The Sex Work Pandemic
When you use your body to make money, the coronavirus crisis is apocalyptic
This week, I returned to posting on my Forbes blog, where I’ve narrowed my beat to the business of sex. With the COVID-19 pandemic dominating the headlines, I decided to find out how sex workers are being impacted by the crisis.
The Stripper
First, I reached out to Chase Kelly, a New Orleans-based stripper who works on Bourbon Street and who I’ve interviewed before. A veteran dancer, Chase is also a coach to other strippers—her business is called Survive the Club—and, as she puts it on her Instagram profile, she provides “solidarity for the stripperhood.”
In an interview, I found out how dancers across the country have been impacted—and the picture is bleak. Clubs are closed, dancers are struggling financially, and sex workers are finding themselves once again shut out of support systems.
Is this the first stage of a strip club apocalypse?
Here’s what Chase says:
“No, you can’t take us out. It’ll change things for awhile but people will always need entertainment, and sex will always sell, and we are always going to find a stage to dance on. We are the most tenacious workforce I've seen. Many things have tried to snuff us out, but we aren’t going anywhere. Clubs will close, but in their place new clubs will open. I’m not giving up my art form, anyway, so we will have to find a way to make it work. Maybe if we’re lucky, we will see the return of the peep show in the U.S.”
[Photo credit: Wikipedia]
The first time I ever visited a peep show was in San Francisco. I went to The Lusty Lady by myself. Before I stepped into the booth, the guy working there told me to wait. Then he grabbed a mop and mopped the floor and the walls. Then I stepped inside.
The Sex Worker
For my next Forbes post, I interviewed a sex worker we decided to call Anonymous Was a Woman. An escort, she’d found her income had plummeted, and she was trying to figure out what to do next. And she wasn’t alone. She painted a stark picture of the realities of being in the flesh business when everyone’s afraid of getting to close to anyone else.
Towards the end, I asked her what we lose when we lose sex workers.
She replied:
“[Sex work is] a space focused on your personal, intimate needs and sometimes desire to connect to another person without the expectation for reciprocating that kind of care or navigating when your needs are not aligned. For a lot of people, seeing a sex worker is holding that space of vulnerability—plus escapism and fun. I have clients I've seen through hard times, many of whom carry a lot of responsibility in work and in their personal lives, and I got to be the one person where they could say: ‘I'm having a hard time, and all I want is to not think about that for a while.’ Who doesn't need that right now?”
[Photo credit: Susannah Breslin]
Speaking of escorts and their clients, remember Letters from Johns? I launched that project back in 2008. For a year, I received letters from men I’d never met who confessed to me their experiences with prostitutes. Then I posted their anonymous letters online. They were a remarkable read. Here are a few standouts.
The Artist
For my third Forbes post, I talked to Hannah Bates, an artist making COVID-19 masks out of her used panties to raise awareness about restrictions on getting abortions in some states due to the coronavirus crisis.
Here’s a peek into her process:
“Breslin: Do you actually wear the panties before you turn them into masks?
Bates: I wear them for a day, sew them into a mask, and seal them in an airtight bag.”
[Photo credit: Hannah Bates]
Finally, I know I’m a bit late, but this week I watched the first season of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Good grief.
Can you imagine a world in which women’s bodies are hijacked for political reasons?
Where women are made to feel shame for sexual expression?
Where the government controls a woman’s right to reproduction?
Can you imagine that?
Well, can you?
Thanks to Chase, Anonymous, and Hannah for sharing their stories. If you know a sex worker who may be struggling financially, send her some cash (you can ask her for the best way to do that). Or you can donate to the Sex Workers Outreach Project.
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