In 2016, a new pay-per-view-style site emerged on the internet: OnlyFans.
The original tale went as follows: A customer could subscribe to a specific creator’s content and, in some cases, request certain content be created for a payment. Tim Stokely, ex-CEO and founder of OnlyFans, had the original goal to mainly have influencers and musicians on the app; pornography was initially banned on the site.
In 2017, he lifted the ban. In 2020, when layoffs and recessions were at an all-time high because of the COVID-19 pandemic, OnlyFans saw the growth of a lifetime. The payments made by customers had reached $6.6 billion in 2023.
OnlyFans had been mentioned in the Time 100 Most Influential Companies, and as of December 2024, there were 4.11 million creators on the app, all creating vastly different content, but mostly pornography.
Previously, in the world of pornography, people had frequented sites like PornHub, usually riddled with professional sex workers and their professional company heads. With pornography sites and professional businesses, you would be paid directly by the figurehead or manager.
On OnlyFans, you are paid by your customers. The actual difference between OnlyFans and PornHub is the relationship that a customer may have with the sex worker themselves.
Is sex work too personal? Has it always been?
The main issue people complain about is the tracking of content — no social media app is truly personal or private, and many professionals worry that their payments might be traced back to their companies or even their homes.
There may also be another, more obvious issue: If people can send sexual requests based on renounced fantasies to random sex workers on the web, how do these relationships flesh out? Many people have compared it to pimping and prostitution, which is widely illegal and looked down upon in our society.
An article by The New York Times mentions an e-pimping ring, where a group of men run and respond to numerous messages and subscriptions for sex workers, while earning a wage and pandering to the workers.
In the same article, it is discussed how the very term of sex-work is a manipulation of the term and the work that they do. What is happening on sites like OnlyFans is not empowering, as much as society wants to spin it that way. It is the practice of prostitution.
There have been multiple studies done on the effects of pornography on the minds of adults, adolescents and, in some cases, children. The impact of pornography on its users can lead to addiction, involuntary sexual behavior and anxiety and/or depression. What about the people who are actively being exploited by sexual behavior?
Women and men who experienced prostitution and the sex work industry have experienced PTSD, depression and anxiety; then, to cope, they turn to drugs and become addicted, ultimately passing from either suicide or overdose.
Decriminalization is one step closer to a fairer practice of sex work. As a society, we have to ask: Is OnlyFans one step closer to a fair, more sexually open society, or is it a step closer to the past horrors of sexual exploitation and/or trafficking?
How do we keep our society safe?
Karmyn Allen is a columnist. Contact her at [email protected]