Anti-Inflammatory? Thanks – I’ll have NINE.

This morning, jaunting to work, jaunty jaunty. Looked left. Hissed at 24-hours paper guy. Looked right. Growled at Metro paper girl. Ignored Dose hustler because the Dose hustlers ignore me. I’m out of their demographic. Paper box catches eye:

“Jail the Johns: Police going after the men who buy sex from the desperate prostitutes on the Downtown Eastside.” (The Province, natch.)

Head explodes from Province-induced aneyurism. (did I spell it wrong again? I don’t care.)

There should be an ibuprofen for the effect of seeing headlines like this. My brain can’t take it. It’s un-processible. It’s catastrophically painful.

I would have had to touch the Province to read the article and the Province is germy. But I found it online and had a knee-jerk, gut-wrench, brain-assplode reaction to the following quotation:

Sgt. Matt Kelly (Vancouver Police Vice Squad) says, “…johns in the Downtown Eastside are being targeted because the prostitutes there are generally selling sex just to survive, and are in more wretched straits than street prostitutes elsewhere. Prostitutes in the Downtown Eastside are mostly drug addicted and use the money to buy drugs and to feed themselves and their children.”

(The first thing I wondered was if the police department will be compensating the women for lost pay. The second thing I wondered about was the meaning of the phrase “just to survive.” )

1. This will not make the streets safer (the true “predators” they reference in the article won’t give a rat’s ass if the police are there).

2. This will not make the women safer (for one thing they will have to travel out of their own neighbourhoods to make money. for another the police will be too busy busting johns to pay attention to safety at the other end of the alley).

3. This will not make prostitution go away; (duh) it will make it more difficult. It’s hard enough! If you want women to be safe (yes? is this what we’re after?) do something intelligent like a red light district. De-criminalize prostitution. Fund more safe houses.

4. Fuckers.

Whose genius idea is it to take away the only means of income possessed by these women? Are you aware, mysterious decision person, that though they share a word, the phrases “desperate housewives” and “desperate prostitutes” have nothing in common?

Does anyone really think that if the women in the downtown eastside weren’t hooking they would throw up their hands, say “oh well, at least I gave it a shot” and turn to some other occupation, nurse or legal secretary, perhaps? They’re desperate for a reason, people, they’re desperate because it’s their LAST FUCKING RESORT. Remember when you tried to clean up the downtown east side by arresting drug dealers? Yeah, those drug dealers didn’t go back to school and get MBAs. They didn’t buy “What Colour is My Parachute?” They went to different neighbourhoods and continued dealing drugs.

I’m not saying drug dealers can’t do other things and I’m not saying women who sell their bodies can’t do other things. I’m saying that taking away their means of survival will not help them do other things. I think more measures should exist so that more people are able to become stronger, build confidence in themselves, build lives for themselves, dig themselves out of poverty and addiction. Pay more attention to those measures, put more money where it’s needed, how about asking the women what they want?

Ah but I assumed too much. It’s the business association we’re mollifying, not the people actually in danger.

Where is my remote control so I can turn the stupid people off?