Prostitution and pornography have moved to the internet, especially after the pandemic, through platforms that, with market speeches and many words in English, offer a woman’s body for a monthly subscription (about 5 euros) , of which she takes a portion, income that increases as she offers more poses for “tips”, and even more when she interacts or stays physically with a “fan” (customer). And as happens in prostitution, there is no lack of pimps, who define themselves as “coaches” or “management” advisors who take half of the income to look for new “models” 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 with sexual poses on these platforms, something that many other women do on social networks without getting a single euro. In the opinion of these young women (many of them are minors, since the registration to enter is ineffective), they do not prostitute themselves, even if they get paid to show their bodies, and sometimes a little more, because they are at home his and the “fans” don’t touch them.
This is what the report Onlyfans, a whitewashed space of the sex business , of the Women’s Foundation, which focuses on Onlyfans, the most popular platform (there are many more), created in 2016 in the United Kingdom as a space so that independent artists could show their work. In 2018 it was bought by an “adult film” producer and owner of MyFree Cams (the first webcam porn service), and changed the original purpose of Onlyfans to “a platform focused on pornography and prostitution ”, according to the report.
The growth of Onlyfans has been exponential. During the pandemic and in the following months, the platform gained one million new users every day, increasing its revenue by 553%. And all with only 25 workers. In August 2023 they reached 525 million dollars. Last year alone, the number of female content creators increased by 47% to nearly 3.2 million, while the number of users increased by 27% to 239 million. Spain is the fifth country with the most content creators, 97%, women.
According to Mónica Saiz, editor of this detailed work, one of the problems with Onlyfans is that the platform is seen as something isolated, with no relation to the sex industry. But it is not so. “We are talking about pornography, since videos and images of sexual content are bought; and we talk about prostitution because, based on the interaction between the content creators and their followers, digital and face-to-face relationships are established in which there is an exchange of sex for money”, he says.
“When I turned 18, I did something I thought would help me feel empowered, but instead left me traumatized: I joined Onlyfans. I only spent three years as a content creator, but they were the most miserable years of my life. (…) During that time, she was more depressed and anxious than ever; (…) I felt that my subscribers were constantly asking me to push my limits. It didn’t matter what I published, they wanted more explicit content. I ended up sending nude photos several times a day, even if deep down I didn’t want to, because I felt very pressured and they were also offering me a lot of money”, narrates a young woman who registered on this page and whose testimony is collected the report
The big problem with this platform, the study points out, is that young women do not see that showing their bodies in exchange for money is a form of prostitution. In part, because in such a hypersexualized society, in which the networks introduce girls to the world of images and femininity always understood in sexual terms, the step they take when they join Onlyfans is not identify “So joining Onlyfans felt like a natural progression. She 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 one content excreter.
In addition, they believe the message of those “advisors” (there are videos on YouTube about how these pimps proceed) that this activity “empowers the woman” because “her body is hers”.
And what just convinced them is that “this is a business, basically I’m my own boss, I set my own hours, I make my work schedule and all these things, so it’s a yes. And for me, being an entrepreneur means working for yourself, that the profits you get are for you” (content creator).
The pimps have found on these platforms a safe environment to act. One of these entrepreneurs says: “This is sex work and as much as the Onlyfans want to say that it has nothing to do with it, prostitution, prostitutes, webcamers, porn actresses, Onlyfans girls, are all sisters…”. And he adds: “Many Onlyfans girls want to denigrate prostitution here: ‘I don’t, I don’t show my pussy, I’m not a whore.’ (…) Yes you are and nothing happens”, he affirms.
