Sex Work

December 6 marks the endorsement of violence against sex workers (Dec 2014)

Not criminals, not victims: Sex workers’ lives thrown into chaos under new law (Nov 2014)

Government in our bedrooms: The parallels between prostitution laws and abortion laws. (Sept 2014)

Prostitution bill poisoned by sexist ideology (July 2014)

Patriarchal values dominate the sex work debate (April 2014)

When a government protects workers by criminalizing them – a satire. (March 2014)

A bittersweet victory for sex workers (Dec 2013)

Prostituted words: Time for a new style guide (Dec 2013)

The audacity of sex workers (Aug 2013)

The sex workers are coming! (April 2013)

Overcoming Challenges: Vancouver’s Sex Worker Movement – by Joyce Arthur, Susan Davis, and Esther Shannon.

• Chapter in book: Selling Sex: Experience, Advocacy, and Research on Sex Work in Canada, UBC Press, Editors: Emily van der Meulen, Elya M. Durisin, Victoria Love, pp.130-146.
• Abstract: This chapter describes the evolution of Vancouver’s sex workers’ rights movement by chronicling the sex-worker-run organizations that have formed in the face of social and legal adversity since the early 1980s. Highlighted are the narratives of the current and former sex workers and allies who played an instrumental role in this little-known history.

Honouring truth for Vancouver’s Missing and Murdered Women (Nov 2012)

How prostitution abolitionists substitute ideologies for facts – Part 2 of my critique of the prostitution abolitionist viewpoint, rebutting a court Factum from a coalition of feminist abolitionists. (March 2012)

The mistaken logic of ‘asymmetrical criminalization’ — a.k.a. the Nordic model of prostitution – Part 1 of my critique of the prostitution abolitionist viewpoint, rebutting the legal model that criminalizes the purchases but not the sale of sex. (Feb 2012)

The Trouble With Abolitionist Feminist Ideology (Jan 2012)

Cozy Bedfellows: Prostitution Abolitionists and Anti-Abortionists (Jan 2012)

A 2010 deadline for prostitution – Decriminalization and a sex worker cooperative in time for the Olympic Games would provide safety and equal rights. By Joyce Arthur and Tamara O’Doherty, Vancouver Sun (December 6, 2007)

$pread Speaks to a Pro-choice Activist (Interview with Joyce Arthur, $pread Magazine, Fall 2007), PDF

Linking the prostitution and abortion debates (Jan 2007)

Why Prostitution Cannot Be Abolished, and why it shouldn’t be. Why do men buy sex, and why do prostitutes have such low status? A look at the roots of prostitution and whether it’s bad aspects can be changed or reduced. (Dec 2006)