Compass Gender Spotlight: Sex Work and the Pandemic

Amsterdam’s red-light district is normally crowded, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Netherlands has criminalized sex work for the first time in nearly two centuries (Flickr).

Last March, the windows of Amsterdam’s famous red-light district fell empty. In the Gambia, the beaches and hotels where sex workers sought out new clientele closed down. Police tape barred the doors of Singapore’s Orchard Towers, a shopping mall known for its massage parlors largely staffed by migrant sex workers. As people around the world kept their distance and governments enforced lockdowns, the sex industry, unsurprisingly, took a major hit. 

Most sex workers who work in person regularly come into close contact with clients—staying six feet apart isn’t exactly a realistic option. To put it lightly, sex work during a pandemic is risky. But as lockdown measures persisted, sex workers in several countries took to the streets in protest, demanding the right to return to their jobs. Sex workers in Amsterdam and Argentina alike shouted, “We want to work!” In Germany, signs read “Redlight ON.” In Bolivia, sex workers demanded an end to the 5 p.m. curfew. So why were so many willing to risk exposure to get back to work? In short, the alternative was, and remains, much worse. 

Sex Work, Stigma, and State Violence

Even in the best of times, sex workers face unique challenges—social stigma and legal restrictions make sex workers in many places vulnerable to violence and exploitation, whether at the hands of the state, their clients, or others looking to take advantage of their precarious position. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these problems while creating a host of new ones. 

Nora, a Wyoming-based dancer who asked to be referred to by her work name, worked in the first strip club in the U.S. to reopen in mid-May. In an email to the Caravel, she explained that although she was grateful for the income that came with reopening, the high risk of exposure frightened her: “On a busy Friday night, our tiny club would often be packed shoulder to shoulder, not a single mask in sight.” She mentioned wishing she could take busy weekends off to stay safe, but that doing so was not financially viable. Nora, along with several of her coworkers, contracted COVID-19 in early July. 

Still, Nora considers herself fortunate that her club reopened. She pointed to strip clubs in Philadelphia that don’t plan to open until 2021 or the release of a vaccine—“That's a lot of people going without income for a long time, especially if the strip club is the only job they can get.” She emphasized that survival sex workers and those who live in cities, particularly BIPOC and non-binary sex workers, have been hit the hardest by the pandemic.  

Prostitution laws vary widely around the world; since the pandemic, however, many places where prostitution is normally legal have criminalized it (Wikimedia Commons).

In several countries where prostitution is normally legal, shutting down clubs and brothels has come with the recriminalization of prostitution. However, a lack of alternative income and government support means many full-service sex workers have carried on working through the pandemic. Even in the few countries where sex workers are included in COVID-19 aid packages, the benefits are often well below sex workers’ typical income, leading many to supplement it by taking on clients. So, criminalization hasn’t ended the sex trade—it has made it a lot less safe. 

In Europe, many sex workers rely on regulated brothels, not just for meeting clients, but often as a place to live. In response to the pandemic, several governments ordered brothels to shut down, leading to a sudden loss of income and housing for the many workers who depend on them. 

This desperate situation coupled with increased police scrutiny has forced some into risky situations. In Hamburg, for instance, sex workers caught working during the ban could face fines of more than $6000, while clients faced no such penalty. A German sex worker reported to NPR that one of her clients knew of this rule, and thus demanded “more stuff than usual for quite a low price,” afterward threatening to call the police if she did not partially reimburse him. 

New York City’s Black Sex Worker Liberation March in August highlighted police violence against sex workers, particularly Black and transgender women (Twitter).

Rather than providing recourse, police have contributed to violence against sex workers in the wake of government bans; sex workers who are transgender, migrants, or women of color are particularly vulnerable to “over-policing and punitive measures linked to enforcement of COVID-19 regulations,” the Open Society Foundations found.  

For sex workers in countries where prostitution is normally illegal, this situation is nothing new; in Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, police regularly harass and blackmail sex workers who carry condoms in order to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases, and this harassment can escalate to physical and sexual abuse under the threat of arrest. In the United States, law enforcement officers have a similar history of engaging in predatory sexual behavior, harassment, and assault. But the pandemic has brought its own set of hardships to sex workers in these places. A lack of demand has forced some to lower their typical hygiene and safety standards—and their prices. 

Nora attributes the lack of effective protections available to sex workers to still-prevalent stigmas about sex work: “Culturally, we need to grow up.” She pointed to the "Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" (FOSTA) and the "Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act" (SESTA), two U.S. laws passed in 2018 that purport to combat sex trafficking but in practice prevent sex workers from screening clients online and sharing blacklists of unsafe clients. Laws like these, and other legislation criminalizing sex work, she argued, only make sex workers more vulnerable to abuse. “No one should have to fear for their lives because of a job that some people don't agree with,” she added.

Banned Aid

Sex workers have largely been abandoned by coronavirus assistance programs meant to address widespread economic hardship around the world, in part because sex work is not widely recognized as a legitimate profession. While well-known franchises, including Shake Shack, qualified for Small Business Administration loans in the United States, people who work in the sex industry didn’t make the cut. Sex workers in Canada also haven’t benefited from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy. Similarly, the sex industry was completely excluded from Japan’s cash handout program intended to support small companies. Emergency funds available for the general population in Colombia, Ecuador, and El Salvador are not available for sex workers. And in India, where prostitution is legal, one sex worker told News18 that “death will come faster” than governmental aid.

However, sex workers in countries where prostitution is normally legal have generally fared better than undocumented sex workers and those in countries where sex work is illegal or criminalized. Although prostitution is currently criminalized in the Netherlands for the first time in nearly two centuries, registered sex workers receive a monthly coronavirus lockdown allowance. Sex workers in Scotland were also included in relief packages. Still, sex workers were not included in financial relief funds in every country where prostitution is legal: in both Greece and Italy, sex workers didn’t receive benefits. In Italy, a group of transgender sex workers tapped into an unexpected source for help—the Catholic Church. Although the Church officially rejects transgender identities, Pope Francis provided financial assistance to the group who, without government aid, were struggling to afford food, housing, and medicine. 

Pascha in Cologne, Germany, was one of the biggest brothels in Europe until the owner filed for bankruptcy in early September (Wikimedia Commons).

In early September, European governments began to permit sexual services to resume; however, the economic landscape of the profession has changed greatly. Much of the demand for sex work has evaporated due to continued health concerns and slow tourism. Pascha, one of Europe’s biggest brothels, filed for bankruptcy in the same month.

While social distancing may be difficult or impossible, brothels have adapted to the pandemic through the development of new hygienic standards. In Germany, new rules include limiting face-to-face activities, requiring the use of masks, and prohibiting alcohol. 

Red Byte District

Faced with dangerous in-person working conditions and looking for new sources of cash, many sex workers took to the screens. Digital sex work takes various forms, the most popular of which include webcamming and adult-content subscription services.

In Colombia, sex workers and women previously employed in other sectors alike have taken up webcamming. Through webcam services, consumers pay models to virtually perform specific desires or tasks. This gives sex workers the opportunity to make money while remaining safe and isolated. One model noted that in contrast to in-person sex work, webcamming allows workers to control their clientele. 

Despite its comparative safety, webcamming has several disadvantages. With their content available on the Internet, many webcam performers fear having their livelihoods revealed to friends and family. But desperate times have led some to let go of their inhibitions: “Even if my family disowns me, at least I’m making money,” commented one model.

Additionally, the barriers to entry into the webcam industry are high. Not only is competition intense as sex workers across the globe compete for the same customers, but webcamming also requires a strong internet connection, and many rent out expensive studio space. 

With streets like Herbertstraße in Hamburg’s red light district shut down, many sex workers have turned to webcamming or subscription services like OnlyFans (Wikimedia Commons).

Others have instead turned to adult-content subscription services, most notably through the application OnlyFans. These services allow creators to post pay-per-view photos and videos to global audiences and have become incredibly popular during the pandemic. Between mid-March and June, OnlyFans reported a 75 percent growth rate, or an increase of approximately 200,000 new users every day.

Despite OnlyFans’ potential to revolutionize the industry, sex workers have encountered numerous problems with the service. In May, dozens of sex workers reported having their accounts suspended, despite not violating OnlyFans’ content guidelines. OnlyFans assured some that it was simply a “glitch” in the system, but many sex workers remain skeptical.

Another controversy with the service occurred in late August when actress Bella Thorne reportedly falsely advertised a “naked” photo on the service at the maximum cost of $200, causing users to demand refunds. Shortly after, OnlyFans announced new rules that included lowering the price cap to $50 and a payment hold of up to 30 days for creators in 14 countries. Sex workers blamed Thorne for these new rules, but OnlyFans claimed that they were not due to the actions of any one individual. 

Nonetheless, the changes make it more difficult for sex workers to make a stable income from OnlyFans, particularly those who do not have a large following on the service. “Imagine suddenly going from a weekly paycheck to a monthly paycheck,” tweeted Erika Heidewald, an OnlyFans creator, “That’s what’s happening to 450,000 content creators.” Challenges like these raise questions about the long-term viability of online sex work as a replacement for in-person services.

Community in Catastrophe

Though digital work has offered limited relief to some sex workers, by and large, the industry has been devastated. In response, the pandemic has seen sex workers organizing, fundraising, and advocating for themselves around the world. Mutual aid funds have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for those struggling to pay for basic necessities, while demonstrations have called for decriminalization and safer working conditions. 

Long forced to contend with discriminating laws, violence, stigma, and prejudice, sex workers are no strangers to adversity—and often lacking any outside support, they are used to relying on each other to make it through tough times. While COVID-19 has introduced unique challenges, the hardships faced by sex workers during the pandemic serve to highlight weaknesses that have always been present in the fragile system that so many depend on for survival.