada states that not much is known about the Canadian sex industry save that it has historically and continues to play a major role in the society and economy of Canada.I believe that my approach will be unique because it will look at the colonial history of Canada, specifically, and will recognize that Canada has a unique colonial history that has resulted in a unique situation with regard to the global sex industry.

References

Allman, Dan. M is For Mutual, A is For ACTS: Male Sex Work and HIV/AIDS in Canada. Vancouver: Sex Workers’ Alliance of Vancouver along with Health Canada, AIDS Vancouver, and the HIV Social, Behavioural and Epidemiological Studies Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 1999.

Allman, Dan, and Myers, Ted. “Male Sex Work and HIV/AIDS in Canada,” In Men Who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and AIDS.

Aldrich, Robert. Colonialism and Homosexuality. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Arens, Blake, Hima B., Gina Gold, Jade Irie, Madeleine Lawson, and Gloria Lockett. “Showing Up Fully: Women of Colour Discuss Sex Work,” moderated By Jill Nagle in Whores and Other Feminists. ed. Jill Nagle. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Bidini, Dave. On a Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock. Toronto: McClelland and Stweart, 1998.

Doezema, Jo. “Forced to Chose: Beyond the Voluntary vs. Forced Dichotomy,” In Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, Redefinition. ed. Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema. London and New York: Routledge: 1998. pp. 34-47.

Goddard, Peter, and Ronnie Hawkins. Ronnie Hawkins: The Last of the Good Ol’ Boys. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co. Ltd., 1989.

Kempadoo, Kamala “Introduction: Globalizing Sex Worker’s Rights,” In Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, Redefinition. ed. Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. pp.1-24

Kempadoo, Kamala. “The Migrant Tightrope: Experiences from the Caribbean,” In Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, Redefinition. ed. Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema. London and New York: 1998. pp.124-138.

Kempadoo, Kamala. Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labour. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

Levine, Phillipa. Prostitution, Race, and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Marlowe, Julian. “It’s Different for Boys,” In Whores and Other Feminists. ed. Jill Nagle. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Pheterson, Gail (ed.). A Vindication of the Rights of Whores. Seattle, WA: Seal Press, 1989.

Sex, Politics, Rock and Roll

It is difficult to separate sexuality and the performing arts. Indeed, in many times and places the distinction has not been made. In my essay I will trace the story of the development of the performing arts as a major industry in the twentieth century Western world and explore the difficulties posed in this instance by the illegality of sex as an industry. I will posit that this problem did not cause the separation of sexuality from every other aspect of the performing arts, rather it created a major economic force with both licit and illicit elements. The binaries between acceptable and unacceptable people and acceptable and unacceptable activites, and the necessary existence of both sides of the binary, would have very strong effects on the arts and culture of the Western world. Forms of art would develop that were equally influenced by the cultures of unacceptable people and the circumstances of unacceptable activities, neither ever completely separate from the acceptable. Another element of my hypothesis is that global social, political, and economic upheaval in the decades following World War Two would lead to the failure of Western society to adequately separate the acceptable from the unacceptable, as evident in the arts and culture of the time. This, in turn, would lead to a large-scale and pervasive questioning of Western societal values

Much of the popular music listened to in the world today has been somehow influenced by jazz. And jazz has been influenced by the particular set of social and political circumstances in which it appeared. Jazz came from New Orleans, a city in which many different cultural groups of European, African, and Western Hemispheric ancestry would intermingle, though not without animosity. Many different groups in the United States would be relegated to culturally or otherwise automatically inscribed positions in the sexual-economic hierarchy. “Considered ‘less than white’ by fairer-skinned Northern Europeans, the Italian experience most closely resembled the racism experienced by African-Americans.”(Russo) Feminist writers Phillipa Levine and Jo Doezema question whether men involved in the sex industry in positions other than as the actual sellers of sex were really such greedy and ruthless tyrants while the women they worked with were helpless victims. In doing so, they outline the racist and sexist stereotypes that these assumptions are based on: “The Jewishness of pimps was not routinely left as a hint or a suggestion: it was a central fact that separated the pimp from the Englishman” (Levine) “By 1910 the images of the white slave trade conjured up by London purity groups had taken full hold of the American imagination…The vision of a vast network of Jewish and French procurers kidnapping and luring white women from Europe and America to service lowly natives and “eastern rich potentates” was captivating, combining as it did racial anxieties, colonial debates, immigration politics, and public morality issues…” (Scully) But, “research indicates most of the ‘trafficking victims’ were actually prostitutes migrating, like thousands of others, in hopes of finding a better life…when subject to scruitiny, the image of the “trafficking victim” turns out to be a figment of neo-Victorian imaginations” (Doezema) This racialization of the illicit economy and the politics surrounding the changes to the American landscape in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries would prove to be very instrumental in the development of jazz: “Whereas New Orleans invented jazz, Chicago legitimized it by introducing many soon-to-be legendary black musicians into the white attended clubs- and this seminal occurrence was largely due to the efforts of (Torrio’s business partner, and both men were known to be heavily involved in the sex trade) Al Capone…Al had always insisted that his speakeasies (i.e.prohibition-era illegal drinking houses) employ live musicians…the gangster without a racist bone in his body made a momentous decision: he would bring Chicago the best jazz musicians in the country. The overwhelming majority of these were of African descent and were playing for spare change in the dives of New Orleans, forbidden from playing the white clubs.” (Russo). . Indeed the fact that many Americans have been barred or severely hindered from full participation in the licit economy has contributed to the country’s maintenance of a burgeoning illicit economy. The fact that some people, like African-Americans, have historically been barred from the licit economy outright while others, like Italians and Jews, have been permitted a foot in each camp, has meant that there is much fluidity between the licit and the illicit economies, in fact the two are rather inseparable. The illicit economy and the licit economy cannot possibly be protected from exposure to one another. The cultural element of discrimination that keeps certain people in the illicit economy, combined with the illicit economy’s interest in the arts and entertainment industry, has had some interesting effects arts and entertainment in America. Jazz is one observable instance of this phenomenon. Jazz would develop out of a combination of a mélange of cultural influences and a relegation of some of these influences to the netherworlds of society and would go on to have a major influence on the same society’s upper strata.

Wars have a tendency to change the sexual climates of the societies they affect. Of course, large numbers of people are forced to be separated from their partners for indefinite periods of time and this can certainly lead to an increase in the prevalence of commercial sex. In the instance of a World War, individual countries will be forced to contend with all kinds of influences, licit and otherwise, from other parts of the world affected by the fighting. “…military prostitution was regarded as inevitable wherever soldiers gathered. The military presence had a powerful hand in shaping local sexualities, especially paid sex. “ (Levine). The two World Wars that occurred in the first half of the twentieth century are of particular interest because they involved conflict not just between countries but between networks of countries established during colonization. “On closer inspection, however, the war was a truly global clash of empires…The first world war was a truly global conflagration…The reality was that German defeat was exogenous, not endogenous; it was the inevitable result of trying to fight a global conflict without being a global power. Considering the vast differential between the resources of the two empires, the only real puzzle is that it took the British Empire so long to win.” In Berlin, the changes in cultural climate stemming from WWI combined with economic upheaval meant that society hardly went back to the way it had been after the First World War was over “…there was no dearth of gangs. They would gather anywhere in the city, like the clustering streetwalkers- even in the fashionable West.” (Gillman and VonE kardt) “Dope- morphine, heroine, and cocaine, was not hard to find, according to police reports of that time (Gilman and Von Eckardt) and “Prostitution was rampant” (Gilman and Von Eckardt) It must be stated that there were some very positive changes to Berlin’s culture stemming from the First World War: “the greatest influence on the music of Berlin, on the very sound of Europe, came from across the ocean. ‘Duke’ Ellington hit Berlin in the summer of 1925 with his all-black revue Chocolate Kiddies…Ellington had a lot of young Berlin composers running for score paper…Kurt Weill was the most talented of those who called the new tune. In the fall of 1928 he presented two one-act operas, based on texts by George Kaiser, in the City Opera- as well as his Threepenny Opera performed in the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. Jazz Opera was established. Duke Ellington proved to have as much influence on the new music as Schonberg.” (Gilman and Von Eckardt) The connection of jazz with commercial sex in the United States combined with the migration of people connected with the commercial sex industry to Europe to service soldiers during WWI would have a great and lasting effect on European music.

While Berlin certainly developed its own unique forms of cultural expression in the years after the First World War, it far from the only region of the world to be affected by these changes. In fact, since the German situation was “exogenous, not endogenous,” (Ferguson) the roots of the turmoil were actually located elsewhere. The influence of the United States on German culture in the interwar period was likely rooted in cultural and economic upheaval in the United States. And all of this upheaval was probably rooted in what was still the global power of the time, the British Empire. “The creeping crisis in Empire had its roots in the crippling price Britain had paid for its victory over Germany in the First World War…it proved extremely difficult to restore the foundations of the pre-war era of globalization…The biggest economic change of all wrought by the war was in the international capital market. Superficially, this returned to normal in the 1920s…Britain resumed her role as the world’s banker, though now the US was investing almost as much overseas…Yet, the significant thing about the Depression in Britain was not that it was so severe but that, compared with its impact on Germany and the United States, it was so mild. What brought recovery was a redefinition of the economics of empire.” (Ferguson) A couple of years after WWI ended, the United States would enter a period of alcohol prohibition and “Chicago would become the hub of a national obsession with booze, blues, and big-money crime.” (McDougall). This was a critical time in the careers of MCA moguls Jules Stein and Lew Wasserman. “All the bands got their big boost in 1933 because of the Chicago World’s Fair” recalled former agent Chuck Suber, one of Stein’s youngest contemporaries in Depression-era Chicago. The Chicago World’s Fair, “A Century of Progress,” began as a boondoggle but wound up a bonanza, thanks to sex, booze, and big band music…Sally Rand, whose real name was Helen Gould Beck, had gone to Hollywood to become an actress in the early 1920s. But she landed only bit parts…At the Chicago World’s Fair, she hit her stride as Sally Rand, Queen of the Fan Dancers, who dared to dance au naturel, with only a pair of huge feather fans separating her from her audience…Sally worked for the Capone organization- a fact that Jules Stein and his agents learned only after MCA, too, was persuaded to work with, rather than against, the Mob…Outside of its bands, MCA’s premiere offering during the World’s Fair was the Folies-Bergere, second only to the Eiffel Tower as the most popular tourist attraction among Americans in Paris. But more important, the U.S. version featured topless showgirls for a Midwestern audience a full generation before nudity became the piece de resistance of Las Vegas showroom entertainment…They (MCA) earned a small fortune from the Follies Bergere. And Sally Rand became an MCA client…’I don’t know what arrangement Stein had with the Mob, but he did offer to deal with them,’ said Suber, who worked for MCA’s rival, General Artists Corporation in the late 1930s. ‘You had to if you were going to stay in business. We all did. ‘

“(Johnny) Torrio had made Ralph Capone’s dream of owning a piece of every element in the nightclub business come true. Naturally, entertainment was as integral to the package as an olive in every martini.” (McDougall)

MCA talent passed through many silent syndicate-controlled clubs and connections would lead Lew Wasserman to Chicago to meet Jules Stein, where the two would become business partners in the running of MCA. The upheaval of the period between the wars allowed for marginalized factions of society to gain more prestige than they were intended to given there social standing. This would create not simply different forms of cultural expression but also expression of the more shadow-laden elements of society.

The end of the Second World War would bring major changes to the structure of the World’s economy, and with it major changes to global politics and societies. The economic, political, and societal structures that had been set up as part of the British Empire was certainly no exception. “The bottom line was, of course, the economy. Exhausted by the costs of victory, denied the fresh start that followed defeat for Japan and Germany, Britain was simply no longer able to bear the costs of Empire…with the United States shifting from informal to formal empire much as late-Victorian Britain once did…As we have seen (British) empire began with as a network of coastal bases and informal spheres of influence, much like the post-1945 American ‘empire’…No one could deny the extent of American informal empire- the empire of mutinational corporations, of Hollywood movies and even of TV evangelists. Is this so very different from the early British Empire of monopoly trading companies and missionaries?…Yet…the process of ‘Anglobalization’ is different today. On close inspection, America’s strengths may not be the strengths of a natural imperial hegemon. For one thing, British imperial power relied on the massive export of capital and people. But… (America) remains the favoured destination of immigrants from around the world, not a producer of would-be colonial emigrants. ” (Ferguson) Although the United States had long since successfully fought for independence from Britain, much of the country’s inner working would still be based on initial history as a British colony. Nonetheless its economy would become the biggest in the world. Canada, still a member of the British Commonwealth, was the logical place to receive various forms of outflows of American wealth such as increased trade and outsourcing of American corporations. Simply glutting some economies relative to others would not change all of the societal networks, licit and otherwise, that had been in place for centuries. What the post-war economic upheaval, or post-war prosperity, when speaking from a Canadian or American perspective, would do would be to expose the more marginal elements of these networks.

Michel Foucault talks about how societies are often controlled by denying members access to their sexuality. “…a system of control of sexuality allied to corporal persecution, is established…” (Foucault). Sexuality and the arts cannot be separated; the sexual aspects of the arts can be hidden and only made apparent to marginalized members of society, but they will still be there. The influence on the Western world of music that evolved out of strip joints and brothels assisted its members in saying “make love, not war.” When the generation that was born after World War Two was drafted as the United States fought Vietnam, a very large portion of them refused, with Rock and Roll playing in the background. Additionally, because of the marginalization of sexuality in Western society and the relegation of marginalized members of that society to economic positions more closely associated with sexuality, the exposure of more privileged Westerners to this music with sexual roots and to the music of the less privileged cannot be separated. Art communicates what more explicit media might be afraid to. Middle-class white Americans would be exposed to the experiences of the poor and non-white in their own societies; they might understand that a war, to the marginalized, meant being relegated to the most dangerous positions, they might understand, from the British invasion, what a war would mean if it was fought on one’s home turf. Jewish voices would remind the world’s population that the stresses of war can lead to scapegoating of innocent civilians. The influence of Canada on the music of Britain would expose the empire from a slightly different perspective. When an entire society is influenced by art from marginalized factions of that society, they will likely question their society’s value-system, which is exactly what happened. When people have access to a diverse array of art forms accurately reflecting the global human experience, they will be in a position to accept the entire human condition.

Bibliography

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Bidini, Dave. On a Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1998.

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Brock, Deborah. Making Work, Making Trouble: Prostitution as a Social Problem. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

Casanova, Jaques-Donat and Raymond Douville. Daily Life in Early Canada: From Champlain to Montcalm. New York: MacMillan, 1967.

Creighton, Donald. The Empire of the St. Lawrence Toronto: MacMillan, 1956.

Doezema, Jo. “Forced to Choose: Beyond the Voluntary v. Forced Prostitution Dichotomy,” In Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, Redefinition. ed. Jo Doezema and Kamala Kempadoo. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Ferguson, Niall. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for a Global Power. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

Foucault, Michel. “Body/Power,” in Power/Knowledge:Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.

Gilman, Sander L. and Wolf Von Eckardt. Bertold Brecht’s Berlin: A Scrapbook of the Twenties. New York: Archor Press/Doubleday, 1975.

Goddard, Peter, and Ronnie Hawkins. Ronnie Hawkins: The Last of the Good Ol’ Boys. Toronto: Stoddart, 1989.

Kempadoo, Kamala. Sexing the Carribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labour. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Levine, Phillipa. Prostitution, Race, and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. New York: Routledge, 2003.

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McDougall, Dennis. The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood. New York: Crown Publishers, 1998.

Marcus, Greil. Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.

Scully, Eileen. Pre-Cold War Traffic in Sexual Labour and Its Foies: Some Contemporary Lessons. In Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives. ed David Kyle and Rey Koslowski. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Russo, Gus. The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America. New York: Bloomsbury, 2001.

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