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.

Porn companies are known to be happy to profit off trafficking, rape, and child abuse images. Pornhub was happily making money of all these things until very recently, after a lot of campaigning made credit card companies block payments to the site.
OF are unlikely to care about underage nudes as long as they make money and it doesn't hurt the company.
edition.cnn.com/2020/12/14/business/mastercard-visa-discover-pornhub/index.html

Sure they may not care about it, but the question is how they can get away with it?

It's not like Pornhub where a picture is just a picture. A picture on OF is a picture of the person who is registered at OF with an OF account and gets paid by them every time somebody subscribes. That's traceable and provable in a whole different way.

I can only imagine it's something to do with the legal/financial relationship between them and the providers, that confirms they are not a "publisher" in the traditional sense. Seems dodgy though.

@FifteenToes

But OF is different from porn sites in that the person in the pictures is the content creator, who has the OF account and gets paid by them.

But how could you be sure they were exploited or coerced into opening an account? How could they be sure the bank details gives for the profit actual goes to the individual.

I’m not saying your wrong....you might be right....I’m just personally not so sure the system can be that airtight as to be sure everyone on there is on their by choice.

I wasn't referring to choice but just to the fact of being underage, which is a very clear, black-and-white issue. Particularly where the content shows the person's face or other identifying characteristics, and then those are associated with an account.

I am gobsmacked by the argument by a pp that having men wank over her flab or cellulite or 'imperfections' is empowering to her sense of body image.

How the fuck did we ever get to this?

These men should also be made aware, even if they don't care about the women, years of this kind of stuff with have an effect on them. An ex of mine told me that he had watched too much porn when single, and was concerned that it'd reduced his ability to become aroused when with a woman. He went "cold turkey" on the porn and found his sex life much more fulfilling as he was excited by, and focused on his partner.

@mistletoeandsigh

These men should also be made aware, even if they don't care about the women, years of this kind of stuff with have an effect on them. An ex of mine told me that he had watched too much porn when single, and was concerned that it'd reduced his ability to become aroused when with a woman. He went "cold turkey" on the porn and found his sex life much more fulfilling as he was excited by, and focused on his partner.

Very good point. I’ve known (or known about from friends) several men in their 20s who were functionally impotent with a real woman - couldn’t keep an erection or couldn’t ejaculate.

Great thread. Girl decides to do OF, and of course they HAD to be coerced or bullied by a man, hilarious. Thanks all!

@ChutneyNose

Great thread. Girl decides to do OF, and of course they HAD to be coerced or bullied by a man, hilarious. Thanks all!

Here we go. It's 'hilarious' to think that this might be the case for lots of people, given that a poster knows at least one where it isn't! So the idea that this is often a bad thing for women is totally off the mark! Riiight.

Yes that sort of thing happens all the time. Why is it hilarious to you?

The other point is that men often frame these sort of suggestions as 'compliments'. Women should be flattered that a man/ men are telling her they'd like to see her with her kit off and her legs spread. Isn't sexual attractiveness very important to women, and for a man to say she has succeeded is high praise indeed! And you can even make easy money from it... Why are you looking so angry now? I don't understand... It's a compliment!

I can't imagine the dynamic is any different whether the conversation is with someone you know or someone you don't know, and however it takes place.

'Great thread. Girl decides to do OF, and of course they HAD to be coerced or bullied by a man, hilarious. Thanks all!'

How on earth did you get that from the OP?!

Are you really do biased that you can read that OP and take from it a totally different situation? That's actually fairly bonkers

Ok I see no one has addressed the point that women watch porn too. I found a survey that was conducted by Marie Claire where they found 1 in 3 women watch porn at least once a week. And this was quite some time ago. How does this play into the narrative that porn is just for men, by men, it's degrading women etc?

What everyone is missing here is that sites like onlyfans and the like is not what you'd call regular porn, the woman creates the content, sells the content. Same with the clipsites which is where the real money is. I don't have a problem with women taking control and making money on their terms, unless of course they're underage but as some one has said these sites are pretty vigorous in age verification if they're money making sites and not just free porn sites, they're completely different things.

And again so many massive generalisations here that a guy asking for photos is wanting to humiliate the seller. What if he's just got a fetish for feet and is happy to pay for photos? What if he's in to financial domination and gets off on having his money taken? And are we ignoring what seems to be massive at the moment with these online dommes who enjoy humiliating men? When I was selling shoes and tights there were a number of sellers who also did online domination where they would make their 'slaves' do all sorts of humiliating things, and yes you could say the guys enjoyed being humiliated but the dynamic with a lot of these dommes one in particular I used to talk to at the beginning was how to monitize a guys fetish and push their boundaries, get them more addicted, reinforce feelings of worthlessness so they'd keep coming back, which personally I don't agree with. I just think it's very naive to think every woman on these sites is a victim and every guy is an awful misogynist, I've seen first hand there are a lot of lonely damaged men especially in the fetish side of things and women who will exploit that.

I find it just fascinating that a thread on sex work and porn seems to attract all these new members to MN who want to talk about how great it is.

Do tell us more @Soccermom1. Why did you decide to join Mn today ? What brought you to this thread of all threads ?

Were you looking for advice about weaning and this just popped up?

Ever heard of name change?

@IM0GEN

Pity you left the chat OP. That's what they wanted. Such a thrill dominating women, even online.

The relationships board is the one most invaded by members of various male rights reddit boards. A shame that they do so incognito purely to brag on those boards.

It is also interesting that whenever there is a discussion about this the question automatically gets reframed to something completely different. So in this case
"is it wrong for men to respond to a woman asking for professional advice/pointers by telling her she should do only fans and telling her they wouldpay for naked pictures of her". Becomes "why is it wrongfor a woman to make money from Only Fans?"

In other cases "Is it wrong for men to use their economic advantage to exploit women who desperately need money for sex" bcomes "why are you saying it is wrong for a woman to e a prostitute if she wants to"

In every case, the question about whether MEN are at fault is completely removed from the equation and the question becomes which group of women are most wrong - the ones who asked the original quesiton (about men) or the second group who feel attacked by the reframed question. And they end up at each others throats. And the men continue exploiting women safe in the knowledge they are above reproach.

And for the record, I don't think a woman who sells her body for sex is at wrong - whether they are coerced, whether they are doing it because they are in dire economic straits or whether (in rarer cases) because they don't mind it and make good money from it.
I DO think the men who choose to buy sex from those women, neither knowing or caring which group she falls into (because fundamentally they see those women as objects), are in the wrong. They should be ashamed though they probably aren't.

I don't think anyone is defending the guys telling the poster to go on onlyfans though? Unless I'm missing something. In that context of course it's inappropriate and wrong. What I object to is putting everyone into the same category! I've been labelled part of the problem because I dared to sell photos or items.

Maybe we need to agree that it's a multi facitited issue and not generalize? Personally I think certainly in cases of domination fetishes it's the guys being exploited because they're stupid enough to waste money on this sort of thing, I always try and get an idea of a buyers budget and how much he can afford, unfortunately not every seller gives a damn.

OnlyFans is actually really widespread, I'm in a couple of makeup groups on DB and it's surprising the amount of early 20s woman that do it, some profess to make huge amounts of money, some say they keep trying in the hope they will. It's really regarded as quite normal and acceptable for that age group. I have a 17 year old DS, some of his female friends are wanting to start doing it, I really don't understand it

Fb not DB

It's still possible to generalise even when there are exceptions or minorities that don't fit with the generalisation. So tbh I still think generalisation is fine, even if it doesn't describe your personal experience, @Soccermom1. Men are still able to exercise a double standard over this issue.

@namitynamechange has nailed it. The debate always shifts so that it's some group of women at fault, somehow. Just a question of which ones. So you do you, @Soccermom1, but it's men at fault here and I can't be persuaded otherwise.

@namitynamechange

Yes *@Countingthebeat* 15toes is being RaTiOnAl with his rational mans brain. Its not your fault if you are upset at what he says (and if you are criticising him it is definately because you are having an unrational, emotional response to what he says)

Yea of course I will happily not engage with the type of pro porn rhetoric that comes from him and leave it to others to try and deal with his mysogynistic view I’ve offered fifteen toes several professionally published articles on the harms of porn to women and girls and never once has he ‘engaged ‘ or even bothered to address any of those many articles written by professionals He has also never once been able to offer any professional article or research showing that porn is beneficial to women and girls I personally will other reading his posts in future only if they begin with some type of legitimate back up of his pro porn view .