| John Ince, leader of the Sex Party of Canada, is outraged that in 2006 the mainstream media still won’t fully spell out the word fuck in articles due to concerns about using profanities, yet media outlets don’t seem to have any qualms about describing violence.
"You have the media (censoring) simple words and that in turn stigmatizes the thing that those words represent. The word fuck represents intercourse and so by censoring that word as opposed to, for example, rape, rape is OK. You can print that. Or kill or maim. You see the theme again?" he asks. "It’s OK to fight. It’s OK to have a boxing match and draw blood. We’re tolerant of that. It’s just violence. But erotic pleasure, anything associated with that, absolutely not."
Censorship in the media around sex is just one of a myriad of issues that Ince is impassioned about. He and his Sex Party of Canada want to bring about the dawn of a new age in Canada where our society is less neurotic and uptight about sex and where instead sexuality is celebrated.
The Sex Party of Canada, which is based in B.C. but has 290 members across the country, hopes to have some members run as candidates in the next federal election.
The party’s platform includes overhauling the sex education system in schools, making paid sex work legal, ensuring long-term care facilities have a non-judgmental policy when it comes to residents’ sexual activity and requiring a nudist area in all public parks and beaches over one hectare in area. They’d also establish a department of sexual studies at a B.C. university. As well, The Sex Party of Canada wants to eliminate bawdyhouse legislation under which people can be criminally charged if they are found to be committing "indecent acts" that are against community standards. Calgary police used this legislation to lay charges against staff and patrons of a gay bathhouse in Calgary in 2002.
Ince says the Sex Party of Canada also considers it discriminatory that consensual anal sex is only allowed at age 18.
On the prostitution front, the Sex Party of Canada describes criminalization of prostitution as "one of the most serious human rights violations in the 21st Century" on its website.
Ince says there are elements of the sex trade that are "unhealthy" such as street prostitution. The Sex Party of Canada wants to establish a Sex Worker Empowerment Program that would provide counselling, education and advocacy for sex workers to help ensure women aren’t being exploited. However, he says not all prostitution should be prohibited.
"There is nothing inherently wrong with paid sex," he says. "There’s a huge abundance of evidence that there are places that paid sex can be practiced that does not cause any harm to anybody."
The Sex Party of Canada wants to overhaul the sex education system because Ince says there’s too much emphasis on frightening students about the risks, but not emphasizing any positives.
"There’s no pleasure component to the education. It’s all about harm reduction which is valid. Canadians need to know that sex is a risky activity like driving a car… but we’re terrified of giving teens any practical information on how to do it, not just to prevent harm, but to be enjoyable and rich," he says. "What happens is if you look at the way a lot of young people have sex still today, especially with girls, it’s really yucky their first time. Often they’re inebriated. It’s not intimate, not pleasurable, so we perfectly set up a system where large numbers of people engage in sex in a very unfulfilling way."
Right now the Sex Party of Canada is devoting most of its energy towards two court battles. The first fight is against Canada Post, which refused to distribute one of its political leaflets despite the fact that Ince says there was nothing sexually graphic on the leaflet. The second legal battle is against the B.C. Liquor Control and Licensing Branch for refusing to give the party a license to hold a party at a bar due to a proposed erotic art installation that included live sex.
"They’re both gross violations of human rights and they’re the perfect illustration of why we need a sex party. In the field of sexuality, gross interference with liberties are tolerated by the political community generally, which would be recognized as completely inappropriate and undemocratic in any other field," he says.
For more information on the Sex Party’s platform or court battles you can go to www.thesexparty.ca. |
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