A few years ago I was out for drinks with a group when a friend walked into the bar and excitedly shared some good news.

“Hey guys – I got a new job,” he said.

We clinked our glasses in congratulations.

“Yeah, I’m an escort,” he proclaimed, smiling.

We all looked to each other, bewildered. Was this some sort of practical joke?

Then our friend started talking about the particulars of his new profession, pointing us to a display ad he’d taken out in the pages of The Bay Area Reporter http://www.ebar.com/ . As a journalist, I had all sorts of questions. Was it dangerous? Was it creepy?

He shared the details – including photos of his customers that he’d taken on his cell phone camera.

I grew up in a small, conservative New England town, and until then I’d only had one opinion about prostitutes: They were all victims. People didn’t get into that line of work unless they had no choice. It was about abuse, drugs, pimps, or poverty. Right?

But my friend didn’t have any of those issues. He was smart, articulate and educated. I could not say that he was a victim.

Today’s column takes readers into the world of Bay Area prostitution, and the current controversy surrounding the “adult” services ads on Craigslist. Some want the ads banned because they believe such work victimizes and exploits people.

I have no doubt that the people crusading against prostitution have their hearts in the right place. People should never be forced to do such things against their will. This surely happens, and as a society we need to intervene.

But is every person advertising in the adult services section of Craigslist a victim? Trying to answer this question was challenging.

It turns out that scientific surveys of sex workers are often considered flawed. As Carol Queen of San Francisco’s Center for Sex and Culture pointed out, “There is no social science that can adequately take an accounting of people who don’t want to be counted.” Prostitution is, after all, illegal everywhere in the United States, except for regulated brothels in Nevada.

So I relied on experts from the various sides of this contentious issue. Whether or not it’s possible for someone to voluntarily be a sex worker is a source of intense debate.

To tell the story, I wanted to speak with someone currently using Craigslist. Over the course of several days, I sent emails to people who had posted in the adult services section. I was up front and introduced myself using my real identity and said I was working on a news article. When I received a reply, we traded emails and eventually agreed to meet in person.

Why did he talk to me?

A researcher told me that in order to interview sex workers I’d have to pretend to hire them, and then arrange to meet in a public place and only then tell them it was for a story. I understand why from a research perspective this would allow for a diverse, possibly more representative sampling, but it’s a problem to do journalism based on a lie.

When I sent my queries, I included links to my recent stories. The person I interviewed vetted me and discovered that I had also written a novel about San Francisco’s underground – so he concluded that I was legit.

Since I ended up interviewing a man, I wondered if male sex workers have substantially different experiences than women. Are they less likely to be victimized?

An anti-prostitution expert I spoke with believed most men were just as easily victimized as women, and in the case of effeminate men or transgendered men, even more so.

Of course, readers will ultimately decide whether all sex workers are victims. What do you think?