The biggest difference in what's going on in New Zealand versus the rest of the world, aside from the decriminalization of sex work, is that sex workers were actually part of the decriminalization process. There was a provision in that legal change stating sex workers would be part of an evaluation committee, and in 2008, they were, they were a part of the committee determining whether or not decriminalization worked. They are continually regarded as stakeholders - in their communities, but also in the legal process. That's such a different way of operating.

We're missing a lot of the real-life stories of what people's work looks like. Those are the people that I want sitting on the zoning board meetings, on the zoning commissions. Those are the people I want participating in business improvement in their own industry. The gentrification processes that often happen in cities so often manifest in street sweeps of sex workers. How do you get sex workers on neighborhood associations, regarded as members of the neighborhood?

This is the hardest thing to articulate: I think that there is a legitimate space for sexual commerce. And like every other industry, particularly the service industry, the workers are getting the short end of the stick. Are there some industries that just shouldn't exist? Yes. But I don't think the sex industry is one of them. As it currently operates it's not damaging, necessarily, but it might itself be damaged. It's busted.

Once when I told sex workers about my own sex work, it ended up building inappropriate trust with some people. But there have been events now - like covering the protests against Backpage at the Village Voice - where I've talked to sex workers who don't necessarily know that I've done sex work.

When I interviewed the evangelical Christian youth group who were protesting the Village Voice, I wanted them to feel they could freely tell me things like, "Did you know that 90 percent of prostitutes don't want to be doing it?" Is that unfair? That's sort of an invisible privilege for me.

One person was basically saying that feminists aren't interested in criminalizing prostitutes, that they don't want to do that. I responded that whether or not they want to, that is what is happening on the ground.

I've always been a writer. I started getting paid for writing in college. Where it transitioned from commentary to journalism was in that shift - not wanting to write personal stories because people are hungry in not necessarily great ways for the sexy, sexy, sex work story. I was trying to shift the focus, and journalism was the tool I needed to write about people outside my own life and range of experience.