Big Fat Hairy Living

Cary from Virginia has an incredible story in his journal about the best Christmas gift he ever received.

Jesus is the reason for the season, says “CanadianPreacher” in his blog “Canadian Christian Conservative.” No, actually. Axial tilt is the reason for the season.

Today’s edition of the Toronto Star ran with an editorial criticising the recent ruling in R. vs. Labaye that legalized sex clubs:

The new measure for tolerance is whether or not an activity causes harm. In theory, that will ease the subjectivity associated with judgments based on morals and taste. But rather than providing definitive answers, the Supreme Court decision has generated uncertainty and many more questions.

… The problem with a harm-based approach, however, is that “harm” is almost as difficult to define as indecency. As sex clubs proliferate, which they likely will following this ruling, will women be increasingly pressured to take part? Is harm done when a woman, perhaps desperate to save a faltering marriage, “consents” to group sex at her husband’s insistence? If that sort of harm were shown to happen in a sex club, should that club be closed?

… “Harm” could be as hard to define as morality-based indecency … And why shouldn’t the court’s harm-based approach extend to making marijuana legal, on grounds that it is relatively harmless, at least when compared to legal stimulants such as alcohol and tobacco?

Notice that line about sex clubs proliferating: “As sex clubs proliferate, which they likely will following this ruling…” Does anyone really think that sex clubs will start popping up everywhere because of this ruling?

It’s important to understand exactly what this case was really all about. The appellants in the case were arrested for running a common bawdy house, defined in the Criminal Code as a place where prostitution or “indecent acts” occur. Since there was no prostitution occurring in these clubs, the question the Court had to ask became “what is an indecent act?” This question is important because the term “indecent” is not defined anywhere in the Criminal Code.

The Court explored the term “indecent” and found that the activity that was going on in the sex clubs was not indecent and therefore the clubs were not bawdy houses. The Court did not rule that government intervention or regulation was not justifiable. It did not strike down bawdy house laws. It did not rule that government criminal legislation must be justified on the basis of harm.

The big problem with The Star’s editorial is that it’s written as though the people who wrote it didn’t bother to do any research. The Star argues that the ruling leaves too many doors open by leaving harm undefined. In fact, harm has already been defined in Canadian law. One of the decisions cited by the Court, R. vs. Butler, explains the definition of harm in the context of obscenity:

The courts must determine as best they can what the community would tolerate others being exposed to on the basis of the degree of harm that may flow from such exposure. Harm in this context means that it predisposes persons to act in an anti-social manner as, for example, the physical or mental mistreatment of women by men, or, what is perhaps debatable, the reverse. Anti-social conduct for this purpose is conduct which society formally recognizes as incompatible with its proper functioning. The stronger the inference of a risk of harm the lesser the likelihood of tolerance.

The Court in its decision uses the definition of harm from R. vs. Butler as the basis of its theory of harm and goes on to provide three examples of harm, leaving open the possibility that these are not the only types of harm that might occur:

1. confronting members of the public with conduct that significantly interferes with their autonomy and liberty
2. predisposing others to anti-social behaviour
3. physically or psychologically harming persons involved in the conduct

The Court goes on to explain in some detail how these different types of harm can be demonstrated. The Star seems to believe that the term “harm” is undefined, but that’s only because they didn’t research the precedents cited in the case.

The Star’s hypothetical scenario in which a woman is pressured to consent to group sex has absolutely no bearing on the question of sex clubs. If anything, this would be material for divorce proceedings, not a criminal case. What if a woman is “harmed” because she is pressured by her husband to get breast enlargement surgery and “consents” to the surgery? Does that mean that the plastic surgery clinic should then be closed? People are pressured to do things all the time, and not just by spouses in faltering marriages.

The last question The Star asks is whether the Court’s harm-based approach couldn’t be extended to make marijuana legal. This is the stupidest part of the entire editorial, because Criminal Code penalties for marijuana possession and distribution have absolutely nothing to do with the definition of indecency.

The reaction to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on sex clubs is predictable: mass hysteria from wingnuts decrying this ruling as evidence that Canada is sinking into moral decay.

“Canadian Christian Conservative” rejects the Supreme Court ruling despite the fact that he admits that he’s “only heard bits and pieces.” The ruling is “pure evil,” he says, just before launching into a tirade:

The moral door has just been swung open wide, ladies and gentlemen. Polygamy will be soon coming, public nudity will be condoned, etc, etc, etc. Yet, you can’t talk about God, or Jesus Christ in our day and age. Interesting…

Yes, because people are now allowed to do what they want behind locked doors, society will soon collapse! Perverts will soon be fucking on the streets and coming to rape our children! And our society is so sick because you can’t talk about Jesus even though he’s … um … talking about Jesus.

“I’m sure He’ll deal with all these issues when He gets back,” he adds confidently, referring to the second coming of Jesus. Don’t hold your breath.

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“Loyalist,” writing on a blog named “Disonnance and Disrespect,” also dislikes the ruling, claiming that it “sinks Canadian society deeper into the moral morass.” Canadian society IS IN MORAL DANGER because now people won’t be arrested for doing stuff that’s legal when fewer people watch it!!! He writes that

Changing the test from community standards to actual harm suggests that the ordinary Canadian public should have no say in deciding what is indecent, and by extension, their elected representatives as well. Supposedly courts, with their superior wisdom and forensic ability to determine what is actually harmful, claim a clearer insight into man’s moral nature and the effects of individual behaviour on society.

This guy is completely and utterly ignorant of the facts and has no understanding whatsoever of the issues in this case. The fact is that the only reason for this ruling is that the term “indecent” is defined nowhere in the Criminal Code. Nothing is stopping Parliament from overriding this ruling by clearly defining what the term “indecent” means. Of course it’s easier for a blowhard on Blogspot to write an ignorant rant than it is for him to actually read and learn.

He goes on to suggest three possible harms that could arise from sex clubs:

Encouragement of adultery: Decriminalizing this activity removes another barrier to maintaining marriage vows … Exploitation of minors: The age of consent remains at 14 … Public health: The spread of sexually transmitted diseases has never been higher … Our public health care system will have to bear the cost of treating those who catch STDs at these clubs and the longer-term effects such as infertility in women.

As the Court said, it’s completely possible for “indecent” sex not to spread disease while sex that is not indecent might spread it. Encouraging adultery? Do people really need encouragement? This ruling has nothing to do with marriage vows. Anyone who wants to cheat can go and fuck around as it is. Swingers’ clubs make actually it easier for couples to fuck around in a safe, controlled environment. And so what if a 14 year-old can go to a sex club? 14 year-olds engage in promiscous sexual behaviour with older adults behind their parents’ backs as it is, and no sex club that I’ve ever been to admits anyone under the age of 18 anyway.

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Civitatensis, predictably from Alberta, writes:

The categorical assertion that “everyone knew” would suggest that the seven Justices who favoured the swingers clubs may have taken a little research trip to Montreal sometime this year.

Oh, what a clever little quip! The Justices must have gone to the sex club! Hahahahaha!!! Isn’t that so funny?

No, actually, it doesn’t suggest that they went on a trip. It suggests that they listened to the testimony. Of course that would be clear if this guy had actually read the ruling.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin did raise the question of communicating venereal diseases. But she quickly found that venereal disease is as disconnected from decency as the judges are connected with most decent Canadians. It’s perfectly decent, in her view, to acquire a collection of venereal diseases at one of these swingers clubs and later to have the wider public pay for the treatment. There are no ethics involved in that either.

I love how this guy uses the term “Venereal disease” as if we’re still stuck in 1972.

And isn’t it fun how someone obviously didn’t read the ruling is putting words in the Chief Justice’s mouth? One can get a sexually transmitted infection from fucking one person in view of nobody just as easily as one can get it from fucking someone in front of ten other people.

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My community, defined as the fat, hairy, cocksucking friends of mine who read this blog, consider the above postings to be indecent. It does not matter that their blogging took place behind closed doors; my community can see the results and we our outraged. I will be calling the RCMP shortly to ask that these bloggers be arrested for offending my community standards with their indecent postings.

In a judgement released this morning, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 7 to 2 that a Montreal man’s conviction for operating a sex club should be quashed. The man had been accused of keeping a common bawdy-house, the term “bawdy-house” being defined as a “public place” where “acts of indecency” occur. The definition of “public place,” contrary to common sense, includes any place where the public can gain access even if they know what happens inside before they enter. That places gay bathouses on shaky legal footing and places visitors and staff of bathhouses at risk of being jailed.

Raids on bathhouses are not something from the past; they continue to this day. Hamilton’s Warehouse Spa and Bath was raided last year and two men were arrested and charged with commiting “indecent acts.” Two years before that in 2002, Goliaths bathhouse in Calgary was raided by police acting on an anonymous tip. Two Goliaths employees were charged with keeping a common bawdy-house and 13 men were charged as found-ins, “being found in a common bawdy house without legal excuse.” Though the Crown eventually dropped the charges in the Goliaths case, the fact that these men were arrested in the first place is beyond absurd. These are only two examples of bathhouse raids in the past several years, raids that do nothing but take police resources away from handling real crime and punish people who engage in private, consensual behaviour.

There’s a ray of light in today’s Supreme Court ruling. In the ruling, Chief Justice Beverley Maclachlan writes:

In this case, the accused must be acquitted. The autonomy and liberty of members of the public was not affected by unwanted confrontation with the sexual conduct in question. On the evidence, only those already disposed to this sort of sexual activity were allowed to participate and watch. There is also no evidence of anti‑social acts or attitudes toward women, or for that matter men. No one was pressured to have sex, paid for sex, or treated as a mere sexual object for the gratification of others. The fact that the club is a commercial establishment does not in itself render the sexual activities taking place there commercial in nature. The membership fee buys access to a club where members can meet and engage in consensual activities with other individuals who have similar sexual interests.

In the ruling, the Court proposes a test to determine whether an “indecent act” has taken place:

Indecent criminal conduct will be established where the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the following two requirements:

1. That, by its nature, the conduct at issue causes harm or presents a significant risk of harm to individuals or society in a way that undermines or threatens to undermine a value reflected in and thus formally endorsed through the Constitution or similar fundamental laws by, for example:
1. confronting members of the public with conduct that significantly interferes with their autonomy and liberty; or
2. predisposing others to anti-social behaviour; or
3. physically or psychologically harming persons involved in the conduct, and
2. That the harm or risk of harm is of a degree that is incompatible with the proper functioning of society.

As the above makes clear, the categories of harm capable of satisfying the first branch of the inquiry are not closed, nor is any one of the listed categories in itself an integral part of the definition of harm. For example, predisposition to anti-social behaviour, while central to this Court’s analysis in Butler, is but one illustration of the type of harm that undermines or threatens to undermine one of society’s formally recognized values.

The problem I have with this is that under this test, BDSM is still an “indecent act.” I might, speaking hypothetically of course, go to a bathhouse and beg my big leather top bear fuck buddy to beat the shit out of me then shove his big uncut cock up my ass, but my consent has no legal relevance. Because I’m physically “harmed,” under this the conduct is “indecent.”

Still, this is one large step forward. Good for the Supreme Court.

Steve Janke, author of the blog Angry in the Great White North, posts a picture of the office of the Schizophrenia Society of Saskatchewan next to the campaign office of Ralph Goodale and makes fun of people with schizophrenia, calling them “crazy” and “nuts” and mocking them as talking to potted plants.

Words like “crazy” and “nuts” are words that are used to dismiss people and ideas as being unimportant. They’re the kind of words that were commonly used to describe mentally ill people back when they were removed from society and kept in institutions, never to return. People with mental illness still face stigma and discrimination even today. Unfortunately, some people still ridicule people who suffer from mental illness when they’d never think of mocking people with other illnesses. Can you imagine people with diabetes or cancer receiving the kind of emotional reactions and derisive humour that seems to be reserved for people with mental illness?

If there were a cancer clinic next to that campaign office, would Steve Janke have commented that it must be a source of campaign volunteers because only people who are going to die soon would vote Liberal, not having to live with the consequences of Liberal policies? How would people react to a comment like that?

The Toronto Star reports on Canada-bashing by the right-wing press in the US:

“Ambassador Wilkins is not trying to dictate to you,” says Bob McAlister in his blog Politically Incorrect, published on The State website in the capital of Columbia. “He is very gently trying to remind you that you and your ungrateful subjects have had your butts saved by the good old U. S. of A. more times than can be counted. What do we get in return? Left-wing sermons and nutty ideas. You have become socialists. You hate us. You hate everything American.”

Oooooh! We’re socialists! Such a dirty word! Socialists with a balanced budget, a trade surplus, approximately zero dead soliders in Iraq, and economic growth that isn’t based on a real estate bubble that will soon pop, it should be noted.

The Toronto Star article goes on to provide more examples of Canada-bashing in the American press. In the Politically Incorrect post quoted above, McAlister, who contributes to Focus on the Family broadcasts and is a pal of George W. Bush, reinforces his point by writing that Canadians are “sick.”

It’s interesting that people like this McAlister weirdo write that we “hate America.” In the minds of these right wingers, the American government is America. The thing is, we don’t hate America, we hate the American government. Not that clowns like these make it easy to like Americans. At least not hairy Americans who don’t have beards, hairy chests, and juicy cocks.

I was shopping for a gift for my mother at the Eaton Centre when, somewhere between the Pottery Barn and the Williams-Sonoma, I noticed a store I hadn’t seen before. Its name is Aritzia. I wonder whether Aritzia is anything like arrythmia.

“Nurse, this woman is suffering from a severe case of aritzia! Get her a sleek black cocktail dress and some sensible shoes, stat!”

You know, instead of lacking a regular heart rhythm, you lack style.

I love blond bears. This guy’s not a bear, at least not in the gay sense. That doesn’t matter. Just give him a few beers and tell him you can give him the best blow job he’s ever had.