History Repeats Itself

Sex workers Cashing in on Alberta's Oil Boom

If you look at the history of any "boom", the same thing happens over and over again: The Rush begins, the place fills up with a lot of men, most of whom have no ties to the community and have no intentions of putting down roots. A lot of them are single, but a good chunk are not and of those, they are not likely to have brought their wives and families with them. All they want to do is make their money and go home.

As a result, you have a situation where the men outnumber the women, there is a lot of money, not a lot of ways to spend it.

So, in the wake of the "gold rush" (or in this case, oil) came the liquor (or these days, drugs) and the dance hall girls (sex workers). It is a basic law of supply and demand: if there is a demand for something there will be supply. If you want to get rid of something; do away with the demand.

Now, when it comes to prostitution, I am a tad on the pragmatic side: No, that is a job that I would not like to do. However, I think that anything that goes on between two consenting adults is no one's business but their own and legislating morality is pretty much an exercise in futility. In the words of one of our former Prime Ministers, Pierre Elliot Trudeau: "the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." I also know that there but for the grace of (insert name of diety here) go I, or for that matter any one of us.