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Can I be in a daisy chain in PEI? Can I wear a diaper? Can I grab someone’s bum?

Bathhouse does & don'ts- by Eleanor Brown

You, too, could have your way with a man in uniform who’s, er, out of uniform. Cops often do undercover work before they raid a bathhouse. But how do you know what’s legal and what’s one of those “indecent acts” that’s a great big no-no? After all, he’ll want you to do some things that make him scream just for fun...and he’ll want you to do some things just so he can bust you – after he’s finished screaming.

Which is which? The law’s all over the place. It’s illegal to have anal sex if there are more than two people in the room – unless you’re in Ontario. (A provincial judge trashed that section of the Criminal Code a few years ago – so daisy-chain the day away.) But the law is still in force elsewhere in Canada. Bummer.

Confused? Join the club…literally. At least that way you can argue that you were pumping in private, rather than in public. Cuz that matters, too. Some judges see a private club as, well, private. After all, you’re paying a fee to get in, and tourists aren’t going to stumble in by accident. (Oh wait, that was how the police justified raiding the Bijou a few years ago: it was to protect innocent tourists. Hmm.)

A bathhouse cubicle with the door closed is private – kind of. Not private like your own home, but sort of private. On the other hand, if you’re fucking in the video porn room, a judge might well decide that you’re in a “public” space. And when you’re in public, “acts of indecency” are illegal.

The problem is, the phrase “acts of indecency” isn’t defined in the Criminal Code. One judge’s indecency is another’s weekend fun. “Legal decisions are all over the map,” says York University law professor Alan Young. “I would never be able to honestly give a definitive legal opinion on many aspects of the regulation of sexuality.”

In fact, a cop could arrest you for indecency just because your behaviour makes him sick, and let the courts figure it out. Not that he could admit that – there’d have to be a legal reason to arrest you. (Or he could arrest you just because you weren’t good enough. That’ll teach you not to care about getting the other guy off.)

Oh, did I mention that acts of indecency are OK if they’re in private? Scratch that. A bawdy house is a place where prostitution occurs – and it can also be a place “that is resorted to by one or more persons for the purpose...of the practice of acts of indecency.” So possibly a bathhouse, if indecent things happen there. What’s indecent? What the judge decides.
fab’s suggestion? Give The Man the finger...right up to his prostate. fab’s list of bathhouse dos and don’ts will help light the way. Sort of. A cop might disagree. A judge might disagree. Lawyers and bathhouse business owners from across the city will write argumentative letters. Some tubs managers are more lenient than others. It’s really a crapshoot. (Yeah, shit play’s on the list....)

Dress up like a pony and neigh your way through the bathhouse. Play big bad boss and stenographer. Pop on a diaper and walk around goo-gooing with your rattle. Role-play till the cows come home. Now moo for me, you udder darling

Dos
• Rinse your asshole in the whirlpool jet

• Get naked in the whirlpool (Toronto Public Health says it’s less germy that way)

• Stick your tongue into another guy’s mouth. The Criminal Code does not regulate breath mints

• Impress passersby with the family jewels while reclining on your roomette’s cot

• Show off your stiffy – although this one’s iffy, and touching it is a definite no-no in public space

• Stick your ass up in the air in your roomette with a big bottle of lube beside you

• Watch pornos with all your new acquaintances

• Close the roomette door behind you and get fucked up the ass for three hours, screaming your head off the whole time

• If the door’s closed, carefully insert a salami up his bum and eat it all up

• Spank, but gently – inflicting “bodily harm” is illegal

• Wrestle up a sweat – the only area in which inflicting bodily harm is legal is in organized sport

• Whip your slave senseless in a private room – but only if your slave’s therapist can convince the judge that the harm was inflicted for valid therapeutic reasons (the last lawyer who tried it failed)

• Show the guy you’ve just surprised in the tubs that it’s OK to be gay by giving him a blow job (in private)

• Perform interpretive dances with two or more people in public space – as long as no penises or assholes are fondled

• Talk dirty (for symphorphiles, that means words like “earthquake” and “flood,” since they find natural disasters sexually arousing)

• Watch two or more guys have any kind of sex – as long as you’re in a private room in Ontario with the door closed

• Watch two or more guys have any kind of sex except anal – as long as you’re all in a private room with the door closed anywhere in Canada

• Suck off a penis through a glory hole – as long as the spot’s not in a “public area”

• Feel up bums and chests, even in common “public areas”

• Rim, suck, or jack off, if the room’s door is closed behind you

Don'ts
• Chainsaw your date’s leg off and chow down for their sexual enjoyment – in Canada, no one can consent to bodily harm

• Flog, whip, draw blood, pierce or do anything else that might be considered inflicting “bodily harm”

• Fuck an immediate relative (no penetration is allowed when it comes to dad or bro – but a blow job is legal)

• Wallop some guy’s head with your penis, and have him lick your ejaculate in a public space – these acts contributed to a 1996 indecency ruling when a cop testified that they occurred at Toronto’s Remington’s strip club

• Wear a towel that instructs others to “fuck me hard” – you can be charged for exhibiting a disgusting object. A judge ruled in 1980 that a button reading “Fuck Iran” was legally permissible, but only because it didn’t literally mean “that everyone should engage in sexual intercourse with Iran”

• Suffocate any gerbils – cruelty to animals is illegal, as is bestiality

• Pay for sex – while prostitution is legal, paying for sex makes a bathhouse an illegal bawdy house

• Have anal sex with more than one other person present (unless you’re in Ontario, where it’s legal)

• Pee or shit on someone in public space – although one law prof knew of no relevant court judgments, this might be considered beyond the community’s standards of tolerance (what you want doesn’t matter under the law)

• Drop anybody off at, give directions to or even recommend that someone visit what might be a common bawdy house – it’s illegal to transport a person to a bawdy house (cab drivers can get busted under this law): “Every person who knowingly takes, transports, directs, or offers to take, transport, or direct any other person to a common bawdy house is guilty of an offence.”

• Have any kind of sex in a common area like a video room (it’s not “private” – you must be in a roomette with the door closed before you’re allowed to touch genitalia)

• Smoke (Toronto Public Health officials say bathhouses are public space, even roomettes with the door closed. Some tubs owners say that’s codswallop, but you’re still going to get a $255 ticket if the inspectors waltz in)

• Give someone HIV, because that’s legally considered to be assault

• Eleanor Brown is a Montreal-based writer. Read her blog at www.OpinionatedLesbian.com. Sources for this feature include: York University professor Alan Young and his book Justice Defiled; University of Toronto law professor Hamish Stewart; Toronto Public Health; Guide XXX, produced by Montreal prostitution group Stella’s; and the Criminal Code of Canada.