By Edward Lander

We’ve been running our annual Love and Sex issues at The Eyeopener for 30 odd years. For another 10 we’ve been attaching a third ‘and blank’ variable on the end. Choosing that variable is the bane of any features editor tasked with creating one—arguably harder than pitching, editing and publishing the thing. It’s got to be unique, but not so particular you can’t pull 16 stories out of it.

For me, the law fit that bill.

The more I thought about what kind of stories I wanted to live in this issue, the more I realized just how many strings connect the law with love and sex.

As culture and technology develop, the law is often the last thing to catch up—especially when it comes to sex. We’ve seen this accelerate this year as artificial intelligence (AI) creates new legal grey areas around ownership and consent. Despite this, Canada’s ‘AI Strategy’ launched last September makes no mention of the technology’s uses for sexual content. All while AI bots like X’s Grok gain the ability to create explicit versions of any image on the internet.

Regulation isn’t the only intersection of sex and law. This past summer, Canada watched five world junior hockey Canada players head to court over accusations of sexual assault. These players—to the dismay of many across the country—were all acquitted, sparking a larger conversation about the re-traumatization and indifference sexual assault victims face in the courts.

The winner of the most recent season of Canada’s Drag Race—a self-proclaimed villain named Van Goth who we profile on page 4—also found herself at the centre of one of these intersections when her HIV diagnosis introduced her to the legal fiasco that is HIV criminalization in Canada.

Even behind the glitz and glam of television’s current hottest and horniest show, Heated Rivalry, is another legal matter—the complicated (and surprisingly legalistic) role of an intimacy coordinator.

This year we’re also bringing back the Love and Sex Survey, an annual audit of what students are into…and not into. A handful of the results are published in this issue—and the full survey will be available online. So, if you want to know how many of your peers are in ‘situationships’, turn to page 8.

Our first love and sex issue back in 1995 was a five-page supplement called “making whoopie” stuffed at the back of the paper. It featured a guide to sex toys, a splashy nude photo spread and a handful of features on relevant topics like the destigmatization of virginity and the then-new frontier of phone sex.

Each following year we’ve tried to do the same thing. In this issue you’ll find reporting on ‘big-bad Bill 33’ coming for sexual health supports, Toronto’s libraries putting up a fight against book bans, poppers, sex work, a feature about cops at pride and more coverage of the many ways the law governs and influences our sex and love lives.

So, if Bill 33 doesn’t fuck our funding, here’s to 30 more years of love and sex.