Onlyfans - good or bad for feminism?

I don't know OP. I know lots of women on it who have in no way been pressured or coerced and are doing it completely of their own free will and not due to a lack of options. Two are a same sex couple who use it to finance their travels around the world, they're a bit kinky anyway and would be doing what they were doing with or without the cameras rolling. They've made enough to buy several properties and so when the money starts to drop then they can rely on those. Both have good degrees and speak multiple languages, went to good universities.
Another friend left a stressful underpaid job in the NHS to do it professionally. She'll always have her qualification to go back in and so I doubt that she'll end up penniless. For young people without commitments, it's an easy way to make money, you can make the same in half an hour that you would doing a twelve hour backbreaking shift in A&E. Another friend is on 40K and has no financial need to do it, but finds it sexually thrilling and also, I guess, validating.
There is a 'skill' to it too. Frankly it's not all tits, you have to have a USP or get the right sort of market. I'm fat, ugly and lazy so probs wouldn't get many subscribers if I did ever but it's about aiming it around zeitgeist and making the content exciting. Frankly there's a lot of pretty footballers wives types on there, something like a Frida Kahlo costume or someone with a penchant for dipping their tits in hot wax would do much better, and I guess within that lies the problem,

Can women not control their own sexuality without having to monetise it?

What’s the use of empowerment of the only power it gives you is the power to give a man an erection? This is MRA thinking internalised. My power comes from getting a man off? Are these the power structures men aspire to? Not really.

True empowerment would be women not needing to sell their bodies to make a living and having a full range of options, financially, emotionally and finding true strength that actually benefits their whole lives.

Bad. Hth

It's not what I'd do, or recommend to my daughter but it's not like there's some sort of tick box list or test to pass before you can call yourself a feminist. We don't all believe the same things, I don't believe in outlawing prostitution for example. Not because I don't think it's wrong, but I don't think we should make it a crime unless trafficking can be proved and there's laws for trafficking anyway. But I'm still very much a feminist ( others can disagree but I don't care)

Depressing how sex work is becoming a more mainstream suggestion to women

This.

I tend to think "branch of feminism" that thinks sex work is okay or empowering is pseudo feminism and is very like pseudo science everywhere and undermining and odd so many can't see the difference.

Oh look, it’s an AI bot.

*Urgh, Andrew Tate
Apologies anyone called Aaron Tate

I can't understand why it is even up for debate that objectification and subjugation of women is bad for women, as a class. Even if a minority of women truly choose to do this.

Oh how horrified we are about the statistics of women killed by their own partners, sons and grandsons. How horrified we are by men like Aaron Tate and all the school boys who look up to him. But in the next breath we're telling young people that women can sell their bodies; rent their wombs; accept men in their changing rooms; it's natural for men to use porn; you're just jealous if you query the objectification of women in adverts; you're a buzz kill if you query the sheer amount of rape-as-entertainment on screen.

We're far from eliminating ableism and racism, but thank fuck most intelligent people know that they are detrimental to society. Not so much with misogyny.

Fleecing men for money fucks with your head, it destroys your ability to trust and gives you a really warped and unhealthy relationship with money (it made me feel weird and dirty so I would spend it on utter nonsense or even just give it away - I paid for a boy I liked’s MA fees! Just gave him a grand in cash in carrier bag, a desperate attempt to restore some of my self worth).

What an important post. Thank you.

They have done and women were threatened with their benefits being cut if they didn't go for the interview/apply for the position.

Well yes, this is what I was saying (and the previous poster). It is surely only a small step from 'sex work is work' to 'refusing to do sex work is refusing to work' and benefits sanctioned. Because you won't suck cock.

Well is sex work is work then why not? Why not have brothels advertising for girls at the job centre and your benefits cut if you refuse to become a sex worker? Do you think they would apply single sex exemption to those posts? 🤔 I presume the tax man is interested in OF earning?

@CountZacular I totally agree. It's putting in men's heads the idea that plenty of women are 'more than happy' to participate in degrading shizzle and hence the rest of us that won't go there in relationships are 'not up with the game' - the same goes for hard core porn. There are some women who operate professionally in the sex industry and not below the radar who use it just as another string to their bow- to be honest I'm less bothered by them as anyone can google them anyway than the students, single mums etc who just want to try and make extra/easy cash discreetly without realising the issues it can create further down the line for them and their families and job/relationships . Rightly or wrongly people will judge.

Sadly I think this is a clear consequence of "SEX WORK IS WORK" as an ideology.

Women are not commodities. Purchasing any aspect of them is not feminism

There could start to be the unspoken expectation that single mothers don’t need increases to benefits because after all they could do OF.

Some great points here, but I also wanted to add the knock on effect it has to all women who have nothing to do with OF.

Men watch this content. They watch women‘s content become more degrading as the need to sustain an income and normalise it. They pay for the content to become more degrading. And the women have no choice but to put on a performance that they’re enjoying it. So men take that as affirmation and put those expectations in their relationship, asking their partners to do it too (“loads of other women do it and they love it. You’ll love it too, if you just try it…” and so on). And that’s if you were ‘lucky’ enough to be asked.

Not to also mention the many women ‘empowering’ themselves by making less than NMW. In any other vocation we’d call that slave labour, especially when a company is taking their cut regardless. Put that same women in a brothel and leave her with less than NMW whilst the pimps take their cut and we know it’s a problem. Make the pimp an online company and we can call it ‘empowering’ instead.

It shouldn't be left to feminists to speak up on issues like this, but here we are. this thread is on the feminist board, not AIBU.
I don't get why women are so passive or uninterested. Onlyfans and prostitution have been pushed at young women going to university as a way to pay their fees, but the only women I've seen speaking out are feminists.

When are feminist issues not women’s issues or vice versa?

This should be a women's issue,not a feminist issue.Everyone single one of us should care about the degradation of women.

And now many poor girls, and those with low self-esteem, will fall into this at university and it will be very difficult to emerge from the trap.

the only choice, which many do not have - certainly as a completely free choice - is to engage in sex work in the first place. You don't get a choice once you're doing it - if you don't give the punters what they want, you don't get paid. There is no dignity at work policy, no equality policy, no HR department and no grievance procedure. You're just getting fucked, literally and metaphorically.

It makes me angry that the sex trade has successfully packed this as being 'sex positive'. The sex trade and sex work isn't sex, its a performance. An act. It needs a completely different name.

I don’t know if this has already been mentioned in the thread but the truth is there is only a very small percentage of creators on OnlyFans who actually make money sufficient to live on. This top earning % promote the idea that it’s a great and easy way for girls to make money and encourage them to sign up using their referral code- meaning they make a cut of earnings these new creators make. It’s a total pyramid scheme.

You can Google the statistics but I believe it was something like 80% of creators only make something like $4 per month. OnlyFans was heavily promoted during the pandemic as a great way for girls to make money from home in “safe” sex work - I saw a lot of comments about how great it was for fat and disabled women, and women of colour as it enabled them to “find an audience”. However the top earners are almost all conventionally attractive white women.

Another thing worth mentioning is that OnlyFans nearly closed down all it’s porn accounts because of an endemic problem with child sexual exploitation on its platform.

Previous posters are correct, it is a digital pimping service.

Quite!

I would pay my auntie/mum/nan/sister/daughter to help me out with some cleaning work, but I wouldn’t offer any of them cash to help me wank, nor to assist me in wanking off someone else.

So it’s utterly stupid to say ‘sex work? No different to cleaning work!’