Craigslist controversy

Interesting viewpoint from the Globe and Mail opinion pages on all this fuss about Craigslist.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas one and all during one of the busiest seasons for sex workers. Here's a jolly Christmas read out of London, where the BBC set out to get a straight-up story from the city's sex workers about what kind of a Christmas season they're expecting. Nice to see adult sex work starting to get normal media coverage - not so long ago, that would have been unimaginable, as media would have been falling all over themselves to find a vulnerable victim to profile instead.

And of course, there are still vulnerable victims forced into sex work, and we wish them all the support they need to get into a new life. But there are also a whole lot of adult sex workers who are just fine with working in the business. Nice to see their perspective gaining at least a little credence in the press.

Happy holidays, everyone! Hope your season's nice, and just a little naughty.

Rise up, 'fallen women'

Just in case you've been wondering what's up in China when it comes to sex work. here's food for thought. We in the VIP blog department are not too enamoured of the country's plan to stop calling SWs "prostitutes"and instead refer to them as "fallen women," but we do appreciate that at least the Chinese government gets that "sex worker" is a morally neutral term. We've been trying to make that case with the Canadian media for some time now.

Hard to know who the good guys are when you're a sex worker, as this story about police abuse of Ottawa sex workers makes clear.

Setback on the legal front

So we have to wait a little longer for decriminalization of the sex industry - the Ontario Court of Appeal has ordered that sex work remain illegal in Ontario until the appeal of three recently overturned laws is heard.

No one said it was going to be easy. But it's pretty obvious that there's no contest when you weigh the harm of the current laws against the good. It'll take a few years, but the landmark ruling from the Ontario Superior Court earlier this fall will eventually stand.