Friends DC & OnlyFans

[Clorrien]

I’m feeling really conflicted and unsure what to do.
A few days ago DD (20) and I had a conversation about the likes of BonnieBlue and Lily Phillips. Mostly talking about how exploitative the porn industry is.
Anyway during the conversation she told me, someone we know has a “popular” onlyfans account. She then went on to tell me it is the daughter of one of my closest friends. The girl in question is 22. DD says she only knows as there is a link in one of her social media bios and a few of them who know her have spoken about it. I’m shocked tbh, this girl is beautiful, extremely intelligent (she got a full ride scholarship for a top US uni), and always seemed very well adjusted. Her family are very normal as well, parents very loving, not bad off financially so she has never wanted for anything. Apparently she uses a pseudonym but that seems beside the point.

Anyway, this girls mum and I talk most days and I’m finding it hard to not tell her, I doubt she knows and if it were my DD I’d want to know so I could protect her.

WIBU to tell my friend? Or is it none of my business.

Discussing, warning and being disapproving is not dictating, it is caring. In any other career choice or move it would be quite normal for an adult child to discuss what they are doing with parents or other family members.
But going on your in detail comments about how Only Fans works, it's clear you are a sex worker yourself, so your ideas about normal behaviour are skewed. I presume you haven't told your own parents you're on there either.

Well said.

I'm surprised too, it makes grim reading.

I’m not a sex worker🤣 I have a very boring job, so does my husband, but as I previously said in this very thread, I have friends who have done or still do Only Fans. Also I’m not sure how old you are, but I’d say everybody I know is well aware of how these sites and pages work, it’s certainly not rocket science.

Is sex work the job I’d choose for my daughter? No. But I trust that I can raise my daughter to be the best she can be, and if as an adult she decides that she wants to do that then that is her decision to make. Just like it would be her decision to become a police officer, a solicitor, a surgeon- all anybody can do is raise their children and trust that they have done their job as parents well enough that their children grow into adults capable of making thought out choices for their future, whatever those choices may be.

I'm happy to say that none of my family or friends would do or have ever done Only Fans. I'm in my sixties and I'm very pleased that I have absolutely no idea about how that website works.
I find it utterly bizarre and worrying that you would think sex work is as valid a career choice as being a surgeon, solicitor or police officer.
From what you say your daughter is still a child. When she's 22, come back and say that you're happy to have raised her so that she believes sex work is a thought out life choice. I doubt you'll believe that then.

Without being overly disrespectful, I think age and understanding does play a huge part in this. It’s a lot more common than you might realise. Of course some people will be flashing their insides on there but lots won’t be and still making ok money.

I have friends that have dabbled in it. Not made big money but certainly enough to pay a few bills or go on holiday. The world for younger people is much more expensive to get set up and started in than it was years ago and any extra legal way of making cash is going to look tempting to lots of people.

Ultimately there will always be things that other people do that you wouldn’t do yourself, but if it’s legal and hurting no one else, it’s not your place to pass judgement

She's an adult. Mind your own business.

Absolutely this.

And THAT is why you don’t say anything. Now the girl knows not to trust your daughter and your daughter knows not to trust you.

This woman can make /orn content all she likes, for whatever reason she likes. All you’ve done is shown yourself to be judgemental and likely embarrassed/alienated your friend

It’s a lot more common than you might realise
About 100k UK creator accounts, so under 0.15% of the population. Except going by usual internet statistics under half wil be real unique users, and they won't all be active... so 0.08% of the population, to be generous. That's perhaps a grand total of 1 mum across 3 primary schools. It's around the same number as the 105k UK prostitutes.

No, it isn't "popular". Own your choices, but don't pretend everyone else does the same, because thankfully that isn't true.

@GRex Well said... please lets not normalise this "empowerment", it needs to die in a fire along with prostitution and porn.

Well firstly they’re not my choices, I’m not an OF creator 🤷‍♀️. And secondly I didn’t say popular, I said more common than you might realise. That’s subjective, not measurable.

If I thought it was 1 in a million people and it was more like 1 in 1000, then that’s “more common than I realised”.

I actually think 1 mum in 3 primary schools is more than I’d have thought tbh. And I’m confident if I told my mum, or my grandma that ‘statistic’ they’d be shocked it was as many as that. But I know everyone’s opinions vary.

It all boils down to again, what legal practices another adult partakes in is absolutely none of anyone else’s business, as long as you’re not being asked to participate too.

@ratalietatalie - prostitution isn't new, your mum and grandma might well have more awareness of the world than you realise. I had a Nana born in the 1920s who had plenty of awareness of the world around her; perhaps I only know because we were close. What is new, is this idea that selling your physical and mental health is "empowering"; I don't agree that it is, I think it's a con to try to move the narrative with the goal of trapping more vulnerable women into ugly scenarios. I'm a feminist and will never approve of people trying to cause harm like that. You might want to consider who your public support actually helps.

It’s pretty common amongst students. This article says a fifth of uni students were using it and that was back in 2020 so it’s probably increased with the cost of living crisis.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/onlyfans-students-university-fees-a4543246.html

From how my daughter and her friends talk about it, it’s pretty normalised for them. I hear them joke about it “I’m so poor until pay day, I’d better put in a shift on onlyfans” I imagine it’s not a joke for some of them her age. I honestly don’t think they think of it like traditional prostitution.

I suppose for them sex is everywhere so it’s not seen as a big deal. They follow influencers who pose in sexual ways wearing next to nothing and have plastic surgery to get massive lips, boobs and bums. Shows like love island are popular. Many celebrities have onlyfans accounts. If it’s in your face every day, you’re going to get desensitised.

I don't agree with criminalising prostituted women (or men). I support the Nordic model where pimps, brothel keepers and punters are criminalised, but not the prostituted women (and men), who are also offered viable ways out of prostitution. Most prostituted people do not go there by any choice, and selling the holes in your body for someone else to do whatever they fancy is neither empowering nor anything but psychologically damaging. The Nordic model reduces prostitution, with the eventual intent of making it clear that sex is not a right and sex is not something to be bought.
I think pornography should be censored - we seem to have progressed to the worst excesses of fetishism, and people think these things are part of normal consensual, loving sex and they are not.

I agree with you but were it my DD I would want to know.

I know. I feel sorry for this girl's mother, who must be tearing her hair.

In year in which the UK figures were below 100k creators, 22% of the 2.4m UK students would mean 650k of those 100k were students.

Or, your survey was crap. It didn't distinguish effectively between creators and users (viewers), it was only a few thousand responses, and it was a self selecting group (people only responding who were interested in the topic).

@Grammarnut I'd want my kid to be able to talk about that stuff with me privately. Maybe she is doing so with her mum. I just think it's not other people's place.

I think you’re making a lot of assumptions about what my opinions on female empowerment are. My only comment on people partaking in OF has been that adults should have the free will to do as they please as long as it’s legal. You don’t have to like it, I don’t have to like it, but it’s legal. I don’t like smoking or religion. I don’t partake in either but wouldn’t dream of telling someone else they shouldn’t. It’s their business and not mine.

And as a side note, of course prostitution has existed for as long as women have existed. I haven’t claimed otherwise (or mentioned prostitution at all actually). OF (the thing we’re actually having a conversation about) has not existed for centuries though. And so certainly in my family, my mum and grandma would be as surprised to hear that I know people that have tried the platform, as if I was telling them I knew people that hung around on street corners touting for business. That may be different for the people you know, of course - I understand my anecdotes don’t constitute data.

Your angry way of communicating how wrong you feel I am is odd. You keep making assertions that I undertake this sort of work or that I’m encouraging it, neither of which are true. Your opinions aren’t facts (the same as mine aren’t) and we’re both entitled to them.

You wanting to know and your right to know are not the same. There’s a good reason these women tend to keep family distant from it. They’re entitled to privacy more than you’re entitled to private details from her life she hasn’t shared with you.

But these women share their bodies with the entire world so hardly a privacy issue. It is most likely that someone who knows them would stumble across these activities at some point.
Why hide it if they are OK with doing it in the first place?
I wish the entire online porn world would disappear forever. The 'innocent' startup is a gateway to a much more seedy world and no woman would willingly and knowingly want to go there. These women are lying to themselves and the lack of self respect is quite shocking.

I don't know if OF is as socially accepted by young people today as some on here seem to think. I certainly don't buy into the belief that it's harmless.

As an aside, it's perfectly obvious why the OP mentioned that her friend's daughter is intelligent. It's relevant for the same reason that it's worth noting that she comes from a family that isn't struggling for money. The point is that this woman has many other opportunities and avenues available to her and isn't in a position where she's making bad choices out of desperation. She could have an amazing life, but she's choosing this, and I'm sorry, I don't think being on OF is particularly amazing or enviable, regardless of what she's earning.

However, she's an adult, and I don't think I'd say anything to her mother unless we were very close friends and I knew for a fact she had no idea, and even then I don't know how I'd manage to bring it up without offending her. It's probably better to stay well out of it.

Then you need to support her as a friend. Imagine the worry for her daughter for social stigma.

please don't judge women who work in the sex industry

in a way its almost better that she is intelligent and not struggling for money. It means she has carefully evaluated the choice and is doing it because she wants to, not because she's backed into a corner trying to make ends meet.