Most of the clients who used to see her in person have stopped calling, the business where she worked as an independent contractor is closed, and a conference she co-organizes has been canceled.
“My sister and I share his monthly rent, which is $2,300 a month,” she says. “I had to have a really serious conversation with my family about what my financial situation was going to be in the future, and I had to dock the amount of money that I was able to give my father, and my mother had to step in. She’s pretty low-income, and that honestly concerns me a lot.”
SBA’s standard operating procedure for business loans states that a business is not eligible if “it presents live or recorded performances of a prurient sexual nature” or “derives more than 5% of its gross revenue, directly or indirectly, through the sale of products, services or the presentation of any depictions or displays of a prurient sexual nature.”
Unemployment benefits have been extended to self-employed workers by the CARES Act, but most states — including Maryland, where Shakti lives — were delayed in accepting applications from self-employed workers. Maryland said it would start accepting those applications on April 24. “The week and a half [or] two weeks before we closed, it was dead in there,” she says. “I was gradually making less and less and less until everything shut down.”
“I do consider myself to be in a very privileged space, but, at the same time, I saw an in-person client two days ago,” she says. “It was the first time I’ve seen a client since I’ve been quarantined for four weeks, but I have a mortgage to pay and I was scared about not being able to pay for it.” “Sex workers are heavily affected by measures such as social distancing and business shutdowns because they simply cannot go to their workplaces anymore, and are seeing a sharp decrease in their clients. Unlike employees from ‘mainstream’ businesses, many sex workers are not eligible for unemployment benefits,” says Lynn Liu, the development and communications associate at the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York City.
“Sex workers’ rights are human rights. In a global pandemic like this, the government should implement policies that take everyone’s well-being into account,” she says. “Especially the well-being of marginalized groups.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love the titty bar. But these businesses have been fronting as and enabling organized crime, money laundering, drug trafficking, and human trafficking covers for decades. You mean to tell me the mob didn’t prepare for this?
Next they”ll be pushing loans for drug dealers
I wonder if drug dealers are banned as well?
What kind of a niche is filled by sadomasochistic sex workers with a background in psychology and deaf studies?
It’s unfair.
People might think it's amusing but it's actually fucked up that these women can't have the same rights as everyone else
it's not fair 😆
Is that not what my stimulus check was for, I’ve done my part 😉
No you don’t have to pay the mortgage right now 🤷🏻♂️
Pathetic.
Must be a bad Dom if they can't get their clients to listen & show up. 😆😆
Now do lobbyists.
Yes
Slow news day ?