[SWAF-Potluck] Don't piano teachers deserve the same 'protection' as prostitutes?

[Andy Sorfleet]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
GLOBE AND MAIL
Friday, June 6, 2014

Tabatha Southey



Don't piano teachers deserve the same 'protection' as prostitutes?

Set aside the almost visceral disgust Justice Minister Peter MacKay
seemed to show for sex workers while he unveiled the government's
Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act this week.

Forget that he was barely able to say the word "prostitute" without
lowering his voice like a Victorian maiden aunt in conversation with a
six-year-old vicar and that he referred to sex work as a "so-called
profession" and "degrading practice."

Let's take Mr. MacKay's word for it and assume the targets of the law
are, as he claimed, alliteration substituting for sound reason, "the
perpetrators, the perverts, the pimps," not the "vulnerable."

Let's assume that the Conservatives are genuinely concerned about
"exploited persons" -- and that, being adults, sentient in the 21st
century, they have no interest in punishing a demographic merely
because sex is involved in its profession.

Now, let's remove sex from the equation (sorry) and imagine the state
of affairs that would ensue were these same "protections" applied to a
different but also legal trade. Let's pick one largely practised by
women who often work alone with clients, sometimes in their own homes.

Let's get really concerned about piano teachers, who, after all, are
entitled to the same protection under the law as sex workers -- that
is, full protection.

What if, claiming concern for pianists' safety, the government
legislated that piano teachers couldn't have others advertise on their
behalf? Newspaper and Internet ads would be illegal, even on one's own
website, because -- despite containing an exemption for advertising
one's own services -- under the Protection of Communities and
Exploited Ivory Ticklers Act, placing those ads where they might be
viewed by a minor would be a crime.

A piano teacher, barred from advertising, then answering the phone and
screening any budding Alfred Brendels seeking her services, would be
more at risk from any unsavoury Alfreds. The law would also make
trying to sell her services in public areas where people under the age
of 18 might witness her efforts -- so anywhere but a bar -- illegal.

Mind you, it would also be illegal to inveigle anyone to visit a piano
bar, or school, for the purpose of receiving piano lessons and, in the
absence of evidence to the contrary, hanging out at houses of piano
would be evidence you were illegally living off the avails of piano
lessons, and you could be jailed.

Besides, while teaching piano would remain legal, learning piano would
be a crime, and so the piano teachers would operate in the dangerous
shadows anyway -- where they would be at the mercy of both organized
and chaotic crime.

Were an eager and skilled piano teacher to walk down a crowded street
with a copy of Teaching Little Fingers to Play under her arm and a
metronome in her hand, and respond "Boy do I! But I expect you to
practise every day" to anyone who, merrily eyeing her metronome, asked
if, by chance, she teaches piano, that response would be punishable by
up to five years in prison. For her own safety.

Imagine that the government were to make the penalty for seeking a
piano lesson "near a religious institution" worse, forgetting how,
metaphorically, Jesus had love for Duke Ellington too.

The Supreme Court wouldn't let this anti-piano law stand, of course.
It struck down Canada's old prostitution law months ago because it
denied sex workers security of person, something to which all of us,
even saxophone teachers, are entitled.

The court instructed the government to do better. It has done worse
and, yes, I know some piano teachers might have hoped to be on the
concert circuit instead, and some piano teachers might need to switch
careers, but a police record won't get them there, and I also know
there are people adept and inclined and happy to teach piano, and who
are we to stop them?

"But," I hear some say, "why would a guy need professional piano
lessons anyway? It disgusts me. Doesn't he have a friend who can teach
him piano?"

"No, he does not," I might say. "Does that mean he should have no
music in his life?"

Or I could tell you that perhaps he does have a musical friend but she
plays only the oboe, and he thinks about pianos night and day.

Maybe he has a wife who is brilliant on the piano, but, she will
confess to her friends, if she has to hear this guy bang out Fleur de
Lis on her precious keyboard one more time, she'll lose it.

"No one needs piano lessons!" I hear some of you cry. "He can teach himself!"

"But it's seldom as much fun," I say, "and left to his own devices, he
might strain his wrist."