Northern America

The legal bedrock of sex work in Canada underwent a seismic constitutional shift in the 21st century. Historically dominated by English common law vagrancy statutes punishing public soliciting, sex workers successfully sued the government resulting in the landmark 2013 Supreme Court 'Bedford' decision which struck down major anti-prostitution laws as unconstitutional. In 2014, Canada notoriously adopted the 'Nordic model' via the PCEPA (Bill C-36), unilaterally pivoting to criminalize the buyers and the advertising ecosystems rather than the sellers.

The United States universally prohibits the commercial exchange of sex across 49 states under severe federal and state criminal statutes, viewing any iteration of the industry through the lens of human trafficking and organized crime. The singular exception exists in a highly isolated geographic anomaly within rural Nevada, where a small handful of counties formally regulate and legalize heavily fortified brothel compounds under stringent state mandates.