Online sex work has become even more of a booming business since the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. Some sites, like OnlyFans and www.panamecorte.com, have experienced boosts in new memberships as high as 75%. More people than ever are turning to online sex work to supplement their income – and likewise, more people than ever are stuck at home with no access to partnered sexual experiences outside of their interactions with online sex workers. It’s no wonder this industry has seen a massive uptick.
But it’s important to note, too, that the past few years have been some of the hardest ever for sex workers, including those who work predominantly or exclusively online. Laws like SESTA/FOSTA, signed in by Trump in 2018, have severely limited sex workers’ ability to advertise their wares, recruit and vet clients, and get paid for what they do, among other things. There’s also still huge stigma surrounding sex work, despite its proliferation being such that you probably know at least one person who does it, even if you think you don’t. It may be the “oldest profession” but it’s nowhere near the easiest or most fun.
I’ve never been a full-time sex worker, but I’ve done cam shows, made porn videos, and sold nudes occasionally over the past several years – and I have to say, the pandemic has been an interesting time to be in that biz. I’ve gotten more unusual fetish requests than I ever had before, including some that were so extreme I didn’t feel comfortable fulfilling them. It makes me wonder if some people have been exploring their sexualities more deeply over the past year, since “normal life” is on pause and many of us have more time for self-reflection. (Kudos and congrats to those folks for their discoveries!) I think there’s also an element of touch-starvation here – sometimes when you’ve gone a long time without sexual contact, your fantasies can become more “out-there” to make up for the lack of physical stimulation with some additional mental stimulation.
My clients’ communiqué has been different, too – some of them are unusually polite and sweet, presumably because we’re all living through a difficult time so kindness is paramount, while some have been surprisingly brusque and rude, presumably because the conditions of this pandemic are stressful AF and have also atrophied many of our social skills. You would think people would be nicer to sex workers, given what the folks in that industry have been put through these past few years, but nah…
I’ve also had to be more careful about the ways I take payments than ever before, having been burned by whorephobic payment processors and the puritanical laws that try to keep sex workers off all such platforms. It’s gotten so bad that many times I’ve considered giving up sex work completely, and focusing only on my more “respectable” writing work. If you care about sex workers’ livelihoods (which you should), please reach out to your local lawmakers to make that clear, and to demand that they work to repeal laws like SESTA/FOSTA that make sex work much more dangerous and precarious than it needs to be.
Despite all these roadblocks, I’ve still found comfort and solace in doing online sex work (sparingly) over the past year. When a client pays me to put on a cam show or make a sexy custom video, I have to put some effort into my appearance, something I’ve often let slide during this depressing hell-year despite how good it tends to make me feel. I also have to cultivate sexual energy in myself, because it’ll be super obvious if I’m not turned on at all – so sometimes I’ll take the time to do that by using sex toys in a hot bath, or spritzing on a perfume that makes me feel like a bombshell, or just giving myself a sensual mini-massage before filming. Most of my life over the past year has existed inside a computer or a TV, so my connection to my body feels somewhat weakened – and these little preparations help.
It’s a difficult, interesting, painful, yet uplifting time to be a sex worker. If your favorite sexy service provider helped you get through this past year, I hope you’ve been tipping them accordingly, treating them well, and writing to your congresspeople to express your concerns about how sex workers are being treated in the legal system. Shit’s tough out there, and anyone who brings more pleasure into this world – sexual pleasure included – deserves to be praised and rewarded for that tenacious effort.
This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.