Aiming to establish a “unique dialogue between and among academics, sex workers, and advocates” (1) that effectively captures the complexity of sex-work debates in Canada, Selling Sex provides a comprehensive, intersectional examination of the discursive paradigms that shape our understanding of sex and sex work. This edited volume highlights two primary problems with current debates—both feminist and non-feminist—surrounding the legal status of sex work. First, they argue that the voices of those individuals actually involved in sex work are typically rendered silent, absolving sex workers of any type of agency. Second, current debates often conceptualize sex work as existing separate from political, legal, economic and social forces; rather, it is these forces that position the sex worker within broader discussions of morality, sexuality and harm. As such, the objective is to rectify these shortcomings and provide a timely account of the state of sex work and future challenges following the Ontario Court of Appeal's 2012 ruling regarding the unconstitutionality of Canadian prostitution laws.

Selling Sex begins by mapping prostitution laws in Canada, highlighting the state's desire to push forward an agenda of social and moral regulation as the primary motivator behind the criminalization of sex work. As the editors point out, it was not until 1972 that a discourse of harm was adopted with amendments to the Criminal Code that focused on the activities of sex work, specifically soliciting, rather than sex workers themselves. In this light, the authors pose two pertinent questions. First, why and how has sex and the act of exchanging sex for money been politicized? Second, what distinguishes “good” from “deviant” sex work and who draws that line? Selling Sex questions political, legal, and social shaming of prostitution in a society where other forms of sex work (for example, stripping and pornography) are less scrutinized and quite often encouraged. This questioning of the state's role in regulating sex work frames subsequent chapters, blurring the line between the state's intention to promote harm protection and the realities of sex work in Canada.

The book's contributors are dissatisfied with the argument that sex work is inherently harmful. Chapters by Fletcher, JJ and Hunt demonstrate an acute awareness of the risks; however, they contend these risks are amplified by forces of sexism, racism, heterosexism and colonialism rather than a direct byproduct of sex work itself. Hunt maps the ways in which colonialism makes Indigenous women in the sex trade more vulnerable to violence, as is indicated by the increasing rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Western Canada. Fletcher contends that experiences of violence for trans sex workers are best understood through an intersectional lens that accounts for the role of transphobia, homophobia and racism in disempowering this particular group of sex workers in the first place. It is therefore not sex work alone that makes these individuals susceptible to risk; rather, it is the disenfranchisement of a population (sex workers) that has already been disenfranchised—both historically and currently—in a variety of ways.

In addition to complicating discussions of harm, the contributors also challenge the victim paradigm typically used in debates regarding sex work. Selling Sex includes chapters written by those who have been or currently are engaging in sex work that address topics unique to their own experiences including negotiating non-heteronormative spaces, violence and transitioning. In these chapters, the authors take issue with the common misperception of sex workers as passive victims unaware of their own oppression, claiming the narrative is too simplistic. This narrative is further challenged by contributors' examinations of sex worker activist efforts in Vancouver (Arthur et al.), Montreal (Crago and Clamen), and Halifax (MacDonald et al.). In challenging the assumption that sex workers are stripped of their agency, Selling Sex illustrates how sex workers can exist in a space where they are simultaneously victimized and empowered.

The final section of Selling Sex addresses the challenges of state regulation. As outlined in Goodyear and Auger's chapter, the Canadian state has a vested interest in the regulation of sex workers' bodies and the reinforcement of sex work as sex rather than sex work as work. As such, state constructions of sex work tend to avoid recognizing the possibility that many of the identified harms—and state justification for subsequent regulation—are in fact labour issues. Reframing sex work debates in this light would allow for an examination of the state's role, both actual and preferred, across multiple jurisdictions now that our prostitution laws must be re-evaluated. These chapters offer multiple jumping off points aimed at navigating the potential transition from criminalization to decriminalization to regulation.

The future of sex-work in Canada remains unclear post-Canada v. Bedford (2013); however, Selling Sex both addresses and deconstructs various complex conversations inherent in this debate. The regulation of sex work is a political issue and, as such, the state will continue to draw lines between “good” and “deviant” sex work in order to protect its interests. As Selling Sex effectively highlights, ignoring who is included in the construction of these parameters and consequently who is excluded, warrants serious attention.