Saying Bye-Bye to OnlyFans: 5 Other Ethical Porn Platforms from an IRL Sex Worker
Whether you’re a customer or a creator, if you’re left feeling betrayed by the Great OnlyFans Fake Out of 2021, here’s where you should go with your wallets and/or selfie cams.
I hadn’t looked at my phone for a few hours when I noticed it had been buzzing a great deal. After opening my home screen to several panicked text messages from fellow online sex workers and OnlyFans creators, I noticed all messages had the same screenshot attached. It was a picture of the VARIETY article that was posted on August 19, 2021. The article announced that OnlyFans will be banning pornography starting in October of this year. However, not one week later, the platform rescinded their claim to ban porn, or at least “suspend” its planned policy change.
The platform allows creators to have subscription based followers, paying monthly to see whatever trade it is that they are sharing. It could be a musician sharing unreleased music, a fitness trainer sharing work outs, or a sex working sharing and selling their pornographic content. Although there are many uses for OnlyFans, the website has largely and primarily been used for sex work and for “pornographic” or “sexually explicit” content.
When COVID struck and people were quarantined to their homes in March of 2020, so many of us found ourselves jobless, our incomes severely dashed. This fueled a fire that was already brightly burning - not only did sex workers flock to OnlyFans, but so did amateurs. What I saw as the beautiful thing about OnlyFans is that anyone can have an account. I was someone who didn’t necessarily have a following, that figured out how to market myself and my account until I found myself in the top 5% worldwide of all creators.
I’ve considered myself a sex worker for only about three years, now. However, it is a badge I wear proudly. To say the silencing— and dehumanization, frankly— of sex workers is not new is the understatement of the century. It’s been happening from the moment sex work began, which was basically the same moment society began. And this is the exact thing we’re all seeing from OnlyFans in their blatant disregard for the Sex Work community and the thousands of people who depend on their income from the site.
I wasn’t surprised by the fact that the removal of porn from OnlyFans was allegedly caused by the banks threatening withdrawal from investing in the website. I can imagine the old white dudes in charge of these financial relationships don’t want their companies’ names attached to something that has widely become considered a porn site. Although I’m sure more than a few of them have accounts… The hypocrisy is real. Not a chance these guys don’t consume porn.
Anyway, the censorship didn’t surprise me. I immediately was reminded of an essay I read by sociologist Catherine Hakim, entitled “Erotic Capital”. She posits that the patriarchal bias in our society causes us to nullify women and queer folks who utilize their erotic capital to their benefit. “Erotic capital is just as important as economic, cultural, and social capital for understanding social and economic processes, social interaction, and social mobility.” Sex sells. Many pop culture icons have used their erotic capital to their benefit. Think of celebrities who garner attention and fans partly because of their sex appeal. There are so many.
The power that erotic capital gives women, the agency a sex worker has to control their own narrative, their own income, their own business (because that’s what it is), is threatening to the patriarchy. Our society is so deeply sexualized, more often than not to the detriment of women and non-men. Hakim points out that women have a longer history of developing and utilizing their erotic capital for their own gain. Women have greater erotic appeal than men, she claims.
When we ask why erotic capital is overlooked in sociological categories and philosophical theory of the modern world, the answer is quite obvious. “The oblivion of the social sciences to this factor suggests that a patriarchal bias still remains in these disciplines… Women generally have more erotic capital than men, so men deny it exists or has value and have taken steps to ensure that women cannot legitimately exploit their relative advantage.” I believe this entire debacle reflects the fact that erotic capital is not seen as a worthy or dignified form of capital. When women and queer people are eroticized, exoticized and objectified no matter what, and when they try to profit off of it, they’re deemed as less worthy or even less human, it puts them in a bind, doesn’t it?
Because of the absolute dinkiness of the OnlyFans website, part of me feels this entire flip-flop was a publicity stunt. Either way, the “fake out” was really detrimental to some people’s lives. So many sex workers I know spent a week not knowing if they would be continuing to get a paycheck, not knowing if their livelihoods were over. Whether or not the white frat-dude CEO (who is making millions off of the hard work of sex workers) took it back, many, if not all, of us are feeling like making the move anyway. Personally, I don’t want to go through this again.
This is why it is of the utmost importance to have platforms owned, run, and funded by women and non-men, or by sex workers themselves. Ethically consuming porn means paying for it— putting money in the pockets of those working so hard to create it for your enjoyment. Here are some platforms for porn creators that are focused on ethical creation and consumption of porn. Consumers can also head to these sites to find their new favorites!
“FetLife is the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish, & Kinky Community.” This site is run by a diverse team of fellow “kinksters” and sex workers alike!
Fansly is a site very similar to OnlyFans. Apparently they have been overwhelmed with thousands of new applications an hour since the prior On-Top platforms announcement.
Nafty Fans not only takes a 10 percent cut as opposed to the 20% from OnlyFans, but also uses a cryptocurrency called Nafty Tokens as currency.
Many Vids was co-founded by erotic performer Bella French. She is the CEO and is a chief proponent of the #WeAreMany movement which works to eradicate the stigma of sex work.
Pocketstars was founded by established sex worker Elle Brooks. The platform offers amazing support for its creators being run by an successful business woman and sex worker.
Works Cited:
Hakim, Catherine. “Erotic Capital.” European Sociological Review, vol. 26, no. 5, 2010, pp. 499–518. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40963300. Accessed 26 May 2021, 499.
Jackson, Crystal a., and Jenny Heineman. “Repeal Fosta and Decriminalize Sex Work.” Contexts, vol. 17, no. 3, 2018, pp. 74–75. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26500922. Accessed 7 May 2021, 74.
