Perhaps you saw this story last week: The sex workers in Montreal are planning a strike for the weekend of the F1 Canadian Grand Prix.
What sex workers are upset about
As a board certified labor and employment lawyer and enthusiastic F1 fan, I was immediately intrigued. Is there really a sex worker’s union? Are F1 fans more partial to topless bars than local construction workers and business professionals? What are the workers upset about if it is not that they are being objectified by men?
Well, it turns out they are upset because they are being treated as independent contractors instead of employees. I should have seen this one coming.
Earlier in my career, I successfully sued a number of topless bars in the U.S. over this very issue. We put a couple out of business, and through some large settlements made owning a topless bar riskier and more expensive.
It turns out the girls in our Canadian story are part of the Sex Work Autonomous Committee — or “SWAC” to those in the know. Yes, the Canadian sex workers have a union. And I’m guessing they have union cards, carry signs on occasion, and know words like “scab,” “fink,” and “bootlicker.”
The irony of their complaint
But what intrigues me about the sex workers in Canada is that they are smart enough to organize but not to get out of sex work. It’s a reminder that intelligence and virtue are not the same thing.
Some of the architects of the Holocaust were highly educated men who appreciated classical music and philosophy. Enron’s executives were intelligent enough to engineer one of the most sophisticated accounting frauds in American history. Hollywood producers can make films that move millions emotionally while privately living like moral barbarians.
Intelligence can help a man build a company, compose a symphony, organize a movement, or manipulate a nation. But intelligence alone cannot make a man good.
Intelligence is a product of the mind; virtue is a product of the soul. Our mind may counsel us on what is right, but thinking about the right thing to do is not the same as doing it.
We know we should forgive, yet we have trouble doing it. We know we should pray more, love those we don’t like, and work harder. The problem is not a lack of information but a shortage of character.
Holiness is not dependent on intelligence
Ultimately, virtue requires action, and action springs from courage, discipline, and self-control.
I think the Lord knew what He was doing when He designed us this way. If virtue was dependent on intelligence, then the less mentally equipped Christian would be at a decided disadvantage in the quest for sanctification. Instead, the Lord places sanctification on the level playing field of the soul.
Holiness is not reserved for geniuses. It is for every redeemed man and woman who is courageous enough to obey.
Even sex workers and F1 fans. GS
