I don't understand this issue with OnlyFans.

[DragonSnapCrimson]

I’ve been thinking about OnlyFans recently and can’t fully understand why it appears to be seen in such a bad light here.

In the cases where a person is pushed into it, feels it’s no other option etc then yes, I fully get why it’s not a good thing.

But I have seen some people on social media who are aware of all of the risks, aware that their photos could be shared with third parties etc and they’re completely ok with that, they’ve spoken on it. They’ve made buckets of money with the app in order to pay for uni, a house deposit among plenty of other things. So why would that be seen as a bad thing?

If they’re fully aware of the dangers/consequences yet still consent to it and make decent money for their future/whatever they like, then I don’t see the problem. Or is there no problem with people in this particular situation?

This post isn’t about other kinds of sex work, just OnlyFans.

All these years of trying to make it possible for women to be something in their own right reduced to the expectation that they sell themselves off as porn.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes
I hadn’t read the thread ir your post when I sent that.

What you just posted absolutely shows how insidious it is. I can easily imagine falling into that trap as a teen. Anyone could be a hair’s breadth away from getting pulled in. That poor French girl.

That thread is tragic @PurgatoryOfPotholes and this brief thread from yesterday is no-way near as serious.

What's wrong with selling your dirty pants on eBay? It's the point of the thin edge of the wedge...

"This is what the cultural commodification of women does. It tells men that any woman is up for sale if they can find the right price."

Objectifying women, or women objectifying themselves, turns all women into objects. These objects are solely for men's pleasure and for them to do with these objects as they wish. Women become less than human, because they can be purchased - like other objects/products/services.

This woman was offered $500 for nude pictures, the photo in the thread shows her aged 15 and it was this that motivated the man to approach her. Maybe she could have sent him some used pants and he would have left her alone after that and the money would have paid for a weekly shop...

twitter.com/m_jensen23/status/1491514089390149634?s=21

I don't think someone posting a picture online of them wearing a leather dress and holding a riding crop whilst making a joke about being a Mistress is porn

You genuinely think that’s acceptable in someone who’s a Girl Guides commissioner? And who actually does work as a dominatrix?

Can you not see that (it seems to me) your view of what’s acceptable in a role model for girls has been influenced by your experience of sex work?

For those arguing that they would do it in a heartbeat, if x, y, circumstance. And that those who don’t understand that reasoning are priviledged or a*holes. The issue is this. A body is attached to a person. You can’t differentiate the link between the person’s body and the person’s mind/psyche. That link is sensory, and imaginative, and affects the nervous system in a profound way. To expose a body to danger in this way continually will result in mental health problems, probably life long without help. As Julie Bindel said recently, when you give women a way out they will take it. If there are enough public voices saying it is fine, that way out will not be found. How can you stand by the argument you are making, and the impact it can have on other people and future generations?

I believe in freedom of choice but not in ‘anything goes’, I think that just leads into a race to the bottom, a freefall in which there have to be losers. When it comes to porn and all associated with it, the losers are invariably women, and that includes our daughters. It might not be fashionable or whatever to say it, but that’s what I think and that’s my objection to concepts like Only Fans.

This is exactly it. The society I want to live in with my children doesn't include women having to sell themselves online. The men I want my children to grow into would be disgusted at the idea of using a woman like that - the reasons the woman is doing it don't matter, it's men's behaviour that needs to change.

They’ve made buckets of money with the app in order to pay for uni, a house deposit among plenty of other things. So why would that be seen as a bad thing?

Hahahhahahahah.

Really? I want receipts.

This reminds me a lot of women who say they've made a lot of money through MLM or in pole dancing. Yes, I'm sure a few have done it, but I don't think it represents the wider picture.

It's the same with art - there are millions of people out there who do art, but despite being talented, get pittance or nothing for their work. The difference between those artists is that they make a sketch, take a photo and if it doesn't make any money, yes it's a shame and sad but releasing naked photos or videos of yourself has a very different type of risk associated with it.

Sadly, OnlyFans has also had an extremely corrosive effect on modern young relationships and what young women think they have to put up with. I've seen some young women on here say that their boyfriend didn't think there was anything wrong with them 'supporting' a woman in their friendship group who was doing this. Worse still, when they approach their friends about the problem, they are faced with a group of brainwashed women who tell them they are being paranoid, jealous and 'sex negative'.

How far we have slid backwards this past decade or so :(

@PurgatoryOfPotholes thank you for explaining this. So many of us are worried about the theoretical dangers for women on Only Fans. You show these worries are real.

Hahahhahahahah. Really? I want receipts.

They genuinely have, however, thanks to some posts on this thread I now realise that it is probably more likely due to the whole MLM premise and they get money for getting new people on board, etc. As someone else said, some of them do make pretty good money in specific areas.

Purgatory - Wow, I never knew that about Vinted yet I use it quite regularly, how scary.

Just a thought that's popped up from this discussion - if you're vulnerable then you're much more likely to get caught up/stuck in these things and for everything to go too far into a very unsafe situation. If I would take my own situation, for example (no money issues, good job) and I would decide to sell my knickers on eBay then it would be a lot easier for me to simply say no to the creeps asking for more, as it wouldn't be a big deal for me to lose out on that money. So some people can sell their knickers safely, but for others they could be going down a very dangerous path like the one in Purgatorys post. So at the end of the day, it's the poorer people who suffer the most with this stuff and that's a huge issue, the "richer" ones are protected a bit more by their wealth and being in a position to be able to say no.

*Hahahhahahahah. Really? I want receipts.

They genuinely have, however, thanks to some posts on this thread I now realise that it is probably more likely due to the whole MLM premise and they get money for getting new people on board, etc. As someone else said, some of them do make pretty good money in specific areas.*

Even if some of them did earn enough to pay Uni fees or house deposit, it's not really a job you can dissociate yourself easily, it is likely it's going to influence your life because nothing digital is lost these days, so the initial cash boost might not compound in the long term.

It doesn't matter whether it's men, women, 20 year old students, whatever on there, most adults with real-world experience know that when sex or its periphery is sold the most vulnerable always get exploited and a privileged minority get rich and emerge unscathed. Anecdotes about the experiences of a very few people at a fixed point in time don't change that and that includes the examples you have given above. I would never negatively judge the desperate (or the ones making "empowered choices") people who go on there but I absolutely negatively judge the system and the subscribers.

@DragonSnapCrimson

Hahahhahahahah. Really? I want receipts.

They genuinely have, however, thanks to some posts on this thread I now realise that it is probably more likely due to the whole MLM premise and they get money for getting new people on board, etc. As someone else said, some of them do make pretty good money in specific areas.

Purgatory - Wow, I never knew that about Vinted yet I use it quite regularly, how scary.

Just a thought that's popped up from this discussion - if you're vulnerable then you're much more likely to get caught up/stuck in these things and for everything to go too far into a very unsafe situation. If I would take my own situation, for example (no money issues, good job) and I would decide to sell my knickers on eBay then it would be a lot easier for me to simply say no to the creeps asking for more, as it wouldn't be a big deal for me to lose out on that money. So some people can sell their knickers safely, but for others they could be going down a very dangerous path like the one in Purgatorys post. So at the end of the day, it's the poorer people who suffer the most with this stuff and that's a huge issue, the "richer" ones are protected a bit more by their wealth and being in a position to be able to say no.

I think it's worth highlighting that the story Purgatory posted in exceptional and also highlights the need for harm reduction rather than criminalisation.

She didn't start on an adult platform like onlyfans, and if all she made from camming from $500 after hours and hours of work then she wasn't on any of the main cam sites because they wouldn't let you set your rate so low. Which means she was probably working on Skype, with no protections and I really don't see how there is any way possible to prevent people doing that - even countries with the Nordic Model can't seem to prevent brothels operating, how on earth can we prevent people making private arrangements online.

So in that context surely it is better to have platforms that at the very least can age verify, ensure people get paid properly for the work, have a community of sex workers who will provide information on how to not reveal your location and on which men are reported and banned if they ask people to do dangerous things with bottles and knives.

Onlyfans is far from perfect but does at least have some safety measures in place. Personally I'd much rather see platforms run by sex workers themselves, with safety never being compromised for profits and without grim men taking huge chunks of people's earnings. But online sex work is not going to stop, and the most vulnerable will be the ones at greatest risk of harm - so how do we prevent that damage? Increased criminalisation, such as banning sites like onlyfans, will only make it more dangerous, as well as obliterating the incomes of those who are working safely and are able to place limits on what they do.

Prohibition doesn't work. I don't know how many times humans need to learn that lesson, but harm reduction policies and decriminalisation are the only ways to reduce the damage caused by sex work.

BarleyBadminton
“I think it's worth highlighting that the story Purgatory posted in exceptional”

It sounds banal and common place. Just the sort of thing to happen to anyone vulnerable in any way: youth, inexperience, out if a job/ needing money, low sense of worth following some rejection.

@ScrollingLeaves

BarleyBadminton “I think it's worth highlighting that the story Purgatory posted in exceptional”

It sounds banal and common place. Just the sort of thing to happen to anyone vulnerable in any way: youth, inexperience, out if a job/ needing money, low sense of worth following some rejection.

Me too. It doesn't sound exceptional at all.

CBS to scroll back up to quote but I’m interested to see that Barley DOESN’T think OnlyFans works is demeaning, exploitative etc but DOES think that the ‘clients’ are filthy bastards (I’m paraphrasing) who deserve to be “rinsed”.
Hard to square that circle…

Me too. It doesn't sound exceptional at all.

Indeed.

"Sex work is work" apologists are fond of making analogies with other low-paid jobs...cleaner, warehouse worker, call centre operator, that sort of thing.

A cleaner provides a service which results in a more hygienic environment for those who live or work in that environment.
A warehouse worker fulfils orders for goods that people have placed, for goods that they need or want.
A call centre operator helps people resolve problems with an existing service or upgrade to a product that will make life easier/better/more enjoyable/more economical on an ongoing basis for them.

A sex worker enhances a man's orgasm.

Why do we think that the quality of a man's orgasm is such a significant need in society that an entire global multi-billion pound industry has to be in place to fulfil that need, and that thousands of women and children must be trafficked into that industry every year to meet the demand and replace the workers who are too old, too damaged, too dead to continue?

If every cleaner suddenly disappeared, workplaces and some homes would quickly become filthy and a risk to health.
If every warehouse worker disappeared, many people would lose their ability to access vital supplies - food, medicines etc - and the effect on the economy of all other unfulfilled orders would be catastrophic. Delivery drivers would lose their jobs too as there'd be nothing to deliver.
If every call centre worker disappeared, people would be left unable to resolve issues with their bank accounts, utilities, numerous service providers, leaving some without access to money or basic services like heat or water.

If every sex worker disappeared, men would...have to use their imagination in order to ejaculate?

Why do some women (I know why men do, obviously) persist in falling for the myth that a man's orgasm is as important as a hygienic work environment, a fulfilled supermarket delivery, a bank card fraud averted?

Prohibition doesn't work. I don't know how many times humans need to learn that lesson, but harm reduction policies and decriminalisation are the only ways to reduce the damage caused by sex work.

The work is inherently harmful.

Prohibition reduces the problem significantly - or do you think that the drink-driving campaigns which have reduced drink driving massively were pointless because there are still drink drivers? Do you think that instead we should have decriminalised it? Put drink drivers in charge of determining if other people were drink driving as safely as possible?

Again, in the society I want to see, we don't legitimise the ability to purchase other people in this way. I don't want 18 year olds being coerced into putting naked pictures and videos of themselves online forever. I want this to be rare and hard, not accepted with universities giving girls and women tutorials on how to minimise the harm they're doing to themselves.

@QuinkWashable well put. It's porn which is not a victimless activity and the main victims are women having to suffer from what men consider to be normal behaviour in the bedroom.

Only last year the BBC investigated OnlyFans’ failure to prevent children from selling explicit content on the site. They have their own accounts; they’re appearing in media created with/posted by older account holders; they’re being edited into images posted by others; & in the US, NCMEC has noted the trend of missing girls appearing on OF: the latest evolution of using the internet to distribute CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) .

Law & Order: SVU series 22 is airing on “basic” television in the UK (specifically, 5 USA) at the moment; and Thursday was episode 5: Turn Me On Take Me Private - if it’s something you’re able to view @DragonSnapCrimson it raises multiple potential issues of using a platform like OnlyFans. Obviously SVU wasn’t going to name a real platform - the same way that their stories clearly adapted from current events always carry disclaimers about being utter fiction about fictional characters who are not at all connected to reality in any way. It does also include - for obvious storytelling reasons - an unlikely/improbable negative consequence of camming. However, setting aside the fact that there ARE going to be some women who experience what happens in this episode (or even worse) - & you cannot ever know for certain that you are safe from the worst possible outcomes - the broader context & consequences are important. SVU has always taken a broadly sympathetic stance towards sex workers (increasingly so as the series has gone on); so the message here being that camming is not actually risk- & consequence-free is important.

Video of a recruiter for OnlyFans on a university campus.

twitter.com/BabeeHyeinK2021/status/1491931343080636457?t=3SB00bYxN0DDXKcO0Sv8lQ&s=19

It was difficult to hear the salesman but in one bit I caught he said to a passing as he handed her a leaflet “You get ahead by giving head”.

Those are freshers in a new place without their old friends and without their families.

How can that sort of touting and grooming be legal?

Christ, from when I was at university in the late 90s up until at least 2010/12 ish that would have been regarded with total outrage and disgust by everyone from students to staff - how on earth have we got to the position where not only this is thought to be OK, but many young women think it’s actively desirable?!?!

Grooming on social media aimed at teenagers, coupled with the constant screaming of "SWERF" at anyone who dares say that women in 'sex work' might not be having a fun time.

Sorry I've not read the full thread But a key issue pointed out in the video linked to this thread is that the more people who do things like onlyfans and "sex work," the more the users can drive down the prices.

Women who are struggling financially can be easily controlled over time by punters.

This is part of a bigger picture of using women's bodies as commodities, and also links to racism in America where slave women were used as bonds and women's oppression globally as valuable commodities.

Women's Bodies as Currency w/ Dr. Suzanne Vierling www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4474544-Womens-Bodies-as-Currency-w-Dr-Suzanne-Vierling