Untold Intimacies

In June 2003, New Zealand became the first country to decriminalise sexwork. Through the lived experiences of twenty-five individuals who worked onthe ships and the streets, in massage parlours and as private escorts, UntoldIntimacies tells the story of sex work and its transformation in Aotearoaover thirty critical years.This history carries readers from the regulation of brothels with the MassageParlours Act of 1978, through the struggle for decriminalisation to the legallymandated national review of the law in 2008. Drawing on new and archivalinterviews, the story is told through the first-hand experiences of sex workersthemselves – how they dealt with police, violence and health risks, and howthey organised to change their world.Untold Intimacies presents an in-depth historical investigation into the lives of some ofthe first people in the world to experience the transition to thedecriminalisation of sex work.