For our annual Love & Sex issue, NOW culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai asked sex workers and activists Andrea Werhun, Gwen Adora, Ana Valens, Eliza Lorde, Vixen Vu and Ellie Ade Kur to discuss the ways in which their industry has and hasn’t reinvented itself as a result of the pandemic. (Think Onlyfans.)

The Toronto Black Film Festival is back this week, and things are very different this year than they were in 2020. It’s not just the pandemic that’s changed the landscape, but the surge in Black activism and the ensuing calls for increased representation in television and cinema. TBFF founder Fabienne Colas is here to talk about all of it.

In a companion piece to her Black Futures Month cover package, NOW’s Kelsey Adams talks to Obsidian Theatre artistic director Mumbi, FoodShare Toronto executive director Paul Taylor, Sundance Harvest founder Cheyenne Sundance, Black Lives Matter Canada co-founder Rodney Diverlus and recent candidate for Toronto city council Renee Jagdeo about their work to demand a more just future.

Rodney Ascher’s new documentary A Glitch in the Matrix explores simulation theory -- specifically, the idea that our world, and we ourselves, exist inside a computer simulation so detailed it’s indistinguishable from real life. Can we trust the evidence of our own senses? And … should we? Norm and Rodney hash it out just a few hours before the film’s (virtual) Sundance premiere.

Toronto is short on the smaller, multi-unit dwellings that occupy the space between single-family homes and high-density apartments and condos. Culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai talks to realtors Phillip Kocev and Meray Mansour to figure out why, and what the city is going to do about it.

In order to counter the ever-rising tide of skepticism and misinformation about the pandemic, a group of scientists, researchers and health care providers have launched the Science Up First initiative. Timothy Caulfield and Samantha Yammine join Norm to discuss the initiative and how they’re hoping to steer more people towards fact and reason.

With NOW’s Chill Winter Guide on the stands, writers Kelsey Adams, Julia Mastroianni and Richard Trapunski join Norm to discuss their recommendations for staying connected -- to friends, family and the world -- during this latest lockdown.

Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman arrived on VOD last week, and to balance NOW’s all-male discussion of the film in a previous NOW WHAT, culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai moderates a panel discussion with entertainment reporter Teri Hart, gender justice advocate Farrah Khan, Refinery 29 senior editor Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Bechdel Tested creator Erica Shiner.

With NOW’s annual celebration of body positivity on the stands, associate entertainment editor Glenn Sumi talks to Gelek Badheytsang, Emma Hewson, Denise Mcleod, Jessie Olsen and Arianne Persaud about their participation in the issue, and what they’ve taken away from the experience.