With the month of June beginning, the first advertisements for the post-pandemic Montreal Grand Prix appear. I must admit that I was not bored by this festival of noise, pollution, hegemonic masculinity and its commodification of female bodies.
Posted yesterday at 3:00 p.m.
The fact is known: Montreal is a popular destination for men who pay for escorts and visits to the cabins of strip clubs. During the weekend of the Grand Prix, many of them come to Montreal to treat themselves to a festive weekend and book a “Frenchie” by the way. This pressure has very real repercussions: you have to find girls, lots of girls, of all colors, in order to meet this intense demand from local and international tourists. Recruiters are already at work, exploring Instagram, Snapchat and going through their contacts at youth centers and schools to find new recruits.
like the movie Noémie says yes shows it well, the techniques of the sex industry to recruit young women have changed.
We present it to them as a “gig”, a shot to make thousands of dollars quickly. Like the character of Zach in Geneviève Albert’s excellent film: do it, it’s just ass…
And for all sorts of reasons, many of them say yes. And for all sorts of reasons, I understand them.
But the ones I don’t understand are the men, these customers. These gentlemen Everybody, these fathers of families whom I read, within the framework of my work, on the forums of discussion which they frequent. On these platforms, they comment, detail, evaluate, criticize the women they pay. They write to each other when they go to Gatineau, Quebec or Sherbrooke for a business trip, to find out what the local recommendations are. They consult each other, in anticipation of the Grand Prix, to find out if there are any interesting new products on the market.
In fact, I understand them to feel in total impunity, to behave like consumers like the others, because Quebec has chosen to keep silent about the choice of society made in 2014, that of wanting to reduce the demand for sexual services.
Since these significant legislative changes, the government has produced no advertising campaign to remind men that buying sex is a criminal offense in Canada. No communication around the fact that in our country, women in prostitution are no longer considered criminals, but that they are the criminals. I dream of an advertising campaign that would explain that without this strong and growing demand for escorts, pimps and recruiters would find other sources of income. A message around the fact that it is they, the clients, who are at the origin of recruitment for prostitution and of the difficulty for women to leave this environment.
Again this year, the Grand Prix will pollute our air and eardrums. Again this year, there will be too much demand and not enough supply. So too much Noémie…