More folks are surprised to learn that women are not only paying their way through higher education as sex workers, but that they are actually enjoying it. This time, the shocking report is from Australia, where sex work is actually legal.

While a 2011 public inquiry revealed that only 0.08 percent of student visa holders in Australia were working in the country as sex workers, the public and media attention has, not so surprisingly, focused on how international study may create "a second pathway to sex work for migrants to Australia."

According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, their report indicates that around half of migrant sex workers enter Australia as international students. While the survey interviewed sex workers in most major cities, it mainly focused on the Sydney area, revealing that the majority of respondents were from Asia, and more likely to work in massage parlors than be Sydney escorts.

As you'd likely expect, migrant student respondents to the survey referenced education debt as well as need to support their families. Cameron Cox, chief executive of Sex Workers Outreach Project in Sydney, pointed out how most of those who enter in the sex work industry choose to do so and that sex work provides a "good job where they have flexible hours."

Australia has a weird love-hate relationship with vaginas; first, they ban them left and right. Second, prostitution is legal in several states, from Perth escorts to Brisbane escorts. So, you can spend money partake of what women have between their legs, as long as you don't buy pictures of them. So, how complicated does it get when an Australian police officer moonlights as an escort?

Wollongong is a seaside city in New South Wales, Australia, an area known for skydiving, sailing, and legalized prostitution -- and the Illawara Mercury stopped into one of these legal brothels to see how things are going. What they find is pleasantly mundane: the regulated business has to make sure they're in compliance with laws, employee drug use is a grounds for firing, employees are just working stiffs trying to make ends meet. If there's one thing that legalized prostitution seems to universally cause is the un-magicalizing of prostitutes -- Pretty Woman, Milk Money, Risky Business, they all make prostitutes out to be mystical, complex creatures that exist outside of normal reality and when you cross paths with one your life will change, when in reality there's an exchange of services for money in a unmagical capitalistic way. On the other hand, the opposite view of prostitutes as dirty, dangerous, and harmful is similarly counteracted by legalization's emphasis on health and cleanliness. While the views of illegal prostitution probably make it more exciting in some ways, the average, everyday view of legalized prostitution in the suburbs is probably better for business.

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Want to know where Android app developers and widget designers go to get laid during CES? It's Sheri's Ranch, but, of course, that's according to Sheri's Ranch, who has learned that social media and a web presence makes things true; they've cultivated an online presence that makes most businesses jealous, because you can't just market sex the old way anymore. Really, does anyone look at those escort postcards that are lying all over the sidewalk? Twitter is king among the employees of the brothel, although they're all quite miffed that LinkedIn doesn't approve of networking for sex with their system. Especially at CES, LinkedIn is the right place to find the kind of customers that shop for adult entertainment with their smartphone.

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The linkbaity headline is "5 real and shocking reasons men hire prostitutes!" but rather than 'shocking' its refreshingly honest reasons men go to hookers for sex. The short answer: "I want something, and am willing to pay to get it," which is the origin or pure commerce that's behind pretty much every reason money exchanges hands. What's so shocking about paying good money to get what you want?

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The line between "porn star" and "prostitute" is actually less blurry than you think, and Playboy would like to keep it that way. Not that Playboy wants to call their Playmates 'porn stars', either, but a lawsuit filed proves they won't stand by Playmates being called prostitutes. A Canadian escort website is using the word "playmate" to describe their staff, and Hef wants to make sure that 'playmate' only applies to his nude models, and they're much too wholesome to be associated with prostitution. His claim is that calling the escorts 'playmates' sullies the character of his trademark - yes, 'playmate' is trademarked, despite kindergarten teachers using it as a gender-neutral descriptor of friendship for decades - and wants the escort service to stop. No word yet on whether the Canadian hookers have a resonse, but I'm betting that response will be polite.

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Esquire asks the hard-hitting questions: what do escorts do on Valentine's Day? How about they do their jobs, because, um, they're escorts? There's not a whole lot here that would be any different if they asked, "What do escorts do on National Umbrella Day?", but the nicest thing about the interview is how plain it is. No talk of the degradation of women, or sensationalizing the sex, just, yeah, this woman sleeps largely with married guys who pay her for the service, whether it's Valentine's Day or not. Straight-up capitalism at its finest.

See also Avery Moore's website.

Late-breaking news, just in time for Christmas: Canada's Supreme Court has struck down their anti-prostitution laws. As I understand it, the votes were strictly divided along species lines, 8 polar bears to 11 caribou, with the penguins abstaining because penguins are not native to Canada, god damn it. But, anyhow, if you find yourself in Winnipeg, your whores are now legal, so you can avoid the troubles this guy finds himself in:

Police in Vancouver, Washington, tried to set up a prostitution sting recently. They placed an 'escort' ad on backpage.com and waited for some unsuspecting john to call and make an appointment. Things didn't go quite as planned: the police were so overwhelmed by calls from prospective clients that they couldn't keep up. Here's a lesson, aspiring prostitutes of Vancouver: the market is fucking hot right now, get in the game!

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Let's say, you're looking for a career change. There's lots of things you can learn from, online, just by watching videos. For example: watch this video to learn how to be a Chinese prostitute! Sadly, unlike most internet videos which show Asian women in glasses and dress clothes, nothing pornographic happens in this video. But, apparently China has found the benefit of social media, and like everywhere else, hookers do great business if they know how to use it right. Good job, China, your makeup is great!

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There's a new online dating app out there, and it's called Carrot Dating. It's Suggar-Daddy-Lite, giving women gifts to get "things" in return, which amounts to bribery at its base and prostitution at its awesomest level. Yet again, the media comes out waving the banner of "we must protect our women from being taken advantage of!" but what they seem to miss is that nearly everyone (except some really stupid women) know exactly what they're doing when they participate in this website. They act like Carrot Dating randomly forces wholesome, virginal women to respond to these horrible dating inquiries. Any woman who gets so far into membership at Carrot Dating before she realizes how it works is probably only barely capable of using a mouse in the first place, so there's more to worry about her than online dating and this is the only electronic carrot she should be following.

The internet: is there anything it can't ruin? First, Craigslist destroys the newspaper; ebooks are destroying publishing; and, most heinous of all, internet porn is destroying the legal Nevada brothel business. Well, technically the economy is causing the problem, but it's much easier to blame the internet, what with its free nude photos and easy access. The story really can't get anything straight; it seems to want to talk about business, but heads off into weird moral channels, including inviting an anti-prostitution talking head with no evidence to back them up. Hey, Bloomberg: save your exploitation sob-stories for talking about the minimum wage; this is one place people are at least doing an honest job, give them some credit for riding out the economic downturn when so many other businesses couldn't cut it.

LinkedIn has apparently changed its user agreement to include this bit of magic:

i. Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.

You know, for years I've been blowing off the LinkedIn requests that everyone sends me -- and only now I find out you can find a hooker on LinkedIn. They even had a whole freakin' category for it, which I assume is going to disappear soon, although I suppose guys like Nathan Dayler, Training Constable at Toronto Police Service, is going to keep that title despite the number of inappropriate emails he gets. In fact, everyone I can see in the "Prostitution" category seems to be rather anti-prostitution, so, LinkedIn, have you ever thought about just changing your category names? It's like having a "Obesity" category full of Ben & Jerry's flavor designers. Just a little misleading. I guess I'll have to stick to finding my prostitutes on Monster.com.

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As if you really needed to hire a geek prostitute, you could always go to the Alien Cathouse in Nevada. Marvel at their 1997-era graphics! Amaze at their purple blow-up dolls and heavily-tattooed sex workers! Actually, that last one sounds pretty awesome. I'm not entirely sure what the 'alien experience' is there, the website makes it look sorta like a nice, clean brothel (which is a plus, of course), but I'd like to see more 'alien' in their entertainment selections.

A hundred and fifty years ago, prostitutes flocked to the Bay Area because there were a lot of sweaty rich men around there and few women. That was the gold rush, but today a different kind of gold rush is happening: sex workers are setting up shop in Silicon Valley, to service all the young, single men getting rich writing apps. Apparently all it takes is wearing geeky t-shirts to play yourself as a nerdy hooker, but, really, they should learn some Ruby on Rails before jumping into such a high-tech career.

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It's not often that you hear about male sex workers, let alone heterosexual sex workers, the kind hired by women to fuck. That is, other than the retarded men on Gigolos, but that should should at least give a clue that there's a market for women wanting to pay a hot man to fuck them and then leave. For a relatively honest and even-handed look at the world of male escorts, this article at the Good Men Project, which focuses on the reason women want the services of a professional fuck-buddy.