While Canada has long criminalized aspects of sex work, the specific act of purchasing sexual services was not against the law per se. In 2014, however, the then Conservative government implemented new legislation targeting sex work clients. Given the criminalization and persistent stigmatization of their activities, assessing clients’ changing actions, perceptions, and knowledge of the new legislation is challenging. We thus turned to a major Canadian online sex work review forum to examine postings on forum threads. This paper examines the risk knowledge practices in which clients engage as they try to make sense of the modified legal regime and avoid new legal risks. Our findings illuminate clients’ varied understandings of their own criminalization.

ngagement in sex work (the exchange of sexual services for money, services or goods) is associated with a higher chance of contact with sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections including HIV, both in Canada and globally. 1,2 Although participation in sex with multiple partners, exposure to sexual violence, intravenous drug use, an unstable living environment and a criminalized working environment are contributors to this elevated risk for some sex workers, stigma in health care settings also contributes to inadequate access to health care services. 1 Sex workers have reported a variety of reasons for not seeking health care, and stigma associated with sex work appears to be a primary barrier. 3,4 Young adults (aged 18-29 yr) who engage in sex work appear to be particularly at risk for HIV and other infections and associated risk factors. 5 These risks, particularly among youth, are a major concern given the well-established longterm health impacts of untreated sexually transmitted infections. [6][7][8] However, we could identify no Canadian research that has specifically examined the experiences of young adult sex workers in Canada in accessing sexual and reproductive health care services.In a recent local needs assessment of the experiences of youth in Toronto, Ontario, with sexual health care services, respondents who reported experience with sex work were more likely than other youth to cite unmet sexual health needs and to lack access to sexual health information and services. 9 To address this local need and the gap in Canadian research more broadly, we conducted a study to address the following research questions: 1