Are we legal yet?

The plot thickens as Canada (well, at least the federal government lawyers) ties itself in knots over the fate of laws around prostitution. This just in.

Oh, they always know how to have fun...

Only Sweet VIP girls could turn a night of blood and urine testing into a good time. But the place definitely had the feel of a party Thursday night when Cool Aid health nurses and two University of Victoria researchers showed up for "rapid HIV testing" on a dozen or so VIP workers.

The new kind of HIV test shows accurate results in seconds, just like a pregnancy test. That makes the medical community very happy, seeing as studies have shown that more than half of people who got the older style HIV tests never came back for the results.

The UVic researchers are looking into sex workers' responses to the rapid tests, and surveyed the VIP workers on their feelings about the test. Pretty good deal for the staff - everyone who did a survey got a $100 spa certificate!

For better or worse, find us on Google Maps

Hey, here's an interesting thing: Type "escort agencies Victoria" into Google Maps and up comes those familiar little balloons showing where a bunch of them are (including VIP, of course). Hmmm - is this a good thing for agencies, given that little business of the Criminal Code that still hangs over the industry? Hard to say, but it's handy for finding the places, even though the search pulled up a few wild cards.

Some good work is coming out of a few big Canadian papers around sex work - notably the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen. Here's a recent example from the Gazette, which gets beyond the usual knee-jerk stuff and tries to move the debate forward.