[SWAF-Potluck] COVID-19 demands real talk about sexual health

[Andrew Sorfleet]

THE STAR
By Joanna Chiu, Vancouver Bureau
Wed., July 22, 2020

Atwitter over ‘glory holes’? Sex worker who lived through AIDS crisis says COVID-19 demands real talk about sexual health

Susan Davis became a sex worker in 1986 at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, on the bracingly cold streets of Halifax.

She remembers the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty at the time, when scientists around the world did not understand the new virus, or how to save people from dying.

But she was sick of low-paying jobs and decided sex work was the best way to cover the bills as a young woman. She met others in the industry who shared tips on how to keep themselves and their clients as safe as possible.

“Back in those days, we did not tolerate fluid contact of any kind. No (oral sex) without a condom, no kissing at all,” Davis, now 52, told the Star.

On Tuesday, the term “glory holes” trended on Twitter in Canada, as thousands of posts included jokes, as well as some frank comments on sexual health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) had updated its list of tips for sex during the pandemic, with recommendations including the use of “barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact.”

Immediately, many agreed that the surreal nature of 2020 was threatening to put satirical publications out of business.

The unexpected reference on a public health agency website was comic relief during a year of sombre news. The BCCDC told the Star in an email that the information was based on a New York City Department of Health resource. While that publication had elicited similar online reactions, it stopped short of specifically using the term “glory holes” (holes in thin partitions).

For sex workers such as Davis, who has lived in Vancouver since 1990, the advice sounded strikingly familiar.

“Limiting close face-to-face contact had been the norm for us for a while, and it’s only been recently that clients expect kissing from sex workers, even though that increases the risk of contracting illnesses through saliva,” she said.

For many, sex through a wall may seem like a comical proposition, but Davis applauded the BCCDC for putting out such detailed information.

“It’s about time as a society that we stop being so ashamed of sex and sexuality,” said Davis, who is the executive director of the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities, a consortium of sex workers’ rights advocates.

“As I understand it, glory holes were mostly for gay men to have sex with one another anonymously and were found in places like bathhouses and nightclub bathrooms … Now it’s a whole genre of kink and pornography,” she said.

According to the BCCDC, the coronavirus has been found in semen and feces, but it is not yet clear if the virus can be transmitted through sexual intercourse.

“The most important thing you can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to skip sex with a partner or partners if you are feeling sick,” a BCCDC spokesperson said in an email. “You should also check in with your partner(s) on how they are feeling before engaging in sex.”

Since the pandemic reached Canada, Davis hasn’t booked any of her regular sex work clients, because her husband is immunocompromised and she wants to err on the side of utmost caution.

Most of the sex workers she knows also stopped working under initial pandemic restrictions, and waited for the B.C. government to give the green light for massage parlours and strip clubs to reopen in May.

Over the decades, Davis has taken jobs as varied as roofer, caterer, chambermaid, piano teacher and lifeguard, and has even prepared geological samples.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/07/22/atwitter-over-glory-holes-sex-worker-who-lived-through-aids-crisis-says-covid-19-demands-real-talk-about-sexual-health.html


Sent from my iPhone
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/swaf-potluck/attachments/20200723/0d5ab4b9/attachment.html>