Yet again, the sex worker community is disheartened after a recent story insinuated most respondents to online sex ads were presumably men with bad intentions (“Hawaii residents dominate in buying sex online, study says,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 16).

Without the voices of people who reply to posts, or anyone who advertised online, sex workers and our clients were literally silenced — as usual.

The heartbreak is how a tool we lost — which used to make our stigmatized work safer — was weaponized against us. When adult classified forums began shutting down in 2018, many independent indoor sex workers were forced to find work outdoors.

Gone were not only ways our community connected, but methods to communicate with and screen clients (like researching their emails and social media), or even sharing “bad date lists” among ourselves.

What happened to the marginalized people who paid tuition and bills, supported families, started businesses, or barely survived via free advertising online? How are they getting by now? What’s their status?

Doug Upp

Makiki

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