Harlots and Housewives - A Sexpo for Women

Susan Adamson was there. She was the one I looked at when I spoke. I could tell she made an effort to put me at ease (Goddess bless her) and it worked. Mary Trentadue, a sultry but studious-looking woman with the soul-saving habit of making little jokes when you least expect it, was the owner of the bookstore at that time. She made sure we all had something to drink and napkins for the munchies.

Maggie DeVries was there. I felt supremely humbled by Maggie because she had done two things that I felt called to do – stand for something important and be published. Maggie, a children’s book author by trade, wrote Missing Sarah to honour her sister, a casualty of the quiet war.

That’s how I always think of it now – the quiet war. Susan Davis said it in a guest editorial for The Province newspaper on December 15, 2006. Let us “take time to remember the casualties of Canada’s quiet war. They had families and dreams. The loss to the community of their potential and light is immeasurable. They may be gone but they must never be forgotten.”

Maggie’s book ensured that her sister’s story would not be forgotten. I knew why she sat at that table. But I wondered about the other two. It’s been almost five years and I still don’t know how they came to be board members for PACE Society – a by and for sex workers organization in the Downtown Eastside. Yet they remain to be.

I got involved with PACE after I read about them in a local paper in 2003. Prostitution Alternatives Counselling & Advocacy – hence “PACE” – Society, was described in the article as an organization that had been started by sex workers for sex workers.