Roger-Luc Chayer
It is well known that the Internet has become, for years, the main showcase for escorts, pimps and agencies to offer their prostitution services with impunity.
If I say with impunity, it is that Canadian law, like that of the United States, considers that prostitution in general is a form of human exploitation and severely punishes the people who promote it, as well as those who derive income from it, especially the souteneurs. However, Canada no longer criminalises prostitution as such, the authorities are no longer seeking to stop escorts, masseurs or other prostitutes, as long as they do not promote it according to certain criteria that are essentially aimed at protecting the youngest and children or public places.
However, it is to the websites that the authorities, particularly in the United States, are attacking with energy and large police force. Consider the example of Rentboy.com site owner Jeffrey Hurant, who was sentenced to 6 months in prison in 2017 after pleading guilty to promoting prostitution online. Its site has been closed since. Rentmen.com operates from Great Britain and also uses a .eu (European Union) to avoid American law. Consider also the Backstage site which was closed by the FBI recently because in addition to selling cars and furniture, it proposed the largest section of « therapeutic meetings » or outright escort services disguised as massage with « options +++ to the world.
Following these interventions that directly criminalize operators of such sites in the United States, the popular Craigslist site has decided to voluntarily suspend all its dating services, noting the volume of ads dedicated to prostitution services. Craigslist probably wishing to avoid criminal charges and save the rest of their website.
In Canada, police authorities seem to want to be active on the issue as well, and some people who are closely related to sites such as Gay411 or Priape’s « cat » are starting to get nervous. There is something! By inspecting the two sites in question as part of the preparation of this article, it was easy to count, either in real time, or thanks to the search tool on Gay411, hundreds of profiles or connections offering « naturist massages » or escorts! Worse, in some cases, the people were downright minor and did not even hide their age between 15 and 17 years.
Do those responsible for these websites know what is going on there? Possible, it’s not for me to draw such conclusions, but the facts are there! It’s not just these two either. By entering Google a specific search with « Montreal male escort », 744 results have appeared. It is obvious that the authorities are about to imitate their American counterparts and that police interventions are possible in the short or medium term. Do not forget that according to the new law, it is not the escorts who would then be targeted, but the sites that allow them to promote their services, and the customers who solicit them via these sites. So it’s a business to follow!