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I’m A Sex Worker Who Has To Decide Whether To Risk My Life To Pay My Bills During COVID-19
A lot of the job in full-service sex work is just trying not to die — and the coronavirus pandemic is making that even more difficult.
Sex work can be extremely dangerous. One study estimated that street-based full-service sex workers are 60 to 100 times more likely to be murdered than women who don’t do sex work. However, it’s impossible to get specific numbers because the murders of sex workers often go unreported and uninvestigated.
The death of a sex worker, especially a trans woman of color, is a common occurrence that’s met with little outrage. The police are yet another source of violence for sex workers.
So all we have are ourselves and one another. And virtually all full-service sex workers take some kind of precaution against getting murdered, whether it’s carrying a weapon or pepper spray, requiring references, sharing blacklists (including word of mouth) or any number of other methods.
I have the privilege to be able to screen clients, which many more-marginalized sex workers can’t do because they can’t afford to turn away clients. Similarly, when COVID-19 hit, a lot of sex workers (including myself) stopped seeing clients in person. Of course, the ability to stop seeing clients (at least for now) is a privilege that many sex workers don’t have ― I was only able to qualify for unemployment based on my straight-world freelance writing work.
Since then, the U.S. government has offered minimal support, and governors have begun encouraging businesses to reopen in states even as the rates of COVID-19 are increasing. Now, as I’m watching the COVID-19 numbers tick up on the news, I am terrified I might have to go back to work.
I am also thinking about all the sex workers who have had to continue working ― and no doubt make up a portion of the over 200,000 Americans who died from COVID-19 ― because a lot of us don’t have the ability to take time off before our money runs out. (Of course, the world will never know how many sex...
