Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
For sex-industry workers, monkeypox is latest red flag health issue on the horizon
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Megan Mckinzie, an adult entertainer at the Palomino Club in North Las Vegas, has been on high alert for patrons who may be showing signs of illness.
Now as she performs among the clientele, she has yet another thing to watch out for: Monkeypox.
The disease can cause symptoms including a rash and blisters and is spread through close contact. There have been at least a dozen confirmed or suspected cases in the Las Vegas area.
Nonetheless, Mckinzie, who goes by the stage name Haley, said she was not worried.
“I’ve never seen someone come inside here and catch anything,” the 28-year-old entertainer said in the dark club, where a scantily dressed entertainer slides down a pole on the stage lit by purple LED lights and surrounded by seating. “If I feel a bump on somebody’s arm, I’m obviously not going to touch it (again).”
Workers in the adult entertainment industry are taking precautions to prevent catching monkeypox, a viral disease that the World Health Organization recently declared a global health emergency. Monkeypox is spread through direct and prolonged skin-to-skin contact.
If someone’s arm were to brush up or have close contact with another person’s arm that has monkeypox lesions and that rash, then that rash is extremely infectious, said Kimberly Franich, communicable disease manager for Southern Nevada Health District. The fluid within those rashes and lesions transmits the disease.
Monkeypox can also spread through a sexual encounter with someone who either had lesions or was confirmed and diagnosed with monkeypox, Franich said.
“This can include men who have sex with men, but anyone is susceptible to getting monkeypox, so long as you’ve had physical close contact with someone who has the lesion,” Franich said.
Monkeypox has disproportionately affected the LGBTQ community, particularly men who have sex with men, however that is only because epidemiologists believe the outbreak started at two spring gatherings in Europe among gay and bisexual men.
It is important to not label monkeypox as a “gay disease,” as that can lead to stigmas against gay people and lead to lax attitudes in the general public, repeating a similar situation with the AIDS epidemic when many straight people assumed they could not get AIDS, and gay men were ostracized and denied care, public health experts say.
“Anyone can get this so long as they’re in contact with someone who has had this lesion,” Franich said.
In the United States, there are more than 4,600 cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Clark County, there are 12 probable and confirmed cases, as of Thursday, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.
Clark County residents are at low risk for monkeypox because the route of transmission is direct physical con
“Anyone can get this so long as they’re in contact with someone who has had this lesion.”
Kimberly Franich, communicable disease manager, Southern Nevada Health District
tact, Franich said.
“You would have to touch and have that close physical contact with someone who has symptoms of monkeypox,” she said. “Because there are so few cases, it would be unlikely that you would have skin-to-skin contact with someone with that rash.”
People can lower their risk of spreading and catching monkeypox by avoiding crowded places where there is a lot of touching, like at raves, festivals and clubs, according to the CDC. Franich encourages everyone, especially those working in an industry where they have close and prolonged skin-to-skin contact, to do self-examinations to make sure they haven’t developed any lesions or rashes. Anyone with a rash should seek an exam with their health care provider and do potential testing, Franich said.
The monkeypox vaccine supply throughout the U.S. and Nevada is limited, so at this time the priority is given to those who have been in direct contact with someone who’s been diagnosed with monkeypox, Franich said.
The vaccine may also be available for someone within a social network that is experiencing monkeypox activity, Franich said. In Clark County, 300 people have received the monkeypox vaccine, officials said.
At the Palomino Club, the entertainers make their own judgment about the customers before agreeing to anything with physical contact, such as a lap dance, owner Adam Gentile said.
“It’s not something that we worry about because it’s not very common,” Gentile said, “if someone’s showing any signs of illness, then they’re not allowed in in the first place.”
“Everyone’s professional,” Gentile added. “Especially after COVID, everyone’s really cautious and if they get the heebie-jeebies at all, they just don’t do it.”
Sex workers are also taking precautions to make sure they stay safe, said Chuck Muth, the government affairs adviser for the Nevada Brothel Association, a political action committee made up of legal brothel owners, brothel workers, brothel clients and supporters that work to defend a “woman’s right to choose professional sex work as a career,” according to its website.
Prostitution is legal in some parts of Nevada, including just over an hour away outside of Las Vegas in Nye County.
Everybody has a concern, Muth said, but the sex workers get a weekly checkup with a doctor. They do a physical, visual inspection of clients to make sure there are no lesions or any other concerns, Muth said.
“All of the COVID protocols are still in place,” Muth said, and all of the workers are taking precautions. The use of condoms is also mandatory, Muth said.
Katie, a 24-year-old entertainer at the Palomino Club who wanted to only use her stage name, said she had not looked out for any bumps or lesions on customers, but she might start now. With COVID-19, if someone comes in coughing or sneezing, she won’t go in a room with them, she said.
“I’m a little more cautious,” Katie said.
Katie and Mckinzie said they were also cautious about their bodies. If they were to have any rash on themselves, they would go to the doctor and get it checked out.
“You kind of have to be (cautious) in this industry,” Mckinzie said. “You need to know what’s going on with your body when it happens.”
“All of the COVID protocols are still in place.”
Chuck Muth, Nevada Brothel Association