Canadian Military Screwed Themselves By Targeting Sex Worker Offering Discount to Soldiers
The Canadian Armed Forces is getting first hand experience in the Streisand Effect after allegedly threatening the escort and any of the soldiers who use her services.
A sex worker is fighting back after the Canadian Armed Forces targeted her for offering discounted rates to enlisted men.
As was first reported by the Ottawa Citizen, a sex worker near one of Canada’s largest military bases is being targeted by the Canadian Armed Forces because she’s offering a discount for her services to the enlisted. According to her website, she knocks $50 off her going rate for any enlisted men who want to knock boots with her.
Tina Gilchrist, the Ontario sex worker in question, spoke to VICE News via text message. Gilchrist said that some of her thin metal cards—which said “SLUTS4SOLDIERS” on them—were found in the barracks. These cards “caused a few tiny briefings and a momentum of gossip that resulted in what I believe was a base-wide email to CFB Kingston that was specifically about me, as an individual.”
In the emails, which were reposted in full by an Instagram meme account but not confirmed by VICE News, the commanding officer seems to warn their officers they could be blackmailed into giving confidential information if they used a sex worker (an accusation Gilchrist takes personal offense to) and they could have to pull security clearances as a result. . They even said they were trying to identify two soldiers who are shown in a photo having sex with Gilchrist at the same time.
“I was so angry that I wanted to cry at first,” she told VICE News. “I couldn't believe they were threatening to remove the security clearances of people who had consensual transactions with me, especially when compared to how they've handled situations in the past.”
“It wouldn't be possible for me to blackmail these soldiers if Canadian Law was just,” she added. “If they weren't breaking the law by paying me, nobody would care. The government made this imaginary problem all by itself.”
In Canada, selling sex is legal but purchasing sex is illegal, a paradox that often forces sex workers and their clients into legal gray zones.
As it is the internet, this eventually backfired on the Canadian military. The emails warning their soldiers against getting escorts were posted on a meme account regarding the base and then on the Canadian Forces subreddit. It quickly blew up and the Canadian Forces got a little taste of the Streisand Effect firsthand.
“My website has had 14,762 unique hits in the last 30 days and 3,414 of those were in just the last 7 days,” she said. “I think many more of them are going to come back to hire me after the spotlight dies down. My OnlyFans, however, has skyrocketed in subscribers. Thanks to all this coverage, I currently have ‘top 15% creator’ status.”
Because of all the attention, Gilchrist is going to be holding a live-streamed Q and A session on January 12. She explicitly thanks the CAF for the “free advertising they unintentionally gave me by quite literally announcing my existence to my exact target audience.”
But it hasn’t been all sunshine, lollipops, and ménage à trois for Gilchrist, the military is targeting her. She said that in messages the military police were threatening her with charges of advertising sexual services and unlawful use of a military uniform. The threatened charge of impersonating a military officer (commonly referred to as stealing valor) is immensely rare in Canada.
“I am worried about (the possible charges), but I'm also fairly confident it's going to be a giant waste of the court's time,” Gilchrist wrote. She mentioned a 2015 case about a man who was caught wearing fake medals on Remembrance Day and pleaded guilty to the charges (he was given one year of probation.)
“I personally don't think I'm anywhere near THAT level of disrespect," she said. "The general consensus appears to not only agree with me but strongly support my work."
The Canadian Armed Forces told the Ottawa Citizen they were investigating explicit advertising but couldn’t add anything more.
Besides the image of her having sex with the two soldiers, Gilchrist writes she’s “gotta fuck ‘em all.” She explains she’s “collecting all your rank slips and cap badges. I'm earning them… just not the way you did.” Gilchrist knows she could easily walk into an Army Surplus store or something similar and purchase the ranks but she prefers collecting them more biblically.
“I get much more satisfaction taking them from soldiers I have had… relations with,” she told VICE News. “I'm looking for a chief warrant officer—and anybody above a Major—to complete my ‘collection.’”
