Arabelle Raphael, an artist and sex worker with multiple streams of income that include virtual and in-person work, published a tutorial on her Twitter feed with tips for sex workers building an OnlyFans brand. She says that there are barriers to entry: much like Instagram influencers, sex workers with existing online followings have an easier time monetizing their accounts than those starting from scratch. Plus, posting explicit photos and videos of oneself online has privacy consequences that people who aren’t out as sex workers to friends and family may not be willing to take. And furthermore, online work may not be an option for those who are in child custody battles, or who don’t have consistent home internet access.

“The hard thing is people who haven’t had an online presence aren’t gonna make money right away, it’s a lot of work,” Raphael says. “It took me years to build something where it’s like, someone can live off of this.”

Vanessa Carlisle, a writer, educator and sex worker advocate in Los Angeles, says she’s been seeing individuals and organizations step up mutual aid efforts. Her group, Hookers Army Los Angeles, typically teaches self-defense classes and has been moving meetings online to facilitate resource-sharing. Carlisle herself has been offering free workshops for self-soothing somatic techniques for anxiety relief on Instagram Live.

“Some sex workers are offering classes to help people get their NiteFlirt set up,” she says, referring to a popular phone sex website. “There’s people offering to help others set up their websites; there’s people helping each other set up for making content from home. I see a lot of skill share and mutual aid, and I’m seeing in my community a lot more texting and calling and reaching out.”

Mobilizing for Solidarity and Advocacy

Sex workers have built networks for supporting one another, and can mobilize quickly, because the last few years have volatile for the industry, says Reiko Rasch, an artist and sex worker advocate in the Bay Area. The federal SESTA/FOSTA law of 2018 shut down many of the websites where sex workers vetted clients and found dates without exposing themselves to the dangers of outdoor work. And because of California’s Dynamex lawsuit (and resulting new labor law, AB 5), many of the state’s strip clubs changed dancers’ status from independent contractors to employees, which resulted in pay cuts.

Yet AB 5 has an upside, which is that dancers are now eligible for unemployment benefits. Rasch says that on social media and in group texts, dancers have been helping each other navigate the bureaucracy. She says it’s part of a mutual aid effort that began weeks before the shelter-in-place ordinance. “I noticed the dancers, the sex workers themselves, took the first and strongest initiatives in responding to this,” says Rasch. “Back when this was still just in the news and [seemed like] this scary media thing, the sex workers started upping their risk management practices like taking more showers in the locker room, bringing Lysol wipes to work, attaching hand sanitizer to their money pails and sanitizing the stage more regularly.”