Jean Bedford, a Canadian woman convicted of running a house of prostitution wants a court to rule once and for all whether the sadomasochistic services she provided were sex or not.
When police raided Bedford's north Toronto home in 1994, they confiscated whips, restraints and even a coffin the dominatrix used in her professional life as Madame de Sade.
Throughout the long legal process since, she has insisted the service she sells involves helping men express their feminine side, not sex. She was eventually fined $2,050 for running a house of prostitution.
Her lawyer, Alan Young, argued before an appeals court Monday that though sexual arousal occurred in her profession, that fell far short of prostitution.
"Country fairs and kissing booths - why is that not an act of prostitution?" Young asked. "It's not a sexual service because it's too far removed from the sexual act."
He said the court that convicted her had failed to determine what constitutes a sexual service and was "overwhelmed" by a case that was "graphic and quite frankly disgusting at times."
But prosecutor Scott Hutchison said sexual acts took place at Bedford's business.
"It's all saturated with sex," he said. "Everything speaks of sex."
At the end of Monday's hearing, the appeals court indicated it would pass judgment later. The original judge in Bedford's case threw out the charges, calling them too vague. That decision was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada backed that ruling in 1997. Bedford was then convicted on the original charge.
Bedford, 40, argues that most clients come for fantasy role-playing that often involves punishment from spanking to dungeon-style torture such as being tied up or put in a coffin.
``I'm not selling sex,'' she said recently. ``I'm not selling my body.''
