The other day, in a story about typical ‘police crackdowns’ on prostitution, this time in Montreal, a local policeman said ‘It’s businessmen and people going or coming from work and sometimes they have baby seats or car seats in the car.’ This led to a discussion amongst people I know about what baby seats might represent.

The first comment was

I would really like to say that I am hearing this ‘baby seats in the back of the car’ all the time as another way of making sex work and customers more scary and deviant sounding. Seems to be the logic is ‘baby seats’ stand in for ‘children seeing sex/being exposed to sex’ but would love to yell, ‘Hey you conservatives/police even if the customer has an empty baby seat in the car… it’s an empty baby seat! There is no baby in it!’

I answered that I have always heard this babyseat detail to stand for He is married, has a family, is betraying his wife.

To which the reply was

It makes sense to me that it would also be about ‘betraying the relationship’, but they harp on about the baby seats so much that it makes me wonder if it’s about children somehow.

So then I said one might say the client is Betraying the Family: his own and the whole institution. The babyseat means he’s not just a couple now but an institution himself.

Another commenter added

I also heard an economical argument to it. It is ‘wrong’ to use the ‘family money’ to buy yourself sex services, if you are are part of a middle class or poor family.

And yet another said

I take it to mean He’s just a schlub. He’s just another ordinary guy, could be anyone.

I wonder if it seems better or worse to people if the car – and thus the baby seat – are more costly and prestigious, as with this Mercedes Benz.

Is it way scarier because the seat is located right next to the driver??

Then came a new angle

My experience is cops use babyseats as a prop when soliciting/ communicating for purpose of prostitution to put girls/women at ease so she will think this guy is married so he will be safe, quick, and has a lot to lose so he will behave.

Baby seats as part of a sting – now that is abuse of family. Then the original commenter remembered a book where baby seats and sex workers figure in a story about

a Saudi prince in New York City, who enjoys driving around at night and picking up prostitutes while his 2-year-old son is sitting in a car seat in the back, so that the kid can learn from his father what women are really like in his eyes and how they should be treated by those in power. Basically, what it comes down to is that the prince hates women and wants his son to grow up hating them, too, so that he treats them all as objects and with no respect. – Wayne C. Rogers, The Book Nook

Here is the original story, complete with Rescue Industry tracts on the evils of buying sex.

Montreal police target prostitution

14 June 2010

Montreal police say they will hand out pamphlets explaining the dangers of hiring prostitutes. Montreal police have announced an action plan to crack down on prostitution in the city’s east end. The plan involves targeting potential clients, officials said on Monday. Six additional police cadets have been hired to patrol Ste-Catherine Street East, said police.

Officers will also set up roadblocks to hand out pamphlets, warning about the consequences of hiring prostitutes. Most of the prostitutes’ clients are not people who live in the neighbourhood, said Montreal police Cmdr. François Cayer. “In general, it’s common people,” said Cayer. “It’s businessmen and people going or coming from work and sometimes they have baby seats or car seats in the car.”

The problem in the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough has worsened recently due to construction projects in the city’s new entertainment district, said local officials. “You will find a lot of prostitutes, probably those prostitutes worked usually in the Quartier des spectacles and they are now in Hochelaga and we cannot accept that,” said Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough Mayor Réal Ménard. So far this year, police said they have arrested 74 clients.

Dopamine, a local group that works with prostitutes, said it is not fully on board with the project. The organization would prefer sex workers be given access to additional services, a spokesperson said. The borough said it wants to open a drop-in centre for prostitutes in the coming years.