This project was created in context with a seminar paper about sexwork during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the 6th of april 2020 a sexwork ban was imposed by the swiss governement. With this, the situation of sexworkers changed drastically and led to additional financial and personal liabilities for the workers of the sexbranche. That’s why I interviewed different |female| sexworkers of the private prostitution sector, to learn about their various issues, perspectives and individual experiences the made during and after the lockdown. Those conversations were exceptional interesting and inspired me to draw the following pieces in combination with quotes out of the interviews.
M. wants to show me her materials she uses for work. She leads me to her closet which is full of different latexdresses. “They would suit you” she says. Than she opens a huge box with a variety of high heel leatherboots. She invites me to try them on and hands me a pair of 18cm heels. Me, who is never wearing any pumps, is very insecure, and I need to sit on a chair for safety reasons to put them on.
Her partner was telling her to find normal work. The question is what “normal work” is, she’s asking. Others sell their hands, their intelligence, their bodypower – I sell my time for being intimate with me.
ground plots of two brothels I’ve visited
L.R. is a self-employed sexworker in the field of soft erotic and an entrepreneur. She is the manager of a company whose concept is to rent and take care of apartments that are sublet as workspaces to independent sex workers. She offers ten different apartments – six of them are single apartments, three apartments for three people and one apartment for four to five people in nine different locations. In total, there are 20 different rooms, which she sublets as living and working spaces.
COVID protection concept “Believe me, our work is the first to disinfect everywhere,” says V. She shows me all different types of disinfectant, gloves and masks.
„Do you know the small bird who is cleaning the teeth of the crocodile?“ asks me V. „We [the sexworkers] are this little bird. We are the sanitizer of society“. The crocodile lives in a symbiosis with the bird. It doesn’t eat the bird, it lets it alive, as it’s a is essential creature for his physical health.
mary-i-am.com 