Well, actually, decriminalize it: Sex Professionals of Canada is a 25-year-old group that advocates for the rights and freedoms of sex workers. During its quarter-century tenure, the group has gone head-to-head with the government on numerous occasions, arguing that criminalizing prostitution only serves to endanger prostitutes.

FYI, it's not illegal to be a hooker in Canada. It's merely illegal to talk about exchanging sex for money (communicating for the purpose of prostitution), work at home (keeping a common bawdy house) or be the roommate, spouse or child of a sex workers (living on the avails). Yes, I said child: anyone over the age of 12 can be charged with living off the avails.

Sex work advocacy organizations around the world (like this one, this one and this one) have long argued that laws like these only serve to put prostitutes at risk. It prevents them from hiring bodyguards or drivers, and forces them out of their homes and onto the streets. It keeps them from reporting abuse and assaults—technically, the communicating law means that workers can't even talk to each other about creepy johns or possibly unsafe situations. They argue that the laws are too broad to do much good for the people that need it most: pimps should be charged with crimes such as extortion and assault, and international sex trafficking is about coercion, kidnapping and forcible confinement. Meanwhile, they say, consenting adults who choose to make a living using sex should have the right to be safe.

Last year, three members of SPOC—Valerie Scott, Amy Leibovitch and Terri-Jean Bedford (better known as the Bondage Bungalow dominatrix)—put forward a consitutional challenge to strike down the laws around communicating, bawdy houses and living on the avails. SPOC's goal is to make it to the Supreme Court of Canada, but it's been over a year, and the case is still mired in Ontario Court legalese. In her pretrial examination last June, Bedford said that working the streets in her youth led to gang rapes and drug addiction, while running her bondage B&B was "the safest and happiest period" of her life.

Personally, I think it's hypocritical that we use tits and ass to sell every product on earth and then turn around and arrest grown adults for selling actual sex. I wouldn't want to be a prostitute, but I wouldn't want to be a dental surgeon or an oil speculator either. Best of luck to everyone working to keep themselves safe in the world's oldest profession.