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Alright, in case any readers need to pretend to their significant others not to know what OnlyFans is, let’s start with that. Airbnb is to houses what OnlyFans is to sexually explicit photos, videos, and conversations. From the perspective of economic efficiency, I look at either of these platforms as people monetizing stuff for which they are already paying upkeep costs anyway.
Although, certainly, celebrities have OnlyFans accounts, many content creators on the platform are regular people. Quite a few of these regular people earn extraordinary sums from their work.
Business is booming on OnlyFans. The company reported $5.5 billion in spending by users for fiscal year 2022 — a healthy increase of 16% over the year prior. Nearly $4.5 billion of that went directly to OnlyFans creators.
For context, consider that consumers sink about $7 billion every year into the U.S. potato chip industry. If that 16% annual growth holds, consumers could very well spend more on OnlyFans than they do on American potato chips in fiscal year 2024!
Tens of millions of people view and pay for content on OnlyFans. It is not weirdos and perverts paying for this service (well, it’s not only weirdos and perverts, most of whom, as long as they keep whatever they’re into between consenting adults, I have no problems with either). Whether you are aware of it or not, a broad collection of people you know and respect in your everyday life spend money on OnlyFans.
Unfortunately, most people don’t advertise their consumption of sexually explicit content online. Some pornography consumers will go so far to conceal their ultimately pretty milquetoast desires that I once knew an attorney who later got disbarred and imprisoned for starting bogus lawsuits so as to issue subpoenas to internet providers and successfully blackmail victims by threatening to reveal their porn-viewing habits.
This whole situation creates an unpleasant environment of hypocrisy. Performers on OnlyFans are often identifiable by those who know them whereas consumers of adult content generally get to remain anonymous. The people who privately view pornography (one 2018 survey of adults in relationships found that 98% of men and 73% of women admitted to internet porn use during the preceding six months) rarely stand up to defend a person who produces it when that person is doxxed.
Every few months now, a new story comes out about a person (almost always a woman) who was ostracized and fired for the supposed crime of someone they know in real life finding out about their OnlyFans content. This is incredibly stupid.
It’s often been underpaid teachers who get such treatment after joining OnlyFans to supplement their dismal salaries. Ironically, the publicity these stories receive can demonstrably propel the former teachers into the seven-figure earnings tier on OnlyFans.
In another example of prudish backlash, a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates recently lost her race after it was revealed that she had once livestreamed sex acts committed with — get ready to clutch your pearls — her husband. That scenario could have almost been co-opted by the family values caucus.
Aside from direct professional consequences, reports are also widespread of creators of adult content losing lifelong friends and becoming estranged from family members when their side hustle comes to light. This is despite my unofficial tabulation that roughly 100% of people have viewed adult content online, have actually had sex with another person, or were themselves conceived when two people had sex with one other.
“I don’t care what people do in their own bedrooms,” some fuddy-duddy will say, “as long as they keep it to themselves.” Ah, but none of these people were accused of teaching a class in the nude; you have to opt in by seeking out this content.
“But won’t you please think of the children!”
Well, 73% of teens age 13 to 17 already admit to watching pornography online. I hate to break it to you, but a great deal of internet pornography is free and easy to view. Since OnlyFans requires users to create an account using their name and email address (to which a verification link is sent), and since explicit content on OnlyFans is typically behind a paywall, it is actually harder for teens to view adult content on OnlyFans than on most other adult websites.
How many teens do you know who prefer the method of getting something that is more work? If you’re still really worried about it, you could even try parenting your kid by monitoring their internet use, or do something truly radical by simply not buying your teen a smartphone just like every parent throughout all of history up until about 10 years ago.
Look, OnlyFans is an enormous economic engine for a lot of people who need the money, and there is zero evidence that the creators on the platform are particularly harming anyone compared to all other questionable content on the internet. Leave these people alone.
In fact, if you think OnlyFans is immoral, there is an ideal solution to your quandary (one which, unlike trying to get someone fired for no good reason, does not necessitate being an asshole): don’t go on it. There, problem solved.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
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