How the Sex Industry Is Handling the COVID-19 Pandemic

Before the pandemic hit, Kelsey Louise had put her OnlyFans account on the backburner. The 29-year-old stripper had started an account on the content-subscription social media site with her then-boyfriend as a way to make money for a down payment on a house. After the relationship fizzled, Louise all but forgot about the online platform. But when the COVID-19 pandemic kept her from working outside the home, she did what sex workers across the globe have been doing — she went online.

“Going virtual with my services was something I was looking to implement to supplement my income anyway,” Louise tells the Scene by phone. “But now instead of going into my savings account, it’s going into my checking account so I can eat.”

Louise, who is also pursuing a master’s degree in mental health counseling, has amassed a large social media following in her five years as a sex worker — her Instagram account, @tennesseequeen, has 13.6K followers. When she started putting content on OnlyFans, she was among the legions of sex workers turning to online services to maintain financial stability during the COVID-19 pandemic. OnlyFans reported 3.5 million new sign-ups in March, and 60,000 of them were new creators, according to the Daily Beast. 

But not all sex workers are quite as comfortable working in the online arena. Spitfire, a Nashville-based stripper who says she’s danced in every club in town that’s still open — and a few that aren’t — remains reluctant to go online.

“I know a lot of girls are getting into camming and bumping up their OnlyFans,” Spitfire tells the Scene. “But I don’t put any media online that I would not want to show my parents.”

Be that as it may, people are turning to online porn more than ever. According to Pornhub, the popular porn site’s activity was up 41.5 percent in the U.S. on March 25 — after the site offered free subscriptions as a way to encourage people to stay indoors. As of April 14, traffic in America remains up 14 percent. Still, the disconnect between making porn and viewing porn remains.

“As someone who has the privilege of being out [of the closet] as a sex worker, it is an honor to be able to switch up my hustle,” says Louise. “It’s a challenge, but it’s also an honor to be able to still serve the people and entertain the people. However, I feel for the folks who can’t be publically out with their work because of stigma, shame, court orders. On the one hand, it’s an opportunity for the opportunists, like me. But on the other hand it’s a shame for those who are in the shadows of sex work.”

Individual sex workers aren’t the only ones making the move to online production. Hustler Hollywood has begun curbside pickup at its store on Church Street as a way to continue to employ its staff, and the company’s VP of retail, Philip Del Rio, tells the Scene that online sales are up 60 percent. Members-only BDSM club The Mark by CPI closed its doors in early March, and has begun hosting sex-positive educational seminars and weekly “dungeon-side chats” on Zoom. The Mark has also opened a chat channel on gaming-based social platform Discord as a way to keep its members socially engaged while physically apart. 

But even in the midst of a pandemic, the sex industry is about more than just sex — it’s about all types of intimacy. In The Mark’s Discord chat rooms, there are specified spaces for sharing recipes and cat photos. The classes offered include makeup tutorials, and as a way to close the dungeon-side chats he hosts, The Mark’s director Mercury often reads stories.

“People are dying to connect right now,” says Louise. “They’re just so lonely, and they want to be seen. I thought that it would be more that they’d just want to get off, but I think more so they just want me to pay attention to them. So of course there are sexual elements, but I think the basis of what’s actually going on is that people are lonely. Lonelier than ever.”

Since pivoting to online work, Louise has created custom content and subscription-only strip-teases for fans who helped her raise money to cover adoption fees for her new puppy. She’s comfortable putting work online, and says she’ll probably continue to update her OnlyFans after the pandemic ends. But she’s also eager to return to in-person work.

“What I make in a week right now is what I usually make in a day,” she says. “But when I’m stripping I make really good money, and right now I still make a decent wage. I’m making more than I would on unemployment.”

“As soon as the clubs reopen, I’m sure we’ll have customers,” says Spitfire, who is relying on savings to get her through this time. “The thirst level is insane, and as wonderful as camming is, it’s not an interpersonal relationship.” 

“The cool thing about sex workers is they’re so resiliant and creative,” says Louise. “It’s just the nature of the business — they’re gonna make it happen. And people, they’re just gonna pay.”