(This column was published in the North Shore News on July 9, 2003)
Public sex OK for gays; but not heterosexuals
By Leo Knight
A lower court ruling in a seemingly innocuous and decidedly tawdry bawdy house case last week in Montreal is a great example of how unequal justice is in this country.
Denis Chesnel and his daughter (of all people), Brigitte, ran two so-called "swingers clubs."
One was located in a renovated plumber's shop and the other, in a specially designed soundproof home.
There was no doubt that a variety of sexual activities were taking place at both establishments. Evidence introduced in the trial detailed a veritable cornucopia of sexual goings- on.
Undercover police officers visited the premises on a number of occasions and even covertly videotaped some of the action.
The pair advertised their clubs on the Internet, in classified sections of newspapers and by word of mouth.
Ostensibly, after reading the advertisement and wishing to participate in or be a spectator to events at one of the clubs, one would call and make a reservation.
Did this make the events private as the defence claimed?
Not according to Judge Denis Boisvert.
The judge ruled that while Canada is a tolerant society, there were limits to that tolerance.
In a written decision, Judge Boisvert wrote: "The court concludes that modern Canadian society tolerates swinging and swingers clubs if the sexual exchanges take place in private.
"However, if the sexual exchanges take place in public, even among informed and consenting adults, they are not swinging, but orgies. And Canadians do not tolerate orgies."
The judge continued: "The 'social contract' joining these people was very weak, even non-existent. In effect, nothing in the evidence shows that the participants knew one another. In fact, the only common link between them was that they found themselves in these places to watch or to participate in public sexual activities."
The issue of what is and what is not private was salient to this particular case.
In the final analysis, this is a significant example of the inequality in the way justice is meted out to different segments of society.
Police have made only half-hearted attempts to curtail the public sexual activities of the gay community and, for the most part, have met with accusations of discrimination for their efforts.
For years, gays have been carrying on all kinds of sexual activity in public. Their sexual activities have taken place in places like the ubiquitous steam baths in the seedier parts of most cities or in gay bars where the concepts of sex in private are far removed.
Remember the problems the Toronto police got into last year when they tried to shut down the "slurpee" competitions in the city's downtown gay bars.
The description of these competitions I shall leave to your imagination, but I will say that you are probably imagining correctly.
Then there are the cruising locations like the so-called "Fruit Loop" off Beach Avenue in Vancouver or Bridgman Park near the North Shore Winter Club in North Vancouver.
Here men park and cruise the vehicles of other like-minded men seeking anonymous sex in pairs, threesomes, foursomes and moresomes.
Remember the murder in Stanley Park of the man found dead clad only in boots and socks?
The crime appeared to be a gay bashing and was horrendous in its brutality.
But the public activity the victim was engaged in, which certainly led to his death, left the majority of the community relatively nonplussed.
The double standard here appalls me.
It seems the inherent morality standards relating to sexual activity within society at large have diminished to a great degree and for the most part, rightly so.
Who are we to peer into the bedrooms of the nation? Or its clubs, for that matter?
There is a swingers' club that meets once a month in a local Holiday Inn. The members pay a monthly fee for things like their newsletter and refreshments at meetings and presumably, facilities where they then take their festivities.
They exchange information via a members only chat room on the Internet. Should we as a community care even if orgies are involved such as referred to by the learned trial judge? Probably not.
Yet we seem to, if the subjects of the activity are heterosexual.
We certainly don't seem to care if the gay community engages in all manner of public sexual activities in bars, dances or even in our parks.
The double standard is glaring.
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