In 2007, lawyer, Alan Young, initiated a case challenging Canada’s prostitution laws as unconstitutional. After the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the laws criminalizing pimping, communicating for the purposes of prostitution,…
Tag: prostitution
Ricochet has been making some big waves in Canadian media over the past month since it launched a crowdfunder and began work to raise $75,000 to help build “a new model of…
Most of you are likely aware by now that Canada’s federal government has unveiled their new prostitution bill. I wrote about it for VICE this week and based on talking to a…
As most of us are now aware, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, son of Hollywood producer Peter Rodger, went on a shooting rampage on Friday night, killing six people and sending seven more to the…
Last month an open letter signed by 300 academics encouraged Canadian politicians to support the full decriminalization of prostitution in Canada. Today, a letter signed by over 800 feminists and allies calls…
Debates about the sex industry are never far from any feminist’s consciousness, and one argument that always catches my attention is that prostitution should be legalized because, without sex workers, those poor,…
Book Review: Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves Between the years of 1931 and 1945, encompassing what in the West is known as WWII in Asia, the Imperial Japanese…
In this episode we hear a talk by Cherry Smiley. The talk is part of a series on Indigenous Feminism, put on by the First Nations Student Association at Simon Fraser University.…
I refuse to believe that sociopathy is a good thing for feminism. Yet this is exactly the position we are being told to take on the sex industry. A recent article about Melissa…
“I find that the best way to learn and really understand how complex the issue is is to look at the intersectional discrimination — that they were women, they were women in…
Last month CTV News aired a short documentary as part of their “First Story” series, called “Stepping from the Shadows,” which looks at indigenous women and prostitution, the Bedford decision, and how…
EU Parliament passed a resolution today in favour of the Nordic model, which criminalizes the purchase of sex, while decriminalizing prostituted people. The resolution passed by 343 votes to 139, with 105…
There’s one guaranteed pro-sex-work response whenever you write something unenthusiastic about prostitution, and that response is: listen to sex workers. It was the dominant theme of critical replies to my review of Melissa…
Last month a proposal from Amnesty International advocating for the legalization of prostitution was leaked. Feminists and women’s rights organizations around the world were appalled — why was an organization that had…
The cover of this manifesto on sex work shows three cogs in three fleshy tones, a penetrable central socket in each and high-heeled legs sprouting from them as they appear to grind…