Sex clubs in the suburbs
Civic leaders in Toronto apparently have a problem with sex in their city. It seems that the civic leaders are uneasy that consenting adults are setting up "swinger clubs" in residential neighbourhoods.
It's apparently fine to license commercial enterprises that make money off of lust and sexual greed (body rub parlors, strip clubs and gay and lesbian bathhouses) as long as soccer moms and their kids don't see any of it.
Swinger clubs are establishments where adults come to engage in sexual orgies of every kind. Since 2005 when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that such clubs, "can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society," they have exploded across the country. Clubs in Montreal and Toronto boast of hundreds and sometimes thousands of members. One Toronto club claims 30,000 members, some from as far away as Germany.
Civic leaders are not about to kill off these businesses. But they don't want these clubs to upset middle-class voters in pretty little residential neighbourhoods who would rather not see the flesh palaces while out for their evening walks.
Local politicians in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke argue that they don't want to regulate "morality between consenting adults," but that swinger and other sex clubs are somehow naturally in conflict with residential communities.
When local governments engage in planning and zoning issues they make decisions about which businesses can be located in residential areas. These decisions are generally made based on quality-of-life, safety and economic considerations. It's perfectly understandable that we keep manufacturing plants, bars and dance clubs out of residential areas to avoid keeping people awake at night, causing parking problems or snarling traffic.
That doesn't mean that a barber shop or day care won't be allowed on a residential street. Such businesses are considered compatible with life in a neighbourhood where kids walk to school or families host barbeques. Mixed neighbourhoods where small businesses and homes co-exist are a fact of life in most large urban centres in Canada.
So why shouldn't a swinger club that obeys noise and parking by-laws and generally minds its own business be left alone? Why treat it any different than Harry's Fruit Market or Betsy's Hair Salon? If we have no moral problem with what goes on inside such places, why the hypocrisy of saying "yes" to Harry the barber but "no" to Jimmy the sex entrepreneur?
The sexual revolution that changed Canada and Western countries forever has made us into us two-faced hypocrites. We glorify sex, obsess over every new sexual perversion and soak our television shows and music with innuendos, but we wring our hands over the overt sexuality of little 10-year-old Brittney Spears wannabe's and wonder why teens are having sex earlier than ever and why marital infidelity, diverse rates and sexual abuse are out of control.
The pity is that no one is fooled by the utter hypocrisy of governments that tax "sins" while hoping that whatever god they pray to keeps people indulging in dangerous behaviour.
Governments tax cigarettes, reaping millions of dollars from smokers, cancer be damned. Casinos spring up like weeds across Canada, enslaving people with dreams of striking it rich while governments make billions. While tens of thousands of Canadians struggle with alcoholism, governments make profit.
And while they try and keep sex clubs out of neighbourhoods so the voters won't be upset, governments collect fees from regulated sex parlor workers and strippers.
If former prime minister Pierre Trudeau was right and governments have no place in the bedrooms of the nation, then let's stop the hypocrisy and allow a sexual Wild West in nice suburban neighbourhoods. Let's have the cheating husband find his way around kids' bikes on the sidewalk on his way to a tryst.
Let's bring the fruits of immorality to the doorsteps of middle and upper class Canadians. Perhaps then we'll look in the mirror and see what our sexual amorality really brings: disease, broken marriages and Sodom-sized misery.
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