page_title: Sexe de rue
section_title: Synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: Sexe de rue / Synopsis
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte des bordels montréalais où les soldats ont contracté des maladies vénériennes&#160;: rapport de l’Armée sur la situation croissante des maladies vénériennes à Montréal. 1944.
context_page_description: Sexe de rue is a 2003 Canadian documentary film about the history and current conditions of street prostitutes in Montréal, written, directed and co-produced by Richard Boutet, who died of a heart attack on 29 August 2003, a few days before the film's premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival. The largely first person documentary gives a voice to street workers, allowing them to tell their own stories in their own words. Prostitution is discussed as labour and in the context of local history and relevant sociological factors, including dangers.
context_section_description: Marie-Claude and Marianne work in a drop-in centre for drug addicts in Montréal. They tell their stories of working the streets of Centre-Sud. Marianne started when she was 16 years old and just served four years in prison for armed robbery after she stole a revolver from a "violent" customer, and now writes poetry as a way of dealing with her personal demons. Marie-Claude, a former drug addict and ex-sex worker, is an artist. 
  A former brothel owner and a local historian briefly describe the prostitution scene in the city since 1919. The former Red-Light District consisted of a part of Centre-Sud along Rue Sainte-Catherine and Rue Ontario. Georgette Lord, the former owner of the brothel (81 at the time of filming), tells the story of a young woman being initiated into the life as part of its history until the brothel was closed during the Second World War. Montréal jazz musician Vic Vogel provides further anecdotes from the time.
  The area today remains at the centre of most street-based sex work, which may entail more than just sex: sex workers often listen to the client's troubles or even offer a shoulder to cry on. The next to tell their stories are: Valérie, a young woman caught in the vicious cycle of drugs, sex, and money (her own mother gave her her first "hit" at the age of 12), and LGBT sex workers Claudia, a pre-operative transsexual, Audrey, a transvestite, and Barbara, who self-identifies as a hermaphrodite. The latter three talk about their work like any other nine-to-five job, and, unlike any of the cisgender women interviewed, seem to enjoy their work. Claudia calls herself a putain respectueuse and 42-year-old Audrey assumes her role with "diginity", while Barbara considers herself "generous" in offering "everything", all demonstrating lucidity with respect to the profession. Light is also shed on street prostitution from the point of view of the car-driving customer. 
  Street prostitution is simultaneously the most visible, yet most hidden, and the most harsh (and dangerous) of all forms of sex work, yet no sex worker can truly rely on protection from the police, since what they do is outlawed, even though the act of exchanging money for sex itself is not illegal. Valérie tells of some police officers taking advantage of the situation, offering a quid pro quo consisting of sexual favours in exchange for avoiding a night in jail. Marianne loudly recites her poems aloud in the street, calling for prostitution to be decriminalized and for rights for sex workers.
caption: Map of brothels in Montréal, 1943
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