The tide is turning....maybe?

Oh, isn't it heartening to see stories like this one starting to crop up in "respectable" papers like the Montreal Gazette? There was a time when this kind of coverage would have started with the police version of things and then maybe - maybe - allowed the sex worker a paragraph or two at the very bottom to protest that in fact, she was perfectly happy in her work.
Can we call this progress? Perhaps, but so slow! 

Two out of three agencies helping B.C. sex workers are closing

These are dire times for survival sex workers. Two out of the three agencies in B.C. that specifically work with sex workers have announced they'll be closing their doors - PEERS Vancouver in the spring, PACE Vancouver almost immediately, as that organization runs out of money to pay their staff in just three weeks.
And how deeply, tragically ironic that it's all happening even as a multimillion-dollar inquiry unfolds in our province looking into why so many sex workers went missing or turned up dead in the Pickton years even while police and the public watched with studied indifference.
The stigma around sex work has got to go. It kills people. It lets government safely withdraw funding from marginalized groups, because governments know that the public won't much be troubled by that.
If you've got any influence anywhere on this issue, please use it. Hundreds of people - mostly impoverished, traumatized women - work the outdoor strolls in our province. Regardless of how people feel about sex work - and we'd hope that those reading a blog linked to an escort agency would at least be a little more kindly disposed to these misunderstood workers - the situation for outdoor workers in particular simply must change. And part of that change is supporting the community groups that help them. 

Telling it like it is

Nothing like a gay porn star who's not afraid to talk about it to liven up the scene at Oxford. Here's coverage of what must have been an interesting presentation from the man who started the French sex workers' rights group Les Putes in 2006.