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I cant wait to get back to normal is a frequent refrain today. How likely is it that the world-wide coronavirus pandemic will permit such a return? One certainty is that our journey forward will not end any time soon. But now that several states have begun to open up, its worth thinking about changes that are likely to come, or not to come. With a keen sense that I may be mistaken, I submit the following:

The economy: Though some politicians predict a quick recovery, Bill Gates says it will be slow and fitful. Already, unemployment numbers surpass those of the Great Depression. Attuned to market demand, companies will move slowly. Moreover, thousands of small businesses will declare bankruptcy or simply disappear. Large ones, utilizing technology, will inch back with fewer workers, and new starts will favor online marketing and sales.

Health care: The pandemic has reminded us that our health-care system needs reform. While the federal government will cover coronavirus-related medical bills, unemployed millions not eligible for Medicaid will be on their own. The American health-care system, often tied to employment, is the worlds most expensive; yet in terms of life expectancy, childhood mortality and other quality measures, the U.S. ranks in the lower half of industrialized nations. It is unlikely that the opposition of health and insurance sectors with their high-powered lobbying efforts will be successfully overcome.

Respect for science and facts: For a generation weve seen combat between experts and partisans, between facts and alternative facts. When we speak of health, climate change and large matters of public policy, we need leaders who talk straight, who avoid going down rabbit holes about the boundless powers of untested drugs or the possibility of injecting disinfectants into our bodies to clean our lungs. So stark have been the advantages of science over naive thinking that one of the positive consequences of the pandemic may prove to be renewed appreciation for data-based analyses.

Climate: We are better able to see that climate change is here in full force. CO2 emissions are down and city air is cleaner. Compare a photo of any industrial city two months ago with one taken today. They clearly demonstrate that we can do something to improve our climate and our odds of healthy living. For now, polarization stands in the way of people doing what is necessary.

Higher education: Colleges and universities are empty for the most part, their students at home, while some are taking online courses. What now? Will colleges be able to open? And if so, will students with their unemployed parents be able to make tuition payments? Elite universities and big-name public universities, with endowment funds north of a billion dollars, will weather the storm. However, small tuition-driven private colleges are at risk. For many it is emergency time. They face enrollment decreases that will cause some to founder, even close.

World politics and cooperation: With most of the worlds nations reporting cases of coronavirus, perhaps the biggest global crisis since World War II, it would appear reasonable to expect a new era of cooperation. Richard Haas, American diplomat and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, is not so sanguine. The world that will emerge from the crisis will be recognizable, he writes. Waning American leadership, faltering global cooperation, great-power discord: all of these characterized the international environment before the appearance of Covid-19.They are likely to be even more prominent features of the world that follows.

Politics and culture wars: Earlier this month several historic bills designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus have passed with bipartisan support in Congress. A poll recently conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that government recommendations on the prevention of Covid-19 infections are about right.

Together with an awareness that we are all in this together, positive signs of a more cooperative spirit are emerging. However, those who have observed or participated in two decades of corrosive partisanship and self-indulgent culture wars have good cause to feel uneasy about the outcome.

Ron Lora, a native of Bluffton, is professor emeritus of history at the University of Toledo. His column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the The Lima News editorial board or AIM Media, owner of The Lima News. Contact him at rlora38@gmail.com.

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Ron Lora: How different will the post-coronavirus world be? - Lima Ohio

Princeton, New Jersey During a pandemic, accurate information can be a matter of life and death. People need reliable reports about the impact of the disease and the threat it poses to their city, community or neighborhood. Most citizens immediate concern is not whether their country is on the right macro-trajectory, but whether their local grocery store is practicing proper hygiene and enforcing social-distancing measures.

One of the many tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it comes at a time when local media have been decimated in many countries.

The heart of the problem is that local news, in particular, has been severely disrupted by a broader restructuring of the economy over the past two decades. Historically, advertising sustained serious journalism. As New York Universitys Clay Shirky pointed out in a 2009 commentary, Walmart may or may not have had an interest in the news from Iraq, but it was nonetheless subsidizing newspapers Baghdad bureaus.

When digital platforms like Google and Facebook started hoovering up the advertising revenues that previously went directly to news organizations, local outlets were the first to feel the pinch. Newsroom staff was cut dramatically. According to a recent Brookings Institution report, one in five local U.S. newspapers has disappeared since 2004, leaving 5 million Americans with no local newspaper at all, and 60 million more with access to only one.

The growth of such news deserts has had profound political effects. When there are no journalists to report on town council meetings and public procurement decisions, corruption can run rampant. But partly because no one hears about it, political interest also declines. Hence, the shuttering of local papers has been associated with lower electoral turnout, fewer candidates seeking office and more incumbents winning. The same trends undercut citizens representation at the national level, because local and regional papers cannot afford to keep a correspondent in the capital to report on what their members of Congress or Parliament are doing.

Less obviously, the decline of local news has reinforced the pernicious polarization that we are witnessing in a number of democracies. When it comes to local issues, citizens within the same community or neighborhood are generally pretty good about diagnosing problems and arriving at practical solutions to them. But as local reporting has dried up, the vacuum has been filled by national news, which tends to be geared toward zero-sum culture wars and partisan flame-throwing.

In Hungary, Turkey and other countries where democracy and the rule of law are being systematically dismantled, some relatively independent national newspapers and websites have survived. But, perversely, such institutions can become a fig leaf for regimes facing international criticism for their attacks on press freedom, while pro-regime outlets often enjoy a monopoly at the local level. In rural Hungary, the situation has gotten so bad that the U.S. Department of State has sought to subsidize independent reporting there.

Finally, the fate of local newspapers does not necessarily run in parallel with that of the national press. In the United States, the major papers of record have benefited from a Trump bump since 2016. And while the COVID-19 crisis could, in theory, make citizens recognize the existential importance of receiving accurate information about their immediate surroundings, a local news bump has yet to materialize.

What can be done? One solution is to tax the Big Tech companies that have destroyed the local-news business model, then redistribute the funds to local outlets. Another option is to legislate an antitrust exception so that newspapers can bargain collectively with digital platforms. The media outlets providing the actual facts and information that show up in a Google search should be compensated accordingly. Australia, the European Union and several individual European countries have already moved in this direction, and similar legislation is pending in the U.S.

There has also been a blossoming of successful nonprofit news organizations in recent years, many of which have a local focus. But the risk now is that such institutions could become dependent on some billionaire philanthropist, leaving them beholden to one persons arbitrary will. The French social scientist Julia Cage has proposed an ingenious solution: ordinary supporters of accurate reporting could pool their resources to secure controlling shares of the most effective media nonprofits.

It can be fine for such nonprofits to have an agenda. After all, just as with political parties, supporters join organizations because the latter reflect their values in some ways. Having an agenda such as investigating social injustices is compatible with a commitment to the highest journalistic standards. What matters is accuracy, (ideally) accessibility and accountability. As philosopher Onora ONeill explains, truth-seeking media needs internal disciplines and standards to make it assessable. Audiences should be in a position to understand who funds an outlet, what guides its editorial decisions and how particular stories are generated.

The problem with many right-wing outlets today is not necessarily that they have an agenda, but that the agenda is hidden, with mere opinion being presented as professionally generated news. A particularly egregious example is Fox News, which earlier this spring eagerly spread dangerous disinformation about the coronavirus, probably costing the lives of some of its predominantly elderly audience.

The COVID-19 crisis has reminded us that journalists are essential workers. Many national media outlets will probably survive (indeed, some are already benefiting from governments spending on emergency relief). But local journalism was already in bad shape before the crisis, and the public good it provides tends to be less appreciated. For the sake of our physical health and that of our democracies, we urgently must support it.

Jan-Werner Mueller, a professor of politics at Princeton University, is the author of the forthcoming "Democracy Rules." Project Syndicate, 2020 http://www.project-syndicate.org

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Where is the local news about COVID-19? - The Japan Times

Anything taken to an extreme soon becomes absurd. Its interesting, if not surprising, that Trump-era politics is defined by its extremes, while moderate and well-reasoned voices are drowned out by hysterical ranting. But this sort of absurdity is nothing new.

In Political Hysteria: American as Cherry Pie, John Tierney, Jr. observes that Today, reason seems to be missing, on both sides In the Trump presidency (so far), his personality and character are the only real issues. Emotions dominate. To be fair, Tierney wrote this in 2019, before the novel coronavirus began ravaging the world and Trumps bizarre tweets and unfortunate press conferences gave his critics an increasingly tangible basis for calling him a lunatic.

When thousands of people die, its no longer just about emotions. But it would be wrong to say that emotion hasnt played a dominant role in how the United States has reacted to the virus. Theres great anxiety expressed over the loss of social identities, freedoms, political representation, and economic stability in addition to fundamental survival fears.

Moreover, those who have misunderstood Francis Fukuyamas end of history concept and who are unable to ground their hysteria in historical perspective may be inclined to think COVID-19 is so unique, so novel, that the country is coming apart due to incompetent leadership. That is also a fairly common, if highly emotional, attitude during a pandemic.

Take, for example, Greg Weiners op-ed in The New York Times: Dont Let Trumps Cult of Personality Make Covid-19 Worse; The National Interests: The Coronavirus Is Exposing Decay of American Political Culture; or a recent piece by American writer, Anthony Zurcher, for the BBC: Coronavirus pandemic exposes rather than heals America's divisions. Were receiving almost daily editorials like these, telling us how the virus is exacerbating the countrys dysfunctions, its culture wars and inequalities, and how our leaders are not addressing these with any amount of clarity or skill.

As a moderate liberal, and a registered Democrat, I believe that Trump was neither prepared for, nor is he capable of extricating us from this slow-rolling horror. Im inclined to agree with Weiner that, We have entered a bizarre space in which Mr. Trump makes concrete claims refuted by objective reality that people can see with their own eyes.

But I also think Weiner is wise to add at the end of his piece that It is plausible that had Mr. Trump taken aggressive measures against the pandemic from the beginning, there would have been plenty of Democrats who would have instinctively opposed them simply because of their source. Like everything else in American life, the pandemic is as political and divisive as it is personal.

Tierney puts it like this: From the beginning, Americans were fiercely independent, passionate, but deeply divided. He describes the partisan backlash against George Washingtons Jay Treaty with Britain, which gave concessions in exchange for their withdrawal from certain forts. And he adds that, according to Martha, the hatred towards her husband over the treaty hastened Washingtons death. If all this sounds familiar, writes Tierney, it may be that it is generic to the national character of America.

Still, Trump is no George Washington. Hes more like George Wallace, but possibly less articulate. And the hyper-partisan excesses of Mitch McConnell seeking to block federal bailouts to blue states or the armed demonstrations trying to get state governments to reopen early (both of which will no doubt result in unnecessary deaths) seem as ham-fisted and cynical as they are consistent with the pressures that have historically given rise to American political hysteria.

Andrew Burt, in American Hysteria: the Untold Story of Mass Political Extremism in the United States, argues that Americas sense of self-identity routinely comes under pressure, with the result that certain groups confront a loss in status. Engaging in political hysteria is how these groups seek to get it back.

In 2016, such hysteria gave rise to Trumps so-called base, emerging as a more pungent, less intelligent iteration of the earlier neoconservative, libertarian Tea Party. It evoked and amplified the opposing, mostly online/college-campus, identitarian Left, characterized by cults of victimhood and all-encompassing neo-Marxist race-and-gender theories, whose buzzwords have now permeated the arts and media. Now that the virus has shaken everyones sense of self, now that America faces the very real possibility of economic devastation as well as massive loss of life, Trump, the self-described chosen one, no longer seems like a right-wing messiah, if he ever did.

In a Daily Beast column thats funny, horrified, and enraged in equal proportion, Rick Wilson rants, There are really only three tenets of Trumpism that matter: a hatred of elites, a war with the news media, and the worship of Trump as an infallible and impervious avatar for their social insecurities But COVID-19 is coming to pay a house call they wont soon forget, and the damage in some of the places in this country where the Trump-Fox partys support is the most passionate and unwavering will be staggering.

This seems right. But just as Trumps base rose, according to Wilson, as a result of his transgressive naturenot that they can define itand love that hes a middle finger to decency, normality, tradition, and the law, the online identitarian Left has searched in vain for their own messiah figure, one with impossibly spotless credentials.

This person would have to be as diametrically opposite to Trump as humanly possiblesomeone who could, by virtue of race, gender, sexuality, impeccable conduct, and immanent wokeness, calm the Lefts portion of political hysteria and assuage their raging insecurities. Unfortunately, they will never find such a person. Ever.

In Kill All Normies, Angela Nagle suggests its because the Lefts online identity politics has formulated an impossible purity test for potential messiahs:

"Something about public social media platforms, it turned out, was conducive to the vanity of morally righteous politics and the irresistible draw of the culture wars. But soon the secret was out and everyone was doing it. The value of the currency of virtue that those who had made their social media cultural capital on was in danger of being suddenly devalued. As a result, I believe, a culture of purging had to take place, largely targeting those in competition for this precious currency. Thus, the attacks increasingly focused on other liberals and leftists often with seemingly pristine progressive credentials, instead of those who engaged in any actual racism, sexism or homophobia."

In other words, while the Right would forgive someone like Trump anything, the Left can forgive their avatar nothing because that would be tantamount to giving up their morally superior, righteous position.

For example, if they compromise on Biden and it turns out that Tara Reade isnt an opportunist and/or political tool, what then? Does this mean giving Trump a free pass for the Access Hollywood tape and calling the Charlottesville Nazis very fine people (or any number of other atrocious comments)? Biden cant be their savior. Hes not the Anti-Trump. He has the wrong skin color, wrong gender, wrong sexuality, and doesnt radiate the necessary wokeness. He simply cant pass the purity test.

Unfortunately, theres no right profile when it comes to the extremes of American political hysterics. The Left will despise Biden forever, even if some will grudgingly vote for him because they despise Trump more. The Right will support Trump until the Lysol theyve injected reaches their hearts.

The screaming voices on both sides are still jockeying for prominence in a time when COVID-19 is the only story that matters. They may be carrying on the grand old tradition of highly emotional American partisanship. But their sense of urgency seems radically absurd in comparison to massive loss of life and the need for America to swing back toward its political center, where cooler heads and calm judgment might still prevail.

Read more here:
The Right Has Its Messiah. The Left Will Never Find Theirs. - Splice Today

Graham Dockery

is an Irish journalist, commentator, and writer at RT. Previously based in Amsterdam, he wrote for DutchNews and a scatter of local and national newspapers.

is an Irish journalist, commentator, and writer at RT. Previously based in Amsterdam, he wrote for DutchNews and a scatter of local and national newspapers.

Social justice types cheered when Minnesota dairy firm Land OLakes removed a racist image of a Native American girl from its packaging. But on the bizarre battlefields of the culture wars, nobody wins.

Mia, a Native American woman complete with feathered headdress, has graced Land OLakes packaging since the 1920s. During that time shes gone through several redesigns, but the company quietly scrapped her in February, leaving a plain landscape behind. By the end of the year, Land OLakes farmers and suppliers will feature on its packaging in her place.

The company gave no reason for doing away with Mia, but its widely suspected that the move was to please the social justice crowd. Native American academic Lisa Monchalin previously called Mia an example of sexualized depictions of Indigenous women, while North Dakota state Rep. Ruth Buffalo (D) - also a Native American said that the image of the comely butter maiden goes hand-in-hand with human and sex trafficking of our women and girls by depicting Native women as sex objects.

Hang on. Who on earth associated the butter girl with sex? When last I checked, fully clothed milkmaids dont make the Playboy centerfolds. Burlap dresses arent the new bikini bottoms. Her ties with human and sex trafficking too are a ridiculous overreach.

But the conservative outcry at her removal is ridiculous too. Land OLakes website has been flooded with one-star reviews in recent days by customers who say theyll boycott the company for buckling to political correctness. Even Iowa Congressman Steve King (R) got involved, lamenting the work of the PC millennials whove taken over his apparently beloved butter brand. Okay boomer.

To top it all off, Robert DesJarlait, the son of the artist who drew the current iteration of Mia, joined the debate in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday. DesJarlaits father who is Native American added some genuine Ojibwe tribal motifs to Mias dress, a flourish Robert said helped his father maintain a connection to his identity.

She simply didnt fit the parameters of a stereotype, DesJarlait said, adding that her removal leaves behind a landscape voided of identity and history. Paraphrasing an ironic meme thats done the rounds since the debacle kicked off, DesJarlait quipped they got rid of the Indian and kept the land.

If theres anything we can learn from this debacle, its that in these most minor battles in the online culture wars, nobody wins. Mias inclusion on the butter pack is racist, but her removal is erasure. You cant please everyone, and if we remove everything deemed problematic, who really benefits?

Not the Native Americans, DesJarlait thinks.

As an Irishman, I dont feel stigmatized, and certainly not sexualized, when I see the Lucky Charms leprechaun. But I wouldnt get beat out of shape if General Mills removed his winking visage from their cereal boxes. I simply wouldnt eat Lucky Charms because I dont want diabetes.

Maybe everyone aggrieved by Buttergate can reevaluate their choices on different grounds. For instance, should Land OLakes products be canceled not because of their imagery, but because of their practise of pumping their spreadable butter full of canola oil a nutritionally devoid seed oil that causes oxidation of the organs?

At the very least, discussing the health implications of consuming such a product would go some way toward solving a real problem.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Who needs woke butter wars? Dairy company removes racist depiction of Native American woman but Native artist says it was fine - RT

Were both really embracing this [sex] as time together rather than using it to stress out, report a school teacher from Chattanooga (TN) to NBC News. Theres fear in general, sure there are people that I love that are at a higher risk but sex has definitely been a distraction for us. Its finally a moment when were not thinking about or talking about this virus.

The coronavirus is spreading, the death rate rising and the number of the those working from home and/or are unemployed is reaching unprecedented levels. Compounding this situation, the CDC advocates social distancing remaining out of congregate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) from others when possible.

It is a period when an ever-growing number of Americas are stuck at home and likely with more free time then they know what to do with. Sure, for some it is turning into a great escape from the daily grind time to clean house, to read the books or see the movies ones put off and, for some, to have sex.

For many couples and individuals with kids at home (especially younger ones who cant fully understand whats going on), however, childcare can be overwhelming. For others, the boredom of endless domestic life can foster bickering if not outright abusive situations. And for those living alone, the tedium of bad TV, ever-repetitive media reports (how much Trumps self-promotion and ever-worsening medical reports can one take?) and other ways to waste time will take their toll.

Jessica Zucker, a psychologist writing for NBC News, advises readers, sex can be a great stress reliever. She warns, but if youre feeling an aversion to sex, whether it be with your partner or yourself, know that your reaction, too, is typical. There is no one right way to handle unprecedented moments such as these.

The TV doctor, Mehmet Oz, MD, confirmed this opinion. The best solution if youre holed up with your significant other in quarantine is have sex, he said. Youll live longer, youll get rid of the tension maybe youll make some babies. Its certainly better than staring at each other and getting on each others nerves.

There appears to little data analyzing sex life during the current plague. Zucker reports that in a poll she conducted with her 46,000 Instagram community as to whether the epidemic was helping or hurting their sex lives, responses were split almost down the middle: 52 percent said their sex life had improved, and 48 percent said it was stunted.

However, a recently reported poll of about 9,000 people concerning the impact of the coronavirus on their sex life offers a surprising insight. One quarter of the respondents (24%) said the outbreak had positively affected their sex lives; another quarter or so (28%) reported its impact being neutral; and nearly half (47%) claimed that Corvis-10 had negatively affected their sex life.

So, how is your sex life during the time of the 21st-century plague?

***

Sex is a complex personal and social phenomenon. It can involve a wide range of very different experiences and practices. For example, it can include but is not limited to (i) sex with oneself (e.g., autoeroticism, voyeuristic), (ii) sex with another (i.e., hetero or homo, consensual, commercial or coerced) or (iii) sex with others (e.g., group encounters). And then there are all the ways people can engage in sex, everything from the old-fashioned doggystyle to the latest sex-wellness product or online VR partner.

The best single source for information about sexual practice and coronavirus is a recent release from the New York City Department of Health, Sex and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). It warns: All New Yorkers should stay home and minimize contact with others to reduce the spread of COVID-19. And then it suggests a variety of tips for how to enjoy sex and to avoid spreading COVID-19.

First and foremost, NYC Health urges people to have sex with people close to you and to avoid close contact including sex with anyone outside your household.

Most helpful, it offers the following four suggestions as to how to have safer sex:

+ Avoid kissing anyone who is not part of your small circle of close contacts.

+ Rimming (mouth on anus) might spread COVID-19; virus in feces may enter your mouth.

+ Condoms and dental dams can reduce contact with saliva or feces, especially during oral or anal sex.

+ Washing up before and after sex is more important than ever; wash sex toys with soap and warm water; disinfect keyboards and touch screens that you share with others (for video chat, for watching pornography or for anything else).

And, finally, skip sex if you or your partner is not feeling well.

***

Nothing illuminates the impact of the current plaque on sex life then how its playing out in two key sectors of the sexual marketplace pornography and (consensual) sex work. The outcomes are predictable.

Pornhub claims to be the worlds leading free porn site and as the coronavirus captured ever-increasing countries around the world, viewership of porn skyrocketed. It reports that the upswing in viewership started on March 9th and by 11th it had climbed by 14 percent. On March 13th, it reports there was a 5.1 percent increase in U.S. traffic compared to an average day, and a 6.4 percent increase on March 17th. Ever opportunist, it took advantage of the new plague by offering a limited fee premium that led to a spike in viewership, nearly 18 percent in the U.S. and 16 percent in Canada; increases in viewership jumped in Italy, Spain and other countries as Covid-19 played out.

Forbes reports that the term corona virus first appeared on Pornhub on January 25th and continued to rise. It reports that as of March 3rd, there were over 6.8 million searches containing the keywords corona or covid. Searches peaked on March 5th at 1.5 million and, it observes, with the American public getting ready to settle in for a few weeks of self-isolation, Pornhub is likely to see another rise in traffic, regardless of keywords. Perhaps most revealing, it notes: District of Columbia is top of the list for popularity of coronavirus searches [on Pornhub] by state when compared to the U.S. average.

The Daily Caller, a right-wingwebsite, warns that a pornography website [IsMyGirl] is targeting McDonalds workers suffering low wages during the coronavirus pandemic by offering them the opportunity to earn upwards of $100,000 a year to participate in pornographic content. The sites founder, Evan Seinfeld, said in a press release sent to more than half a million McDonalds staffers: In an effort to help McDonalds employees, and to make sure they can continue to provide for themselves and their families, we want to help provide them with a legitimate option.

Porn industry performers appear to be especially vulnerable to coronavirus. The Free Speech Coalition [FSC] the adult industry trade association takes a strong stand: Shooting [porn] at this time is not safe, but closing PASS and prohibiting shoots with ones household partners would only compound an already alarming public health situation. [PASS is the industrys centralized opt-in testing system,PerformerAvailability Screening Services (PASS), in which performersare tested every 14 days.]

To its members, it advised the following safer-sex practices:

+ Stay at home.

+ Shoot only solos or with partners who live in your household.

+ Do not leave your home to work.

+ Do not have physical contact with someone who doesnt live in your household

The FSCs communications director, Mike Stabile, warns, right now, most performers want to continue to shoot while they cansets are less risky than the grocery store, and who knows how long an Italian-style shutdown will last. He reminds people, adult performers dont get sick days or government bailouts, and many crew members non-adult jobs are already being cancelled.

Many porn production studios are closed due to the virus, but some porn performers are taking advantage of the downturn to create new opportunities. One performer, Maitland Ward, says, Im stuck at home, too, so Im doing a lot more content just to fill time as well. She reports, actually, Ive seen upticks in some of my income because people are home and they want entertainment and they want to get away from all the corona stuff. Another performer, Sarah Vandella, claims that adult models and actors are encouraged to utilize their own personal time to continue to create content as much as possible for Skype and other streaming platforms.

While there appears to an upswing in porn viewing, the fate of (consensual) sex workers is more precarious. Maxine Doogan, head of the Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project, decries the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on sex work: Theres just no business. Its not happening. The group, Decriminalize Sex Work, shares this assessment, warning, sex workers are a financially vulnerable and criminalized community, and thus their lives are greatly impacted by times of uncertainty and strife.

In April 2018, Pres. Trump signed into FOSTA-SESTA, a law ostensible aimed to contain sex trafficking and further the religious rights culture wars. However, its principle accomplishment was to close the website, Backpage.com, that promoted commercial sex. Looking back, Doogan notes that one consequence of new law was that a lot of people lost their housing pretty immediately, they lost their business, their ability to feed themselves. Were going to see that with this quarantine, no doubt. Amidst todays crises, she reflects, I have older customers that Im concerned about their health. Im keeping connections with people email, and text, and calling, she adds. Its what we had to do when we lost our websites. We called each other, we called our customers, we kept connected.

Other sex workers share Doogans concerns. We are facing a lot of fear of loss of housing, hearing from people who are forgoing medication in order to afford food, going hungry in general, says Fera Lorde of the Brooklyn chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project. Sex work serves a vast population of people for many different reasons, and many of us are already living with risk factors like pre-existing conditions, lack of healthcare, family members to take care of who are elderly or disabled, or unstable housing. Decriminalize Sex Work has published on online coronavirus health guide, Sex Worker and LGBTQIA Resource Guide: COVID-19.

Most sex workers, like gig workers and nondocumented workers, may not file annual income tax forms and, thus, many not qualify for unemployment benefits or the planned federal bail-out payment. Many are facing very hard times. So, sex-worker support groups like for restaurant workers and others are setting up crowd-funding campaigns to help meet peoples needs. A GoFundMe group, Emergency COVID Relief for Sex Workers in New York, has raised nearly $60,000. Other groups e.g., SWOP Brooklyn, Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective and the Butterfly Asian and Migrant Worker Support Network are undertaking similar projects.

***

In a recent New Yorker article, the social historian Jill Lepore discusses the unique role literature plays in our understanding of plagues. She traces plagues, natural and political, over the last six centuries through a half-dozen memorable works of fiction. As she advices contemporary readers, Stories about plagues run the gamut, from Oedipus Rex to Angels in America. There are plagues here and plagues there, from Thebes to New York, horrible and ghastly

Her article meanders, insightfully, from Giovanni Boccacciois The Decameron (14th-century Black Plague); to Daniel Defoes A Journal of the Plague Year (the London plague of 1655); through Mary Shelleys The Last Man (set in 2092); Edgar Allan Poes The Masque of the Red Death (a medieval world); Jack Londons The Scarlet Plaque (set in 2073 but looking back to 2013); Albert Camuss The Plague (set in the 1940s with the plague referring to the virus of Fascism); and to Jos Saramagos Blindness (a critique of the 20th-century authoritarian state).

One can only hope that a writer with equal artistic talent as those discussed by Lepore will one day capture the reality of the first (of perhaps many) 21st-century plagues, coronavirus. And, equally revealing, convey the meaning ofsex life for those enduring Corvis-19.

Continued here:
Sex Life in the Time of the 21st Century Plague - CounterPunch