OnlyFans isn't a safe platform for "sex work." It's a pimp.

OnlyFans has been to conventional pornography what stripping has been to prostitution: a gateway activity, sexual display with seeming insulation from skin-on-skin exploitation, temporary employment for those with their financial backs against the wall and few if any alternatives. It offers the illusion of safety and deniability for producer and consumer alike. But the outcry over the proposed ban made clear that only explicit sex — mostly, the sexual consumption of feminized bodies, usually female, gay or trans — sells well in pornography’s world. As Dannii Harwood, the first so-called content creator on OnlyFans, told The New York Times, “Once subscribers have seen everything, they move on to the next creator.” Empirical research has also documented that dynamic.

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Though OnlyFans said its motive for the now-retracted ban was to comply with the policies of credit card companies that process payments on the platform, there is some reason to think that the platform was trying to get ahead of its Pornhub moment, in which the possible conditions of its girlfriend fantasy — youth, diminished agency and destitution among them — might be exposed. Allegations have already been made of inadequate screening for incest, bestiality and child sexual abuse. A complaint recently filed in Korea alleged that OnlyFans hosted videos of minors. (OnlyFans has said the company “does not tolerate any violations of our policies and we immediately take action to uphold the safety and security of our users.”) There is no way to know whether pimps and traffickers are recruiting the unwary or vulnerable or desperate, or coercing them offscreen, and confiscating or skimming the proceeds, as is typical in the sex industry. OnlyFans takes 20 percent of any pay, its pimp’s cut.

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