“Work is especially different when the going gets rough – during the convoy protests, when fuel prices spiked, when society feels the pressure – we can really tell. We are the outlet for that. It’s 2022, if you beat on your wife she’ll leave you, so hire a hooker and do it to her instead.”
The way we view ‘the oldest profession’ has evolved a lot in Aotearoa over the past half century. Critic Te Arohi has taken a look at sex work in Dunedin, “the New Zealand Model”, how the industry has changed in recent years, and what issues sex workers still face today.
In 1986, three decades before her appointment to the New Zealand Order of Merit, Dame Catherine Healy became a sex worker. Thanks to criminalisation and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, “it was pretty heavy days,” said Healy. “It was hard for us to share information,” and so, in 1987, a year into her time as a sex worker, Healy and her constituents founded the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC). Healy told Critic Te Arohi that “It was just a no-brainer really, to fight for our labour rights.”
The NZPC worked to fight for sex workers’ rights and address many of the issues facing sex workers at the time, and there was no shortage of issues. Healy said police “entrapment” was common. Cops would proposition sex workers then arrest them for soliciting. The managers running massage parlours faced years of prison time if they were charged, so there was “heavy investment in pretending to be doing anything else than sex work”. The police strategies only made sex work more unsafe for everyone involved. Sometimes the presence of condoms was used “to prove that brothel-keeping or sex work was occuring”.
Dame Healy also described a “coercive” relationship with the cops. “Police had the right to come into our massage parlours and demand our names. By law our names had to be on a register so the police could come in and uplift our names. The police did in fact do that with great enthusiasm and sometimes they went a step further and took photographs of the individual sex workers.” Healy remembered being in a police office (“they always felt like cells”) and seeing pictures of sex workers up on the wall.
Dame Healy said most people in the 80s didn’t stay sex workers for long, usually just “two to four years for cis women”. Transgender sex workers had a much harder time finding work in the wider community, so they generally stayed as sex workers for a lot longer - but for them it was also a lot more dangerous. While cisgender women generally worked within a massage parlour, cis men and trans sex workers found themselves mostly out on the street.
The NZPC fought hard for the rights of sex workers, with their work culminating in the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) 2003. In what has since been called the “New Zealand Model”, inspiring change in other countries, the Act legalised prostitution, brothel-keeping, and soliciting for all citizens over the age of eighteen - all with some light regulations. In the twenty years since its passing, sex work has evolved in Aotearoa. The New Zealand Model has attracted interest from international researchers, and Healy said that “not a week goes by without someone from around the world interested in what we’ve done here.”
There have been a swathe of studies into the effects that the PRA 2003 and the New Zealand Model have had on sex work and workers in Aotearoa, perhaps most extensively by a team lead by Professor Gillian Abel, Head of the Department of Population Health at Otago Uni’s Christchurch campus. These studies found that the legalisation of sex work didn’t increase the amount of people doing sex work, but rather has made conditions much safer for existing workers.
The legislation wasn’t perfect, though, and still isn’t. Lobbying from fundamentalist religious groups led to fears that trafficking would become commonplace if the PRA 2003 was passed, so Healy said the Minister for Immigration at the time, Lianne Dalziel, requested migrants be excluded from the Act. Migrants are still excluded, and Healy said it’s regrettable that migrants at university who are working as sex workers run the risk of being deported. Healy said that migrant sex work being illegal makes it more unsafe for those workers.
Additionally, many city councils quickly passed “really draconian” bylaws, banning brothels and sex work in their cities. Many of these bylaws were overturned in courts as they weren’t legal, but some remain today. Dunedin was one of the only cities that did not implement any restrictive bylaws, something that a 2021 Otago-based study found was a positive for sex workers in the city.
Healy said there are “much better relationships with the police” now. If they are in a situation where a client is out of line, sex workers don’t have to worry about being arrested if they call the police. Sex workers know their rights more, and many are choosing to work independently, or together with other sex workers to form collectives.
Izzy Stephens* started sex work as a full service escort at Dunedin’s La Maison in 2019. She was working on a dairy farm at the time, and sex work was the only other job that provided the pay and flexibility to work around her dairy job. Izzy didn’t have much experience, but said on her first few shifts the other girls taught her “riding, twerking, handjobs, blowjobs, body slides and makeup”. Izzy made good money, although once she became “established” at the brothel her paychecks decreased. “As a new girl I absolutely thrived, but it petered down once the clientele got used to me.”
Izzy said the clientele they would see was “very niche”, which she thought was largely because of the parlour's location. It’s “blocks away from the Octagon and the main party district and the opposite direction from Univille. So on a night out there isn't really a reason for groups to walk our way unless they were coming to the parlour or [Stiletto’s strip] club specifically already.” The street-facing entrance of the parlour was also a deterrent. “I think it made a lot of men uncomfortable at the idea someone could be watching them come in and out. We used to get a lot asking about another entrance or ‘back door’.”
After the closure of Pleasers and Venus in 2018 and 2020 respectively (owned by the same owners as La Maison and Stilettos), La Maison was the last brothel left in the city. When the pandemic arrived, sex work had to evolve with it. “Sex workers felt it immediately when we all had to go into lockdown,” Dame Healy told Critic. The wage subsidy was available to sex workers and was taken up by many, although it is difficult to estimate any numbers. Healy also said that for some it wasn’t an option. “Some were already on Jobseekers or student allowance, or others were operating outside the system so their income stopped immediately and they felt afraid to come into any system, and that was quite hard.” Getting the wage subsidy meant having your real name and occupation on file with Inland Revenue, something many sex workers are uncomfortable with due to the ongoing stigma of sex work.
Dixie Normos started sex work independently while she was studying, but said “it was a real struggle keeping myself safe in the beginning,” and eventually she signed a contract with La Maison as she was told it was a lot safer. Dixie joined the industry after the pandemic had already begun but said “I know from others that have been working longer than I have that everything has changed.”
Izzy agreed, saying after lockdown clients were less compliant and cooperative, and more aggressive, and “even regulars that were trusted seemed to change.” Izzy said that when she first started sex work it felt glamorous, with lots of “doing drugs and taking photos and dancing along to music”. After lockdown, and the economic downturn that the pandemic created, “it wasn't a party anymore, the atmosphere became very sombre, us girls were there to hope to make enough to cover the week while also being terrified about what situations of the night we were set to face.” Izzy said that the workers continued because they were desperate and struggling. “It was no longer fun.”
There were also a number of safety concerns the escorts had, from the building’s single entry and exit point and the lack of any on-site security. Tabitha, who managed La Maison and continues to manage the Stilettos strip club, said that the lack of on-site security was at the request of the escorts, who weren’t comfortable with someone who wasn’t a sex worker being around at all times. “We go above and beyond to accommodate every worker with their unique circumstances and needs to ensure everyone can work safely.” If needed, workers would call the security at Stilettos to come assist. “All workers were also aware that we have an excellent working relationship with the Dunedin Police and can always call them for a prompt response,” Tabitha told Critic.
Despite these concerns, sex workers stayed at the brothel because it was the only one in the city and “despite its failings, it was still safer than working privately as an independent,” Izzy said. La Maison closed late last year, leaving the sex workers of Dunedin without any managed venue to work under. They had no choice but to work for themselves, or quit the industry entirely.
Healy said this change was “pretty hard” for workers, but also points to a wider trend. “A lot of sex workers prefer to collectivise and work together, or work independently. Lots of networks have sprung up where sex workers can support each other and share spaces together which is great, providing there aren’t hostile city bylaws.”
Izzy has shifted to finding clientele online. At the brothel most clients were “older men”, “groups of men in their 20s”, and “regulars”. She said the groups of younger men were often drunk, rowdy, and disrespectful, but for the most part clients were polite and easy to deal with. “Online is a whole other ball game,” she said. “These are usually men who are cheating on their wives and girlfriends, or men who want to become buddies with a sex worker thinking that he can "make content" with her. I've found that clientele that I've hustled online are generally a lot harder to negotiate with, they barter and argue the prices and boundaries set and they can be very demanding and disrespectful during the service.”
Dixie said that despite issues with management “there was a community at the parlour,” and she worries for people starting sex work now that won’t have access to that community. “We had each other’s backs and held each other when we needed it and shared tips and tricks and made sure everyone knew which clients were dodgy… There are more private incall spaces for hire cropping up which is nice, but you don’t get walk-in clients like you would at the brothel - you have to manage your own bookings from an advertisement, so you’re missing out on clients who don’t use the internet to find services,” which is reportedly a large portion of the older clientele.
“With the shutdown of the parlour there is no longer anywhere ‘safe’ within the CBD to work during nights,” Izzy explained to Critic Te Arohi. While there are a small number of private incall spaces for hire, they are poorly advertised, often only through word of mouth. Dixie also pointed out that for the most vulnerable of sex workers, even these systems are out of reach. “As long as there are broke people there will be street workers. Having a burner, having $25 to put an ad up, having an incall space, or the money to rent one, having a phone top-up, they’re all privileges.”
Izzy said she is seeing many new faces pop up in the industry, and she is worried they might be “unaware of the facilities, help and support available to them through group chats, social media accounts, community, sexual health and the NZPC. There's safety in numbers. There's safety in community and communication.”
In speaking to Critic, Tabitha revealed plans to reopen Pleasers this year, potentially in a matter of weeks. Building is well underway, and Tabitha said it is “custom-built for parlours, so the inadequacies of La Maison and Venus, where they were turned into parlours, won’t be an issue”. Tabitha hopes many workers will return upon its opening. Pleasers would mark a return of a managed brothel to Dunedin, but isn’t a universal solution to all the problems faced by sex workers.
In many cases, the issues sex workers faced in the 80s are still a problem today. Dame Catherine Healy pointed to stigma as the biggest root of these problems. This ranges from uneasy looks to “very active discriminatory policies”. Some banks in Aotearoa have been called out for refusing to work with sex workers or brothel operators. Sex workers can face being disowned by family, or simply “the feeling that sex work can act as an impediment to their futures.” Dame Healy believes that while we have come a long way, anti-discrimination legislation is needed to protect sex workers, like the recent legislation passed in Victoria, Australia. “Ultimately it would be nice to see inclusion in the Human Rights Act.”
Dixie said there a number of things that would improve life for sex workers in Dunedin, from new venues with a “variety in venue ownership”, to more people volunteering at the NZPC locally. She also said that “if students trying to book could stop trying to haggle for discounts because they’re poor students that would be great - get the fuck over yourselves, blowjobs are privileges, not rights. We aren’t a fucking charity.”
Sex workers also said that it should be recognised that sex is just one part of sex work. Most of the work is posting ads, scheduling bookings, updating social media, preparing rooms and beds, and talking to clients. It’s admin, just like any job. Sometimes it can feel like social work, too. “There’s a huge men's mental health crisis in NZ and we are sometimes the only support men have, even if they aren’t booking for that reason,” Dixie said. Sex workers like Dixie want the rest of Aotearoa to remember that sex work is work, just like any other profession. “Sex workers are a part of our society, not apart from it.”
*Names changed