Sex work is done in the public sphere, and its margins. I do my work in bars, strip clubs, casinos, hotels, and apartments—sometimes in the same 24 hour period. We are forever in a precarious position. Right now, there is a devastating loss of work. The fleeting stability we have created for ourselves is being ripped out from under us—live-work spaces such as brothels, the option of travel when things around us are dry, and clients who travel to us.
I have been sick for eleven days. Today my shortness of breath got so bad, my arms went numb. I was able to get tested for COVID-19 at CrescentCare two days ago, but I am still waiting for the results. I expect them to be positive. Under capitalism, being sick is unacceptable. Many sex workers are in this work specifically because of their inability to hold other employment due to factors such as chronic illness, mental health issues, or being the sole provider of care for another ill person or child. It has allowed us the rare opportunity to be sick or otherwise unfit for a job yet still provide for ourselves and others. This is not currently the case.
Sex workers have always been seen as disease vectors. As the world around us becomes what it has decided we were long ago, we won’t have safety nets. No health insurance, no unemployment benefits, some of us don’t have social security numbers. We will be met with an increase of policing, anti-loitering laws, stigma, and for the sex workers living trick to trick—the impossible decision to not hustle at this moment of severe need and uncertainty.
In the past few years, local governments have teamed up with faith-based organizations and the U.S. Department of Justice to close down strip clubs. Recent legislation like the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) has had a huge impact on sex workers across the board—shutting down and criminalizing online resources for prostitutes. This created massive opportunities for advertising platforms and other monopolizing agencies to increase fees, making safety practices inaccessible, or instilling fear around organizing for better working conditions. We have politicians using us in their campaigns, giving us promises to support us sometime in the future as they gain power. But the challenges extend far beyond what any legislation or lawmaker could create. The landscape of sex work is that of gendered violence, poverty, and white supremacy. It’s the most dangerous job you can have. Before the pandemic, what was the greatest risk? If I think outside myself, to street-based sex workers, to Black trans women, to migrant workers, this question is actually absurd. Everything about the landscape is a risk—to which the response from the state has been just as inadequate. They have always wanted us dead.
REVOLUTION AT POINT ZERO
There are existing and new emergency funds to support sex workers in need, such as the Lysistrata Fund, Bourbon Alliance of Responsible Entertainers (BARE) has a gofundme up for New Orleans sex workers, and @sw.solidarity has their Instagram store back up. There is an extensive list of resources and fundraisers for sex workers. If you send me an email, I will send you a list or help you find one that makes sense for you. Additionally, you can call the Sex Workers Outreach Project hotline, which will connect you to their social justice network dedicated to human rights of people involved in the sex trade: 877-776-2004.
Give cash to the sex workers in your neighborhood. Donate money to sex worker outreach funds and mutual aid groups, check in on your friends, be prepared to handle conflict without the police, stop relying on women and queer people to care for you. Learn to clean, to cook for others, to listen to the needs of those around you. Become reliable.
In my experience, February through May is the period in which most of our money for the year is made. The summer is going to be bleak. We have all dug ourselves out of holes in the past, but what happens when the hole has appeared around you instead of under you? I feel that sex workers will have to dig the whole city out, somehow, if we want to save ourselves.
IF THEY COME FOR THE LADIES OF THE NIGHT IN THE MORNING, THEY WILL COME FOR YOU AT NIGHT
It is in our interest to destroy white supremacy, gender, borders, and capitalism. This goes far beyond raising funds. Organized sex workers are considering the radical possibilities and practices of building autonomous networks specific to the conditions faced by those who sell sex and across criminalized economies. We envision what being against-work might look like—a vision emerging from sex workers struggling to become visible to each other, rather than becoming visible to the state. We resist facial recognition and other forms of surveillance, policing, and gendered violence not only because they affect us tremendously, but because we recognize the tactics used against us and our work are used against all people in their attempt at a joyous and healthy life. We will see in this crisis heightened economic exploitation and state regulation of economic exploitation. We must build our own autonomy.
NOPD must stop arresting people, all incarcerated people must be released, all vacant housing must be open to people who need it, and mutual aid and collective care must become integrated into our lives. We must reach a point where these processes of support, care, and autonomous flourishing are more vital to us than working for money, than jobs which in moments of desperation reveal themselves as futile. We must take or produce the resources our communities need directly. We must know our labor to be something used to feed us, spiritually and physically, because no one else will. We must move towards a full and joyous way of life that resists devotion to capital.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
COVID-19 Emergency Fund for New Orleans SWers
Lysistrata COVID-19 Mutual Aid Resource Compilation
Sex Worker Harm Reduction Resources (U.S. Based)
St. James Infirmary: List of Resources
Black Trans Media – Space to Be – Mutual Aid Support for Black Trans Women Navigating Sex Work