Sex Work in the Time of Coronavirus
Strip clubs are shut down, cam sites are saturated with newcomers & IRL sex work means risking Covid-19. She Spends freelancer Kira Rosemarie covers what it means to be a sex worker during the global pandemic.
Illustration by Tori Hong.
It was a dead Thursday night at the Covington, Kentucky, strip club where Nancy, 25, used to work. March had been a bad month for business as news of the coronavirus spread faster than the disease. “It got so slow that only three girls were coming in,” she said.
That evening, even though there was no one to perform for, Nancy, Gigi, and Renee were still ready in their lingerie. They’d been sitting around for three hours, and “not a soul” had come in on what would have been a popular night.
“We were all three sitting at the bar, just drinking and talking to each other. Practically naked, just bitching,” Nancy told me. The manager, a woman who also tends bar at the club, served them drinks while they exchanged stories and lamented their lack of work.
“I have never wanted to dance so bad in my life!” said Gigi. And Nancy agreed. “I usually don’t even like dancing on stage,” she said. But they all just wanted to work.
Then the club got a call. “That was the first noise we heard [all night] — the phone ringing.” Nancy and the two other women at the bar wondered if it was a customer who was going to come in later. But there was no such luck.
The manager picked up the phone. After a moment of listening to the potential customer on the other line, she screamed, “No, fuck you!” and hung up.
Surprised, the trio of strippers at the bar laughed, put off by the manager’s sudden outburst. What happened on that call?
“They asked if we were testing all you girls for the fucking coronavirus!” the manager answered. And that was just the beginning.
Sex workers begin to face the COVID-19 shift
On Tuesday, March 17th, shortly after Nancy’s club got that call, it closed. She can’t work at any strip clubs in Ohio or Kentucky, where all bars and entertainment centers are shut down.
And she isn’t the only one to lose business to the virus. From those on the website OnlyFans, to cam girls, to strippers, to prostitutes, everyone who engages in any level of sex work has had to shift their strategy. Sex workers of all races, genders, and economic statuses have lost work.
Working for the mutual aid fund has been “totally soul-crushing and heartbreaking,” Diana, who asked to go by her first name only said. She’s been handing applications for Sex Worker Solidarity Network’s mutual aid fund and she’s the co-facilitator for the Tampa Bay chapter of Sex Workers Outreach Project. “But I think it’s probably the most important thing that we’ve done.”
“We had an undocumented sex worker who had a son with a disability who needed his medication,” Diana explained, “and she was $130 short on rent.”
The mutual aid fund starts with an intake form. Applicants explain what they need money for, when they need the money, and then answer some demographic questions. Diana and others at Sex Worker Solidarity Network then review the applications and determine need.
They average about one applicant per day. Of the applications they’ve received so far, 56 percent are sex workers of color, 27 percent are trans, 38 percent have a disability, 12 percent are undocumented, and 23 percent are unhoused.
Need is high, so many are turning to other forms of sex work to fulfill their needs.
Alternatives to in-person work
Some sex workers are starting (or returning to) online work. Before Nancy was a stripper, she worked as a cam girl through sites like Twitch and OnlyFans. Cam girls sell nude photos and host live streams in which they strip and perform sexual acts for their followers. But the customers could be rude, and the market was getting crowded.
“Stripping made [going back to online work] hard,” Nancy said. She explained that at the strip club, customers are polite. And if they aren’t, they’re escorted out.
Online, this isn’t the case. “People haggle you for your prices every time,” she said. Internet anonymity made those watching her streams feel like they could be “mean,” “vulgar,” and “demanding.” She would receive unsolicited dick pics, and some of her videos were downloaded and spread to other sites.
And then there’s market crowding.
“I noticed it getting crowded two years ago, before this whole shutdown,” she said, “only because it became more socially acceptable to be a sex worker, to be naked on the internet, and that’s a good thing. I’m happy about that.”
The pandemic, though, has meant unemployed folks are turning to online sex work as an income replacement. Nancy noted that this is just further crowding the market.
Too much competition is making it exceedingly difficult to earn good money as an online sex worker. Diana corroborated this claim.
“My best friend just started an OnlyFans, and she has made a total of eight dollars,” she said. “And she got a notification from OnlyFans that she was in the top 87 percent of earners.”
Running out of money — and means
Nancy was lucky. She’s getting the $1,200 stimulus check (as soon as the government decides to finally send it). She has some savings, and her landlord is being lenient while his tenets are out of work.
But even for those who received the stimulus checks already, money is running out. So some sex workers are doing the same thing that essential workers all over the country are doing: putting their safety on the line to work.
“I worry about a lot of sex workers out of work right now who are turning to prostitution or doing more prostitution than they already were,” Nancy said. “A huge number of women that I work with are also prostitutes on the side, and I have no problem with that.” She is, however, worried about their safety. “There’s this gray area of consent when money is offered,” she said.
Some sex workers are already working in this gray area.
“The reason that full [decriminalization] is really what every credible sex worker organization pushes [for] is because any time things get more precarious for sex workers... sex workers have less power in the transaction,” Diana said. “There was a trans sex worker who I was talking to the other day who said she took a client who was very drunk because she needed to make rent.”
The future of pandemic sex work
Sex work will continue even amidst stay-at-home orders, whether that’s online, in person, or some combination of the two. People have to pay rent and put food on the table.
Someone recently asked Diana if she thought some sex workers would work in person if they “get desperate enough.”
“I was like, `Ma’am, there are people working at Publix right now for nine dollars an hour!`” Diana laughed. “Yes, everyone who is desperate enough to work will continue going to work. Certainly, someone who can make in one hour what some of these essential workers — who are making minimum wage — make in a week.”
What can the average person do to help sex workers affected by COVID-19?
Donating to mutual aid funds like the one Diana is facilitating with Sex Worker Solidarity Network is one way to support sex workers during the pandemic.
Even a little bit can make a big difference. The mutual aid fund sent out close to $2,000 last month, and was able to assist, among others, the undocumented sex worker and her son. “We were able to buy her son’s medication and finish paying her rent for her,” Diana said.
If you can’t spare the cash right now, there are other ways to help out.
“The most you can really do for [sex workers] without contributing financially is just to like and retweet their stuff,” Nancy said. “If you know somebody who’s a sex worker online and you’re not into it… maybe you’re just a straight woman and that’s your friend and you want to help them… follow their social media.”
Diana agrees with Nancy about using social media for support. You can also subscribe to someone’s premium Snapchat or start paying for the porn you would usually try to get for free.
She added that you can also follow sex worker organizations and keep an eye out for what they need. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a call to your senator.
Additional Resources:
Donate to Sex Worker Solidarity Network’s mutual aid fund here.
If you want to apply to be a recipient of the mutual aid fund, apply with this form.
Read more about SWOP Tampa Bay here.
Follow Nancy on Twitter @PeachBelline and check out her (NSFW) website here.
