BBC suggests Only Fans is 'empowering'

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwygdzn4dw4o

What a very depressing article.

Female singer promoting Only Fans:

'it's bit of a punk protest as a woman to take control of my body and sell it' - Kate Nash

'Musicians could follow a lead from people who earn a living from selling sexual content on sites like OnlyFans, she suggested.
...
"Where can we learn from the sex workers? Maybe we can learn something from this industry. How do we get empowered as artists and take a bit more control?"'

That link goes to another article pushing Only Fans as a great way for women to make money. Also mentioned is Lily Allen, selling foot pics on Only Fans.

Absolutely no comment on any potential issues with this. No counter balance.

What is going on?

Yeah I thought that- really odd article. Implies it is 'ok' because it's just bottoms and feet. No discussion at all about how the music industry could be reformed to prevent artists having to 'learn from sex workers'

I’m sure Ed Sheeran is contemplating this right now (sarcasm)

"A bit of a punk protest" ?! Fuck off!
Selling your body is prostitution not punk. You are normalising that shit to your young fans and the BBC are fucking pimps promoting it.

I'm so angry at the BBC this week - and they've sent me a threatening letter for not paying the licence.

Shake your moneymaker

Twats
I am sick of hearing this “empowering” bollocks about porn and ffs call a spade a spade and use the word prostitute. Sex worker makes it sound like being on the till in Ann Summers.
I have much empathy for women forced into prostitution but zero for those who choose this route as a way to make more money than they could in tescos.

I think that it is product placement from Only Fans.

Like - they pay Lilly whatshernames and this singer to say this crap.

Stealth advertising.

BBC standards do seem to be going to shit, on the website anyway. You see typos everywhere now, whereas you’d never have got that a few years ago. Writers assuming their own politics are neutral and hence don’t require balancing seems like another example.

PS I’m sure I remember them doing an only fans piece that was basically a ‘how to’ – students and the like talking through their setups like it was a genuine career option. Am I imagining that? During lockdown I think it was.

I like Kate Nash. This is kind of weird.

Well, even working in Anne Summers is not totally safe. I am sure that sketchy customers are rife and I remember a case many years ago where a man went into an Anne Summers, forced a female shop assistant into a storeroom and raped her.

Going back to musicians, surely the answer they are looking for is Patreon?

DD has been offered £75 a post to say OF is "empowering" and she is making a lot of money from it. I wonder how much OF pay Nash and Allen to sell their fans a lie and groom them into sex work?

Back to the US early C20th, when black women (and maybe a few white women) working as prostitutes in brothels, were able to lift themselves out of that life by their singing talents - Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday etc. I wonder what those women would make of this? Privileged successful white women prostituting themselves. And countless other women over the ages that escaped a life of prostitution by talent or luck.
kate Nash and Lily Allen should be ashamed of themselves.

It absolutely is stealth advertising.

You see these kinds of article in the online “local” press owned by Reach media.

The BBC goes from bad to worse. No moral compass, no fucking idea.

He could use Only Fans yes. As it isn’t just nudity and sex. It was set up for people to show/sell things like songs, recipes etc. lots of chefs use it to make money.

I wonder what proportion of OF output is sex, and how much is recipes?

Hmph, wasn't punk about protesting capitalism? This is just a creepy convergence of capitalism & misogyny.

No- most of us on here (I know not all) have enough money for what we need, and some left over, though things are harder for everyone recently. If a woman's on her own w kids & wants to give them as much as she can, & sells sex to do that, I'm angry at society for making that a praised option. I still disagree w her choice & think it harms women in general. The better thing to do would be to try to upskill whenever possible, for society to make sure women in manual jobs are paid fairly, for the government to ensure fathers pay maintenance. But I do have sympathy.
I'm the child of a single mother, luckily we've never been badly lacking bc we have family support. But she is the sort of person, & I think a lot of mothers are when the going gets rough, who would do almost anything if she thought it would improve my life. I don't think she'd go as far as that, but who knows? Single mothers are often told they're not doing enough for their kids, & there's pressure on all parents to give as much as they can. We can sympathise & want to help eradicate this.

The BBC is full of perverts so no surprise really

It's a shame to see someone as talented as Kate Nash stoop this low for publicity.

This in absolute spades. White women who have choices and privileges unavailable to many (not that I’m a fan of privilege being used as a stick to beat people with generally) pissing about, cos-playing at being a “sex worker” because it feels edgy and exciting.

Of course, this completely disregards the fact that it creates and feeds a market in which all those other women - the trafficked, the abused, the desperate - get exploited because they don’t have any other choice.

Couldn’t the Beeb find one of the new sort of women to push this idea? Or possibly someone non binary?

Why just boring old ‘cis’ (sic) women?

I mean "DD has been offered £75 per post to say OF is empowering and she earns well from OF" DD did not take this money and gas light other women!

I like the "privileged white woman" angle...

What I have seen other musicians do to supplement their income:
*give music lessons - possible via video call and similar setups, no need to travel and do everything in person; as a famous musician you can call up relatively high hourly rates and coach, for example, other upcoming artists; we are not talking teaching three chords to beginners
*sell "meet & greets" - for often very high prices: get a photo, handshake, special ticket and the works
*work in music stores - this is probably only an option if your fans are calm and collected, but it works for many
*study and have a complementary career in a second occupation
*sell very expensive merchandise
*make special editions of your albums - this works extremely well since the vinyl revival from a few years ago
*appear in TV shows as judges and other roles, which in turn leverages your visibility

As Kate Nash sees herself as feminist and political, this move can harm her brand, unless it's the type of feminist who thinks selling her body is power.

Can't edit but I mean to say music stores which sell instruments and tech, not CDs.