Prostitution and pornography have moved to the internet, especially after the pandemic, through platforms that, with current market discourses and a lot of words in English, what they really offer is a woman's body for a monthly subscription, that she takes a cut, income that increases as she offers more poses through “tips”, when she interacts more or even meets with the “fan” (client) physically, or what is the same, with the client. And, as happens in prostitution, there is no shortage of pimps, who call themselves advisors, “coaches” or “management”, who take half of the income for looking for new “models” (preferably “submissives”). , as they say) and get more clients from anywhere in the world.
The difference with classic prostitution? That young women do not identify it as such. They only see a way to get money by being sexual on these platforms, something that many other women do on social networks without getting any compensation. In the opinions of these young women (there are many minors, since the registration to enter is almost non-existent), they do not prostitute themselves, although they charge to show their body and, sometimes, something more, because they are at home and the “fans” do not They touch them.
This is stated in the report “Onlyfans, a whitewashed space for the sex business”, carried out by the Young Women Foundation, which focuses on this platform, the most popular at the moment (there are many more), created in 2016 in the United Kingdom. as a space for independent artists to show their work. In 2018, it was purchased by Leo Radvisnky, “adult film” producer and owner of MyFree Cams (the first webcam porn service), changing the original objective of Onlyfans to become “a platform focused on pornography and prostitution.”
The growth of Onlyfans has been exponential. During the pandemic and the following months, this platform gained an average of one million new users every day, increasing its revenue by 553%, according to The Financial Times. Onlyfans also has, according to registry accounts, only 25 workers. The salary of the highest paid manager amounted to £2 million in 2020.
BBC News reported that its earnings in August 2023 reached $525 million. Last year alone, the number of content creators on Onlyfans increased 47% to nearly 3.2 million, while the number of users increased 27% to nearly 239 million. Spain is the fifth country in the world with the most content creators, 97% of them women, who offer their image for subscriptions at 4.5 euros per month.
According to Mónica Saiz, editor of this work, one of the problems with Onlyfans is that this platform is generally seen as something isolated, without any relationship with a larger industry such as the sex industry. But it's not like that. “We talk about pornography since on this platform videos and images of sexual content are purchased; and we talk about prostitution insofar as, based on the interaction between content creators and their followers, digital and in-person relationships are established where there is an exchange of sex for money,” she points out. “Onlyfans is a space for new forms of sexual exploitation of women, leaving aside their old forms and giving way to new models where the classic characteristics of pornography and prostitution apparently disappear,” she reiterates.
“When I turned 18 I did something I thought would help me feel empowered as a woman, but instead it left me traumatized: I joined Onlyfans. I only spent 3 years as a content creator on the platform, but looking back, they were the most miserable years of my life. (…) During my time as an Onlyfans creator, I was more depressed and anxious than ever; (…) I felt like my subscribers were constantly asking me to push my limits. It didn't matter what I posted, they wanted more explicit content. I ended up sending nude photos several times, even though I didn't really want to, because I felt very pressured and they also offered me a lot of money. On top of that, I was getting horrible messages that were very degrading and I didn't see any filtering system on Onlyfans to block them. It was obvious that they saw me as an object for her pleasure and not as a person,” says a young woman who registered on this page and whose testimony is included in the report.
The big problem with this platform, the study points out, is that young women do not see that showing their body in exchange for money is a form of prostitution. In part, because in such a hypersexualized society, where girls are introduced to the world of image and femininity always understood in sexual terms from the networks, the step they take when joining Onlyfans does not identify them. “At the time, joining Onlyfans seemed like a natural progression to me. I was already posting bikini photos on Instagram, so I didn't think there was a big difference between posting photos there and posting them on Onlyfans,” says a former “content creator.”
Furthermore, they believe the message that these “advisors” (there are videos on YouTube about the behavior of these pimps) that this activity “empowers women” because “her body is hers.” And everything is based on the “freedom” of action.
And what finally convinces them is that “this is a business, basically I am my own boss, I set my own schedule, I make my work schedule and all those things, so it's a yes. And for me, being an entrepreneur means working for yourself, so that the profits you make are for you and your employees” (testimony of a “content creator”).
“The month I earned the most money, taking it seriously, doing four hours a day from Monday to Friday that month was approximately 1,500 euros. Let's go! That for me was... that hit me one summer, that I said, I'm a millionaire! (…)”, explains another young woman, whose boyfriend “kept” her accounts.
Why did he stop doing it if it was so fantastic and wonderful? “Having to do it every day for hours was something that conditioned you a lot. My boyfriend told me 'it's just that, aunt, if you had a bad day and you worked at Mercadona, you would have to work anyway'. (…) So, what happens? I don't have experience working on anything else but in my head it's complicated that if I have a bad day, for whatever reason, I'm not motivated, or I'm sad, or I'm angry, or whatever(...) to In my head, it's easier to go to Mercadona and be at the checkout even if you have a shitty face, but it seems much easier to carry out that job than to stand in front of a camera and start masturbating, and seem like you're super horny when maybe or you are not.”
Machismo has also found refuge on the internet, where behaviors and ideas are reinforced as a result of the anonymity and immediacy that the online world provides, the report states. And pimps have found a safe environment to operate on these platforms.
“There is an entire pimp network recruiting young women on social networks and platforms so that they open Onlyfans accounts managed by them. We find testimony about this in the story of Favdafaka (@favdafaka), one of the best-known so-called 'Onlyfans entrepreneurs' (...) who openly admits profiting from pornography and prostituted women," the report states. .
In an interview, this 'entrepreneur' relates: “I believe that porn and Onlyfans, despite being exactly the same, I think there is a very big difference, which is the connection. In porn there is no connection, in porn there is no connection, you get in, you watch a porn video and that's it. But nevertheless, on Onlyfans it's like when you're messing around with a girl on Instagram and she sends you things. It's that and on top of that you're messing around with the chick that you like on Instagram, that you've seen, that you found cool... You can see something from a chick that's not a porn actress... even if they're similar because in the end it's a whole circle. That is to say, this is sex work, and no matter how much those on Onlyfans want to say that it has nothing to do with it, prostitution, prostitutes, webcammers, porn actresses, the girls on Onlyfans, they are all little sisters, they all go in the same direction. hand…".
"That's another one, because many Onlyfans girls here want to denigrate prostitution, 'not me, I don't show my pussy, I'm not a whore'. No, yes you are (...). Yes you are and no "Nothing happens. And be proud of it, because nothing happens. Obviously there are people who are going to criticize you, who are going to denigrate you, because there is that stigma, but for me there is nothing wrong," she says.
