The normalisation of OnlyFans and porn

[mistea]

I graduated from uni about 5 years ago, and still keep in touch with my course mates via a WhatsApp group chat. Recently, one of them was asking if anyone knew of any openings in our field, someone suggested that she open an OnlyFans account, and basically everyone else (it was a very male-dominated course) chimed in about how that was a great idea and that they had friends who did that and made 5+ figures a month.

Fair play but I personally know of a friend who went down that route, made a decent amount in the first few months, only to be pushed to show her face and do more and more extreme acts to retain her subscribers who all ended up leaving anyway. She has now quit but her videos are stuck on free porn sites and reposted on forums from time to time. Her case isn't a rare one.

Is it just the people I surround myself with? Or is this really how the world is today? After my last relationship broke down because of a violent porn 'addiction' on my exDP's part I feel just feel like it's all hopeless now.

@yetmorecrap at the time it was something I could do and fit around work hours so it suited me, and wear the tights to work etc so it was easy money for not doing a lot. My own opinion is that it's a personal choice if you're mature enough and I just thought especially with lockdown and people losing jobs it was a way of making money but from what I've heard about OF I'm really not sure now. The girls in our group two were single mothers and it suited them also but they were mainly selling photos and knickers. One thing that does worry me more than OF is the fact that very young kids have access to hard-core porn on their phones, I find that really disturbing and God knows what it's doing to their brains.
The whole influencer thing is beyond me, how these people become stars and rich. I also think it's sad that kids are going to uni and paying 9 grand a year and coming out with few prospects and you're right you get these z list celebs who date a footballer who or have YouTube channels earning a fortune, it's a funny old time we're living in.

I must admit if you're going to accept it happens and accept people's right to do it (and I know not everyone does, but for those who do), then I'd rather it be "normalised" than shrouded in secrecy and shame. It's that sense of shame that causes a lot of the problems in the sex industry, or makes problems that already exist worse. Having things out in the open makes it easier to deal with things like organised crime, coercion, health issues and - in this case - preventing underage participation.

We either accept people have the right to do it or we don't. I don't know what the answer is but if we do, then it's hypocritical to then turn round in the same breath and slut-shame women for doing it.

@Soccermom1 I think a lot of the "influencers"* who are described in their instagram bio as "underwear models" and the like and appear to be making a lot of money are in reality involved in a much older profession (there have been a whole series of articles written about it, and it gets very very dark). What bothers me is a lot of the written discussion focuses on "exposing" these women for their real job, whilst the "sponsers" basically arent named and shamed at all. The thing that most bothers me of course is that a lot of the young girls and women who see the success of instamodels and aspire to that probably dont realise how they are making their money. It seems very glamorous, being flown to exotic locations by rich men just for looking pretty. It isnt.

*obviously not all of them.

It isnt about whether I have the right to do it. It is about whether 50 year old men should have the right to pay 18 year olds to strip naked in front of them and do god knows what. I am not necessarily saying it should be illegal (that is a very complicated debate) but I do reserve the right to "kink shame" those men. The current problem is how much the CONSUMPTION of porn (and quite extreme porn at that) and other forms of sex work is normalised.

And in 18th Century London as many as 1 in 5 women were prostitutes (not necessarily full time, often it was to suplement other incomes etc.) This "normalisation" of sex work did not lead to the removal of stigma for those women, or their "empowerment" generally (bar a few very high status women maybe). We seem to be sliding back to that.

Yikes don’t know what happened to that post . A glitch I’ll request removal as it’s very confusing and start again

It is really difficult, I'm torn because I would rather girls (I'm not talking naive teenagers) do something like OF or sell on sites like I did rather than be exploited in some porn film, get paid a pittance and have that film online for years, not to mention the drug culture in the porn industry. That's not to say I think it's something to encourage girls to do, but if we're classing it all as porn surely that's preferable, to own and control and monitize your own content and set your own rules. I had very firm beliefs of what I would do and not do and if buyers didn't like that I wouldn't lose any sleep because I knew I could regularly make money with worn items like tights.

Also I worked full time and getting another job and not seeing my kids in the evening wasn't an option and so I was happy sitting at home on my phone and making some extra cash. And from our online group that seemed to be a popular opinion, it wasn't always possible to go out and get another job or any job in some of the girls cases. However that's not to say that it's a great thing or I recommend everyone does it.

I think @fifteentoes is right in that respect that there's a danger in making things illegal and pushing it underground. I've always felt that we should make prostitution legal and at least make it safe for these women rather than hanging around street corners or being trafficked, and then try and get these girls out of that line of work and help if they need it.

I've always tried to give advice to the younger women on the sites I was on, things like never show your face and just basic safety, never meet anyone, don't think of it as a career. My feeling is that we need to make safe environments for this sort of thing and be open about it.

The issue with the mass of porn and extreme porn and the fact kids are watching this stuff is frightening and I don't know what the answer is other than shutting these sites down that peddle that sort of stuff but we know they just pop up again because the internet is seemingly lawless. I personally wouldn't let a kid have a smartphone or at least have parental controls on it if that's possible, but that's a different discussion.

@soccormom sure we women Could throw our arms In The air and say yes let’s just give up . Men have a right to keep using us as as sex toys for money .ignore men who ‘ fight for their right ‘ to this crap ‘ We could say it’s better girls do a little a less of being bought and being commodities rather than more OR we could object to men thinking women are just objects to be purchased . We could educate our girls that their value is much higher than a males validation or money for his orgasm . We could educate our boys to respect women and learn that women’s value is equal to their own
I’m not suggesting making things illegal . I actually don’t think that helps change anything . It’s legal now and I don’t think that making it illegal will make the problem go away
The only thing that will make the problem of OF and porn being seen as great options ( and suggestions for a job as happened to the OP) is changing attitudes where men learn women are not just walking sex parts to be purchased and girl grow up to understand that showing your body to some man for money is not empowerment . Do what will we do , teach girls yes ok but don’t show your face OR teach girls that women are worth so much more than what men will pay that’s If the man considers them worthy
I know which I’d rather teach my kids

Normalisation in the context of this topic, for me at least, and I'm sure others.

Is to say that the normalisation of paying for sex and other related activities amongst MEN is not a good thing. As it increases demand and a certain view of women and girls by men.

Not that women engaging in this should be shamed. Not at all.

It's the men who should be ashamed of treating women as sex objects and commodities.

@NiceGerbil

Normalisation in the context of this topic, for me at least, and I'm sure others.

Is to say that the normalisation of paying for sex and other related activities amongst MEN is not a good thing. As it increases demand and a certain view of women and girls by men.

Not that women engaging in this should be shamed. Not at all.

It's the men who should be ashamed of treating women as sex objects and commodities.

Yes absolutely agree It’s the thirst entitled sleazebags who use these services who should be exposed

It's all prostitution. There is no difference. Woman are still only seen as purchasable playthings. It's just utterly depressing.

The thing is no patents or school teachers are telling girls today that they should be flashing their tits as career choice. This is the most progressive generation of teenagers I can remember, it's all gender inequality and progressive rights, and yet it's this same generation who are pouring onto sites like OF or watching porn themselves, and I'm talking girls here as well as guys. We're talking about a generation of teenagers who are very adamant about being progressive and switched on, and yet clearly a lot of them are doing things which many think are the antithesis of three values without apparently seeing any contradiction

I thought it would be interesting to Google feminism and OF and it's just a minefield, ranging from it's sex positive vs sex negative to it's empowering to women vs it's misogyny etc, I wasn't exactly expecting a consensus but if we can't agree on the basics what hope is there if we're talking about fundamentally changing society

@Soccermom1

I thought it would be interesting to Google feminism and OF and it's just a minefield, ranging from it's sex positive vs sex negative to it's empowering to women vs it's misogyny etc, I wasn't exactly expecting a consensus but if we can't agree on the basics what hope is there if we're talking about fundamentally changing society

I think the thing to be very careful about is getting caught up in the lie that feminists who object to the commodification of the female body are sexual negative Many woman who are completely anti porn are extremely sex positive and object to the objectification of woman or women for men’s consumption and purchase Those who claim to be sex positive often like to throw these labels around but with close examination you’ll find their type of sexuality where women are just playthings to be purchased is not what one would consider healthy sexuality

Most porn is actually extremely sex negative and is NOT about women’s sexuality at all . It’s about power and dehumanisation of women . It’s about men purchasing women . This is about as far from sex positive as one could get

"I think the thing to be very careful about is getting caught up in the lie that feminists who object to the commodification of the female body are sexual negative
Many woman who are completely anti porn are extremely sex positive and object to the objectification of woman or women for men’s consumption and purchase
Those who claim to be sex positive often like to throw these labels around but with close examination you’ll find their type of sexuality where women are just playthings to be purchased is not what one would consider healthy sexuality"

Totally agree with all of this.

@Soccermom1 I do think there is space for a discussion about how best to handle the issue. WHat is concerning is, as others have said, a complete refusal among very wide sections of societ that it IS a problem (the normalisation of porn, the open encouragement of women/girls to consider it as a career).
I thought at first that OF might be a better model than porn hub. But they have already shown they will change their terms overnight if their subscribers (men) want it, regardless of whether it throws their female "content creators" into financial disaster. Additionally, the very fact they require women signing up to provide a photo of themselves holding their ID means that women using the site are placing HUGE amount of trust in the site itself. A data breach, or even just a creepy employee of the company could lead to their identitie being exposed no matter how careful they are to never show your face, which you advised was important for security etc. Not only is their face showing, but official ID with their full name and DOB etc. If the IT engineers working for the company are anything like the IT/Maths graduates who were the subject of the original post I would not trut them to put the safety and security of women foremost.

This is how much Only Fans cares about the women whose bodies they are actually profitting from. www.bbc.com/news/business-53979625 . To quote from the article ""Spending limits are in place to protect all OnlyFans users and to allow them to use the platform safely," said an OnlyFans spokeswoman. " (by users of course she means the men, for it is they who must be protected!)

And yes, I completely agree with what @Countingthebeat said!

One of the women in the group just sent me a private message saying that it the whole thing probably wasn't said 'using the best words' but that 'it's kind of a compliment to her if you think about it'. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

It all makes sense now. Apparently this women did do only fans and some of the guys in the group were subbed to her but she's now 'quit' and is fulfilling more of a 'mentor' role. I'm assuming this means she's primarily doing that referral thing where you get a cut if you introduce other people to become 'content creators' for the site.

Sell pics of your fanny again so we can wank at them 🤮 gross

She is 'mentoring' women to go into a site to get naked ++ for cash?

A pimp then.

Jesus.

Was just on the MLM thread elsewhere on this site and it's a bit like that it seems. You recruit people, you get I think 5% of whatever they earn, and in return they get help setting everything up and they get a welcome/promotional post on your page. Just, wow.

So she's now making money from exploiting women herself? Well

It needs banning.