The Pandemic Has Hurt All Sex Workers — the Poor, the Worst
While high-class escorts move their businesses online, brothel workers and streetwalkers are out of a job and ineligible for government aid
The pandemic has taken a toll on the lives of all sex workers, but it’s affected poor sex workers the worst.
High-end escorts in wealthy countries with secure housing and access to high-speed internet have simply moved their businesses online. Many of these women already had an established online presence at the onset of the coronavirus outbreak.
Their bottom lines have taken a hit, but they’ll recover when the crisis is over and they can start meeting with their clients in real-time again.
Sex workers who work in brothels, strip clubs and on the streets haven’t been so lucky. The poorer the country they live in, the more precarious their situation.
Ineligible to receive relief from their governments because their jobs are viewed as illegitimate, even illegal, some sex workers are still risking their lives to see clients.
“We are trying to avoid greeting each other and we are using condoms,” Mama G, a Kenyan sex worker, told Hype 69.
That’s not enough to protect themselves against the coronavirus.
Clients are also taking advantage of the crisis.
“It’s a very vulnerable time for sex workers,” Andrea Werhun, a former escort and author of the memoir Modern Whore, told NOW: “You have a lot of clients who are looking to lowball sex workers’ rates because of the current climate.”
Because work is so scarce, those clients still willing to see sex workers are offering a fraction of what they would have paid for a session in pre-pandemic times. Women feel forced to accept these discounted rates because there’s so little business.
Critics of the sex industry might declare it serves these women right. Sex workers are often breaking the laws of their country. They shouldn’t be doing these jobs in the first place — and now they’re complaining their governments aren’t helping them like they are other workers?
Were sex work to be decriminalized in every country and the jobs of sex workers recognized, the lives of sex workers in this time of crisis would be much less at risk.
It’s not so simple to denounce sex workers for their job choices. Mama G told Hype 69: “I wanted to be a teacher but there are no jobs in Kenya.”
Many sex workers work simply to survive. They often support families with their salaries, however meager.
When governments refuse to help sex workers, entire families are at risk.
The children and the elderly who depend on these women for food and shelter are placed in danger of going hungry and becoming homeless.
That, in turn, only increases their chances of falling ill from the coronavirus — and spreading it.
Sex worker advocacy groups are lobbying for governments to recognize sex workers and make them eligible for relief. Many groups are even taking it upon themselves to raise their own funds to come to the aid of the hardest hit.
Still, the pandemic has underlined just how insecure the jobs of sex workers are around the globe, as well as how much their lives are affected by stigma, discrimination, and their criminal status.
The decriminalization of sex work is the only answer. In the words of Werhun in her interview with NOW:
“…there is no reason why consensual sex work should be a criminal offence…”
Were sex work to be decriminalized in every country and the jobs of sex workers recognized, the lives of sex workers in this time of crisis would be much less at risk.
Privileged sex workers have moved their businesses online
“This is why we need multiple streams of income,” Lydia Dupra, otherwise known as the Heaux Mentor, an entrepreneur and consultant for women who want to get into the escort business, expressed in her YouTube video about how sex workers can still make money during the coronavirus outbreak.
“Your premium snap chats, your OnlyFans, doing webcam…” Dupra says, listing the ways that sex workers can still earn a living even when they can’t meet their clients in person.
This is exactly how I’ve been getting by since the onset of the pandemic.
I learned my lesson after FOSTA/SESTA was passed, a law that brought down most of the websites I once depended on for my clients to be able to find me.
Because I never wanted to be dependent on a few websites again, I diversified my business. I started to do phone sex, camming, making amateur porn and creating premium content for my social media sites.
I already had an online presence built up when I was ordered to start social distancing. Yes, I’ve lost income, but this crisis hasn’t destroyed me financially.
Even so, setting up an online business is not an instant solution. It took months, if not years, to get my online sex-work career going.
Arabella Raphael, an artist and sex worker, echoes this sentiment, telling KQED:
“The hard thing is people who haven’t had an online presence aren’t gonna make money right away, it’s a lot of work. It took me years to build something where it’s like, someone can live off of this.”
Still, Raphael has created a tutorial to help other sex workers set up accounts on the “for-pay” social media platform, OnlyFans. She has also promised to create more tutorials to teach her peers how to set up accounts on other sites so they can continue to make money during the pandemic.
Moving their businesses online is not the answer for all sex workers, though, because some fear going public. Making money online necessitates posting explicit photos and videos of themselves, which puts them at risk of being discovered by family and friends.
As a mother, I have also had this fear. Still, it’s a risk I’ve been willing to take.
For me, having an online presence outweigh the drawbacks. What’s happening now is exactly why I created multiple income streams years ago.
But for those sex workers who live in poorer countries, they might lack the computers and expensive camera equipment necessary to create such online businesses. They might not have access to high-speed internet or even secure housing where they can shoot content.
For such women, building an online sex work career from scratch during the pandemic is difficult if not impossible.
Some sex workers, especially those in poorer countries, are still working despite the danger
As in any time of crisis, the most vulnerable are hit the worst. Sex workers in poorer countries are suffering in ways those in Europe and the U.S. are not.
Take brothel workers in Singapore. After the government ordered bars, nightclubs, and cinemas closed until the end of April, Singapore’s red-light district followed suit.
“I don’t know how we’ll survive,” one sex worker in Singapore told Reuters. “We don’t get looked after like people in other jobs.”
Life isn’t better in Nigeria. According to The Daily Times, the coronavirus outbreak has forced sex workers to see customers at reduced prices.
Now many are out of a job altogether as the Nigerian government ordered a lockdown in the capital city of Lagos.
In Kenya, some sex workers are ignoring calls to social distance and are continuing to work. Mama G, one such Kenyan sex worker, told Hype 69:
“I have bills to pay so we are risking it all… We are still doing [sex work] after all if God said Corona will kill you nothing will change that.”
Andrea Werhun told NOW: “It’s a privilege to stop working.”
For many sex workers, this privilege simply doesn’t exist.
Sex worker advocacy groups are calling on their governments to help
According to Pink News, the English Collective of Prostitutes is asking for British sex workers to be included in the government’s emergency financial relief programs. They’ve been excluded because sex workers are criminalized in Britain and denied status as real workers.
Other sex worker advocacy groups around the world are also asking their governments for help.
South African groups, the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce and the National Movement of Sex Workers, have joined forces to issue a statement, calling on the President of South Africa to include sex workers in the Temporary Employee Relief Scheme.
“In emergency situations such as these, [sex workers] cannot claim for any financial aid from the government during times when they cannot work. Since the outbreak, sex workers have recorded a drastic decrease of their clientele, which has put many of them in dire financial strains that further pushes them to the margins and exposes them to risky sexual behaviour and violence.”
But as governments fail to act, other advocacy groups take relief efforts into their own hands.
Canadian sex worker advocacy group PACE Society has set up a sex worker relief fund to help sex workers in Vancouver.
BAWS, a Bay Area-based advocacy group, re-launched a microgrant program that distributes payments of $50–$200 to the hardest hit sex workers.
The Sex Worker Outreach Project, a U.S. advocacy group, has organized fundraisers for sex workers in cities like Los Angeles, Austin, and New York.
Canadian groups, Butterfly and Maggie’s Sex Worker Action Group have teamed up to host an emergency fund for sex workers who can’t support themselves during the pandemic.
According to HuffPost, “Every worker who applies to the fund gets a one-time grant of $100, doled out weekly.”
However, a representative for Maggie’s Toronto SWAP told HuffPost that even with the thousands that have been raised, there are too many applications for what’s available.
Governments must recognize sex workers and help as well.
Many sex workers are mothers who support families.
On International Sex Worker Rights Day, which took place on March third, the English Collective of Prostitutes ran an ad campaign in London tube trains, reminding the public:
“Most sex workers are mothers supporting families. Outlaw poverty not prostitutes!”
When sex workers can’t pay their bills, this affects whole families. Governments need to take this into account.
Sex workers who are mothers are now also in charge of homeschooling their children
Even with an online business in place, life during the pandemic hasn’t been easy for me. As a mother, I now also have to homeschool my children. This makes earning a living, even for a privileged sex worker like myself, more difficult.
Solana Sparks, an American sex worker based in Washington state, whose partner is also a sex worker, told Slixa:
“My partner is a parent and school was canceled, so she has to stay home with her child. Working parents now have to be home with their kids and don’t have incoming money to afford childcare.”
While our children are home, sex workers also can’t work. Even with my virtual sessions, I have to wait until evening, when my kids’ “school day” is over and their father can take them, to begin answering phones and camming for money.
My workday has been greatly shortened. This affects my bottom line.
Still, I’m better off than many sex workers around the world simply because I have the option to work online.
What can you do to help?
You can help those sex workers who out of jobs due to the coronavirus by searching your local sex advocacy group to donate money.
Lola Davina, author of Thriving in Sex Work: Heartfelt Advice for Staying Sane in the Sex Industry, is also calling on people to donate money directly to sex workers.
Lyla, a Canadian-based escort advertising platform, also asks those who might typically watch free porn to book a live cam show so the women who created the content can actually get paid.
Since the hardest hit sex workers don’t have access to camming and might not even be able to receive electronic payments, reaching out to an advocacy group will secure the money goes to the most at-risk.
This is a time for self-improvement
And for those of us who are privileged enough to be holed up inside our houses, waiting for the coronavirus to be contained?
Lydia Dupra says to use this time for self-improvement.
“If business is slow it’s a great time to self-educate, to focus on your health… Being healthy is an asset.”
If the coronavirus outbreak has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t take our health for granted. As the number of cases continues to increase around the world, we still brace ourselves for the worst to come.
At the very least, we can use this time to improve our health so we can emerge from this pandemic with the strength to recover our losses once it’s all over.
