ASH MARINACCIO

From the 1970s through the early 90s, Times Square was a hotspot of illicit activity, most notably the sex trade. Now, a tourist trap, the mythology of the "bad old days" of peep shows and porn theatres continue to stir the imagination. Like Times Square, sex work and ideas around sex work have also evolved. This photo essay investigates sex workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fera Lorde is an escort, intimacy artist, and activist. Through SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Project), Lorde has been using the pandemic to help sex workers in Brooklyn organize for safety, health resources, and public access to resources cut during the pandemic. SWOP is providing monetary aid to those in critical need.

The Playpen, near Times Square is one of ten live peep shows left in the area following Mayor Giuliani's "clean up" in the early 1990s.

Sinnamon Love is a former porn creator. Amidst the coronavirus quarantine, she started a collective advocating for sex worker rights during the pandemic. Love formed the BIPOC Adult Industry Collective (BIPOC AIC), which aims to combat racism in the adult entertainment world. The group provides education, wellness resources, and financial microgrants to sex workers of color.

For many people, sex work means survival. Research shows that the criminalization of sex work doesn't end sex work; it only makes it more dangerous as it becomes more difficult to report abuse and violence, creates barriers to HIV prevention and other critical health care needs, and drives sex workers to isolated and potentially dangerous locations.

“There are people who enter sex work because it’s their passion and their drive, and it’s what they want to do, and they’re very excited about it,” Lorde says. “But for a lot of people, it’s a survival trade. Where the institution has failed you, and where you are fetishized and marginalized by society, you create a capital of your own labor, and your body is the means of production.” (Olivia Riggio, Sex Workers & Covid, https://indypendent.org/2021/02/sex-workers-covid/)

Sinnamon Love applies makeup in the bathroom.

Long before coronavirus, the internet changed the sex industry. In addition to making sex work more available, online message boards have made it easier for sex workers to connect and organize.

Tiana is Love's assistant. They share with me information about the advocacy work they've undertaken during the pandemic. Despite media representations suggesting that sex workers are in constant competition, mentorship within the sex industry is quite common, creates relationships, bonds, and ensures safer conditions.

The needs of sex workers are not all the same, and within an already marginalized industry, there are levels of privilege and power.

In recent years, organizations like Decrim NY have emerged to support the needs and safety of sex workers. Decrim NY advocates and organizes to shape New York City and State policy and public opinion around people in the sex trade. Decrim NY seeks to pass legislation to decriminalize sex trade offenses and decarcertate people who have been convicted of sex trade offenses so that they may move forward with their lives and get out of the criminal justice system. Finally, Decrim NY advocates destigmatizing sex work.

Lorde reminds us that for many sex workers during the pandemic, "the threat of starvation is a bit more all-encompassing than the threat of COVID."

Sex workers have a 45% to 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence and assault on the job. Sex workers of color, migrant, and LGBT sex workers experience an even greater risk (Urban Justice, Fact Sheet)

The NY State Legislature is currently debating between two bills that potentially decriminalize sex work. The Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act seeks to legalize sex work fully. At the same time, the Sex Trade Survivors Justice and Equality Act, adapted from the Nordic model, would decriminalize sex workers but keep in place laws penalizing pimps and clients.