What is A Sex Act?

[tenni]

With the Supreme Court of Canada's decision to strike down all prostitution laws, the government has one year to come up with any law that will meet the standards by the Supreme Court decision.

So, what is sex or, more specifically, what constitutes a sex act?


Aside from the can’t-print-it-here obvious, that is.


That’s just one of the not so hoary questions Toronto dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford, who made history last month by leading the constitutional charge on the Supreme Court of Canada to decriminalize prostitution (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/20/supreme_court_of_canada_strikes_down_federal_crimi nal_prostitution_laws.html), wants to ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper.


She has a 2,000 word-long list of questions she feels needs answering before the Conservative government proposes any new legislation that will result in making transactional sex, which has always been legal in Canada, illegal.


Is helping a man who identifies as straight get prettied up in women’s clothes and cosmetics for sexual kicks prostitution?


Is tying up consenting adults and spanking them a sex act?


What type of restraints may be used?


Can restraints be used? How hard may they be used?


Does a therapeutic massage performed by a registered massage therapist that ends up with a sexual response count?


“Harper’s government is planning to regulate and enforce what goes on in the privacy of our homes and this concerns me,” she told the Star in a conference call interview yesterday. “Just because one red cent changes hands doesn’t mean that a sex worker is a criminal. They’re consenting adults engaged in private behaviour. It’s not the government’s business. It’s nobody’s business. It’s only their business if somebody is getting hurt.”


http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/01/08/what_is_a_sex_act_toronto_dominatrix_terrijean_bed ford_demands_answers_from_stephen_harper.html

[tenni]

If Canada's present government was progressive it could leave Canada without any laws on the sex trade. The Harper Conservative government is not progressive by Canadian standards and is expected to create a new law on the sex trade(prostitution for our brothers and sisters living in even more regressive regimes)

[Cherokee_Mountaincat]

If youre having to Act during sex, then yer doin it wrong. (Snickering and running) :}
Silly Cat

[Annika L]

Tenni, I *love* this question...something I've pondered a lot lately, actually. Unfortunately, I don't have much time these days to give a deep/meaningful response.

But I will say that this is flawed: “Just because one red cent changes hands doesn’t mean that a sex worker is a criminal. They’re consenting adults engaged in private behaviour. It’s not the government’s business." ...if only because every time a red cent changes hands, the government has an interest in tax revenues...so it is in fact the government's business. When no money is changing hands, *then* it's nobody's business. But the government doesn't collect taxes for assassinations perpetrated, even though lots of money changes hands...because it does not advocate killing for money (unless it's the government doing the killing *wink*), and taxing it would amount to advocacy. So sadly, governments really do have to closely consider pretty much every case of money changing hands, and either advocate it (via taxation), excuse it from taxation (as in the case of food and clothing in some States), or outlaw it.

But that's not the part I find interesting...I'm much more interested in the definition of a sex act. *Such* a brilliantly thorny issue! Until I can get my head into the game enough to weigh in, I'm dying to read the thoughts of others here.

[Realist]

Oh shit, is this another one? This is getting tiresome!

[jem_is_bi]

I'm a prostitute and have been one for decades. I have had women and men pay me to whip them, fuck them with a dildo, talk dirty to them, "force" a man to dress up in panties and makeup while I say nasty things to him, men pay to massage, lick, and cum on my feet, and for regular blowjobs and anal or vaginal sex. I have worked in Canada before and the new law is not going to change anything. I have worked with pimps and they do get a take of the money but they also offer protection. I have no interest in working in a brothel and I do not want people who I have sex for pay with to go to my house. Well I does seem what you do is all a sex act.

[DuckiesDarling]

Oh look.. this one is from Washington too.... clicks.

[Realist]

I have the opinion that anything causing a pleasurable feeling in a person's gentiles, or brain, for at least one participant, could be considered a sex act. I don't think that an orgasm would be necessary, because some get a tremendous high from giving others pleasure.

Regardless of what Clinton said, Monica's actions and his reaction to her, were sexual. (Orgasmic for him, apparently sensually fulfilling for her)