This was one of Newshub's top stories of 2023. It was originally published on May 27.
It's late Friday morning in Lower Hutt and while most people are already well into their working day, Olivia is just waking up.
The 18-year-old gets to pick her own hours, which for her means sleeping in. Once she's up, her routine is very similar to most other young women. She showers, does her makeup and picks out an outfit for work.
But for Olivia, who is a sex worker, the rest of her day looks very different to most of her peers. Sex work was decriminalised in New Zealand in 2003 but, despite this, it's still an industry shrouded in secrecy.
The adult entertainment industry burst into the public eye earlier in the year when a group of 19 strippers working at Calendar Girls in Wellington had their contracts unlawfully terminated after trying to negotiate for better conditions.
The group, calling themselves Fired Up Stilettos, took a petition to Parliament in a historic first lobbying against what they said were systemic, pervasive injustices in the industry.
Their complaints included management taking too much of their earnings, unfair and coercive fines and being treated like employees, despite legally being classed as independent contractors.
Most people who work in the adult entertainment industry in New Zealand are classed as independent contractors, including escorts.
Newshub spoke to several people involved in the sex work industry in Aotearoa to get a better idea of the conditions and whether the Calendars Girls dispute is indicative of wider problems.
Before choosing to become a sex worker, Olivia was an assistant manager at a café. She was constantly overworked, treated poorly and never had any money, so she decided she needed to do something different.
Olivia was looking at other options when some of her male friends joked that she should become an escort - which is exactly what she did.
The 18-year-old immediately fell in love with the work which allowed her immense financial and time freedom. It meant she could pick how much she worked and had plenty of money to pursue her interests - such as cars.
She enjoys the work too. While it might seem like it's all about sex, it's not. Olivia said her favourite part is meeting new, interesting people and, hopefully, making their day a bit better.
"Often they [clients] genuinely need somebody to talk to and need this experience. That's why sometimes I wish I could be out in society and say, 'Well, actually [I'm a sex worker] and I take a lot of pride in my job'," she told Newshub.
"If a client comes in and he's had a terrible day, I have people who I call criers, they'll cry on me and then they leave a smile on their face and that makes me really happy as well."
But unfortunately, she said there's still a lot of stigma about her job and she's been verbally harassed and abused for it.
"I've definitely had people yell at me across the street things like, 'You filthy whore' and stuff like that which I find really amusing. I usually just laugh at them and I'm like, 'Oh my God, why do you feel you have to go out of your way to say something horrible to someone when it's not even true'."
Bev is the owner and operator of Paris, a brothel in Lower Hutt, where Olivia works. She is a kind and cheerful woman who is seen as a "mum figure" by the women who work for her.
She got her first job as a receptionist at a massage parlour more than 20 years ago when sex work was still illegal. In true pre-internet fashion, a then young and sheltered Bev stumbled across the job in the paper and decided to check it out, despite her savvier friend saying it looked "a bit dodgy".
In spite of the warning, she took the job and quickly fell in love with the industry. But right from the start, there were parts she didn't like.
It would be easy to assume her biggest issue in the industry before reform was dealing with the police, but this wasn't the case. Bev said even before decriminalisation the police were fantastic and took complaints from sex workers seriously.
Instead, the thing she liked the least was how some business owners treated their staff, for example, fining women for not showing up to work or discouraging them from finding out about their rights.
Bev recalled one of the massage parlours she worked at pre-reform paid women $75 an hour but fined them as much as $200 if they didn't show up for a shift. Even then Bev said she felt uncomfortable with the fines, but it was standard at the time, and she didn't know any better.
If this sounds familiar it's because it is behaviour Fired Up Stilettos has accused Calendar Girls management of. And for Bev, it's one of the main reasons she bought her own business.
"Back in those days [pre-reform], the owners didn't want them [sex workers] to know their rights and what they were entitled to," Bev told Newshub.
"At the time you go with what you were told to do, which is not always a good thing. But eventually you just think, 'I don't want to be doing this and there must be a better way'."
So she opened her own business, which she deliberately operates very differently from the ones she worked at pre-reform. She doesn't fine her workers, they choose their own hours, set their own boundaries and are never punished for cancelling work or leaving early. They are truly treated like independent contractors and have flexibility and control over their own schedules.
She also regularly encourages them to speak to the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) if they need advice or help, and feels the most important part of her job is making sure only people who want to be working are.
It's such a strong driver for her, she's even encouraged women to leave the industry if they don't like the work.
"I've come across girls that will say, 'I need to work. I need the money, but I hate that job'. I'm like, 'Well, I think you need to go to the NZPC and talk to them. They've got ways of helping you and getting you into other work. You shouldn't be putting yourself through this if it's damaging to your mental health'."
"I just don't feel they should work when they're in that position. Regardless of wanting the money, they sometimes can't see a way of living without that money but there's always a way."
Bev's approach often means more work for her, such as rescheduling clients if a sex worker cancels her shift at the last minute or decides to leave early. But it's worth it for Bev, and it doesn't go unnoticed by the women who work for her, like Olivia, who says having a supportive and understanding manager makes a world of difference.
An unashamed advocate for sex work
Mary Brennan has worked in the industry for 27 years. Brennan is the Madam of the Funhouse, an upmarket brothel in Wellington. She's an outspoken and unashamed advocate for sex work and works hard to dispel misconceptions about the industry.
This makes stories of treatment like the Fired Up Stilettos group experienced even more frustrating for her. She said the way they are being treated smacks of pre-reform and has no place in modern, safe and legal sex work.
For her, it's frustrating because it plays into the already well-ingrained preconceptions many people have about sex work.
"It is annoying because it feeds into the general public's perception of us. I'm constantly doing media, I tell people what I do, I give people the opportunity to ask questions because I want them to hear the honest truth about what it's like, not what they see in the media," Brennan told Newshub.
"I have beaten the media into submission about not doing an interview with me and then using photos of a street worker. Sure, street workers are part of our family and our community, as our porn stars, cam girls, strippers, whatever. But the general public, that's what they see - street workers and strippers, that's what they see as the sex industry.
"They have no idea or understanding that places like Funhouse exist...And yeah, it is really annoying because this sort of shit just feeds into the horrible misconceptions about us anyway. Because in general, the sex industry's pretty good these days. And with the internet and the NZPC and the police being on board, it's a much safer industry than it was even before reform."
She said the most important part of her business are the workers and treating them with the respect they deserve is crucial. All the women who work for her are treated as true independent contractors, they set their own hours, decide which bookings to take and can leave whenever they want.
While this might sound like good business practice, it's also the law. In 2003, Aotearoa became the first country to decriminalise sex work when it passed the Prostitution Reform Act. It made sex work legal for all New Zealand citizens and permanent residents aged 18 and over, but it is still illegal for migrants on any kind of temporary visa.
The law also stipulates, sex workers have the absolute right to decline clients at any time without providing a reason, even if they have already paid. This means nobody - including brothel operators, receptionists, minders, or clients - can force a sex worker to have sex.
A better, safer industry but not perfect
Olivia has only ever had positive experiences with managers in the industry and said she was shocked and horrified to hear about the experiences of some strippers and sex workers during the recent Calendar Girls protests.
"We're all in the same industry and to hear their boundaries aren't being respected... whereas where I work it's very important that I set my own boundaries and I've got every right to and I've got my workplace following me up on my boundaries. So to hear, 'Hey, what you guys are comfortable with isn't being respected and all this horrible stuff is going on'. It just seems really outdated," she said.
"It's 2023 and this is New Zealand which is known for being a really progressive country, but this stuff is still under the rug and people are trying to keep it this way... it's a huge worker's rights issue."
