What shocked me was three different anti-prostitution feminists asking me to justify that I had been a sex worker, to prove it. That either I hadn't done enough sex work by their standards, or I hadn't done the right kind in order to have the right to speak about it. I couldn't understand them. I'm not speaking for you. I'm not speaking "for" anyone. I'm trying to put together this picture of the different forces that are producing a result in the lives of sex workers. You can't contest the fact that tons of people are going to jail and experiencing violence.

I hesitate talking about a program for change because we're in this moment where no one is listening to sex workers about how things should change. So I'm even speaking less as a former sex worker and more as a person trying to see the bigger picture that might be hard to see when you're doing sex work full-time, or running a social service organization, or doing all the things that a lot of sex worker activists are doing. It's hard work, and they don't necessarily get the time to step back and see the whole picture.

Work doesn't have to be great in order to dignify it as work. Work just is. It's quite value-neutral. The issue is about what kinds of power and control you have at work as a human being. That's the commonality. It's not necessarily what the task is.

We aren't defined by our work. People think if you over-identify with your work, then that must mean you're giving over too much of yourself to it, that there's something wrong with that. We're trained to believe in things like work-life balance. So much work is tending towards service. It's very much about creating experiences rather than products, and it makes those boundaries between life and work very slippery.

I think the anti-prostitution feminists need to do some consciousness-raising amongst themselves about their feelings. But that's a different political activity. Asking ourselves, how do we feel about the fact that our boyfriends, our husbands, our male partners might hire sex workers? They should have that conversation, but they shouldn't attach it to policy conversations that affect people.

Our feelings alone don't change what happens with the police, what happens in jail, what happens when someone tries to go to the welfare office, the unemployment office, or any kind of state agency where a criminal record comes up for prostitution. How we feel about the commodification of sexuality and violence doesn't actually translate to those people's lives. A lot of the debate is really academic and a waste of time.

Another sex worker and writer I respect put it this way: she said that as a writer, you're not about pleasing people, and as a sex worker it's all about pleasing people. It's all about creating this fantasy. I still feel like as a writer you actually do have put on a show. You can't just hand over your notes. And there is a degree to which you are appealing to the reader's vanity, whether you tell yourself you're doing that or not.