@MxBliss
And I thank you for doing that work.
I agree, it would be wonderful to live in a respectful, adult world.
In the meantime, we do what we can for those around us.
I am probably going to be the one with the unpopular comment here, but hear my abolitionist self out. Before anyone assumes I am anti-sex work, know this: I am not anti-sex work... I am anti-make-it-easier-for-any-person to choose this path for themselves, and anti-trafficking. OnlyFans was primarily populated by sex workers and sexual entertainers and with that comes a lot of legal grey area so this was a smart decision for them to move away from supporting that content.
@CuddleWho
I actually see the rise of sex workers via OnlyFans and other online platforms as a sign of a pretty dysfunctional society. In principle I am not against sex work. But as far as I can tell, between online content, sugar dating, stripping, and plain old escorting, a massive fraction of young women are now involved in some kind of sex work. I have not seen any concrete data, but I would not be surprised if 40% or more of women in the US under 25 have done some form of sex work at some point. I don't think this is normal or healthy. While I doubt laws restricting sex work are the right solution, I do wish more people would be actively asking, "What the hell is going on here?!"
The women who freely choose to express themselves creatively with their bodies, and see high-paying clients, are unfortunately, privileged. There are many who are not making the decision to become sex workers out of "want", but out of "need" and become addicted to the support of sex work. Many want to stop or leave but aren't sure how. I'd say based on my own anecdote, and decades of unbiased research in places like Europe, where sex work is a little more accepted, that this is not a "lifestyle" that the 95-99% of sex workers are choosing. It is a world that is filled with broken and troubled people, on both the providing and purchasing end. The "lifestyle" sex workers (dominatrices, erotic models, high-end escorts, women making thousands upon thousands per month) do not comprise the majority, and yet this seems to be the group that most openly advocates for someone's freedom to choose.
This is also the group that attracts disillusioned young people who think, "I don't need to do anything with my life. Look at all the money they give her/him. I can just drop out and get on camera/get into bed with someone/sell my used panties, shoes, whatever". It takes a certain kind of person to be able to honestly and authentically do sex work and be okay with it. The majority of sex workers who are not into any aspect of the lifestyle, if they could choose, would not sleep with someone for money. If you show Miss Moonlight a fistful of 3,000 dollars, and ask her if she'd rather sleep with a greasy ol' Vern who sees 6 different providers a week, and then say that she can have the same amount of money working the cash registers at Wal-Mart, you don't need to be intellectually dishonest about what they are more likely to choose. You know they would probably choose a nonsexual line of work.
A child who hasn't been abused is not likely to have aspirations of becoming an erotic dancer, or a companion when they grow up. A child who has, however, is more likely to see their abuse as a leverage for being "suited" to the work.
No more hiding places, no more "creative freedom". I want government intervention in sex work. I want there to be regulated, safe spaces for men and women and others to do this if they so choose, with reliable and vetted clients. I want free psychological screening for anyone who says they want to get into sex work. I want the selling of sex work as a dream to stop. Because the reality is that sex work is not a fantasy land where women are held up and celebrated and treated like goddesses. If you have been around, and if you're honest, you know it's not. It's still a world in 2021 that is rife, rife, rife with misogyny and people making poor life decisions, or "choosing" this work because they think it will help them float, or get them out of some situation, like I did, at 16:
"I'm getting thrown out for not supporting my family. My parents want me to go to school. My parents want me to get a job, while I'm dealing with severe depression. I need money. I'm young. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Will men pay me with pills instead of cash sometimes? Maybe weed? I know there are men who will pay to see someone under 18, and I can keep this up realistically for a few years."
I thank myself everyday for making the decision to stop, and get help. Some young people were forced into it by others, and they are the ones who are getting slapped in the face everytime a privileged sex worker speaks up for the 5%. Myself? I willingly went in thinking I would make enough to support my family, support my addiction, and eventually get myself into school. Sex work did none of that for me, and only brought me trauma. I knew some high-end providers who did it for the money, constantly went back and forth between retiring and keeping up with the lifestyle they had built for themselves. Not really wanting to continue, but loving the feeling of getting an expensive pair of lingerie for their next video shoot. Then you have the other end of the spectrum. Not really wanting to continue, but needing to otherwise their kids aren't going to eat.
It's not the creative, gold-paved fantasyland outsiders think it is.
OnlyFans, Craigslist, Backpage...all of these places were exploitative dinner tables for the public, and more frighteningly, traffickers and the trafficked, regardless of what the creative, spirited 5% says. And I'm personally glad that the tablecloth was ripped off. Let them go elsewhere, or let them get out. I promise you that most want out, but it's trendy right now unfortunately to say that sex workers are making their own choice to do the work.
@cuddlewho I’m not saying the phenomenon never existed before. I’m saying it’s gone from maybe 1% or 2% of college girls to closer to 50%.
you have zero stats and throw out something like this? I guarantee 50% of women in college is a far fetched number
@RockRollCuddle - A very interesting choice of words…lol jk
@NicoSnuggs I blurred out the word toes lol. toes up
It's curious that absolutely everybody seems to have missed @Cuddlewho's point.
Did you mean to tag yourself, @RockRollCuddle - or were you distracted on OF? Pretty sure this is one of the first times I've seen someone tag themselves... but you do you.
Carry on.
@FunCartel - I know of several female AND males who put themselves through grad schools in the 80's and 90's... by stripping in DC, New Orleans, and SF. My male friend made enough in summers to pay for law school AND housing each year. One woman in particular made her way playing poker and literally beating the pants off her opponents in high stakes strip poker - she majored in English literature, got her PhD, and married a Math PhD. Pure academics, but her beginnings weren't... and she's not one bit sorry, nor should she be.
@Catloaf - thank you for this, especially "... all of these places were exploitative dinner tables for the public..." Indeed. and now that "tablecloth was ripped off." And GOOD for this.
.
@MaullySterling
@Catloaf You think a cashier at Walmart can make $3k a week? A month. You're deluded.
Seems you missed my point, entirely. What I'm arguing is that if the same amount of money was given at nonsexual jobs, you would see a whole lot of sex workers (who aren't into the lifestyle aspect of it) jumping ship. Because a lot of them don't want to be there, and are only there because they can be or need to be.
I'd also argue that even waitressing is sex work, since a smile gets you more money.
etc.
No, this is not a fair equivalency, at all. Smiling at guests while working at a Fortune 500 company or a restaurant is not sex work. Working in a sex/lovers shop does not a sex worker make. Trading one's body, in a sexual or sensual manner, whether being touched or not, is what makes a sex worker. More specifically, the selling of sex or the fantasy of sex, or masturbation fodder.
Just about every female over 14 has been sexually assaulted in some way. Not necessarily rape, but getting grabbed on a crowded subway, or her bra strap snapped, at school. They don't all end up in sex work.
I didn't say they were. But a child who has been repeatedly sexually abused (not necessarily assaulted) is more likely to enter into the industry. This is very well documented, especially in places outside the west. It's easy when you have been brought up to believe that you exist for someone else's pleasure, to think to yourself, "I can put myself through anything for that amount of money. I went through it for years, as a kid, with nothing in return. Why can't I do it as an adult/young teen?"
2 of the 3 pro Dommes I know have put a child through post secondary, or bought a home. For about the same hours as a Walmart grunt works, and has nothing to show for it. And they aren't having actual sex. They are more like therapists. The 3rd has only been at it a few years, and also keeps her marketing job as primary.
Pro Dommes also are part of the "lifestyle" community that I'm talking about. They're part of the 5% I've mentioned. Of course they enjoy their work, and can lead healthy lives doing it. They are more often than not in the lifestyle, and they are in control. You can't compare a Pro Domme's experience to a 20-year-old pill addict trying to get her next fix, or her rent money, from strangers on the Craig.
That's something else I'm tired of. Pro Dommes trying to speak for all sex workers as if most other sex workers are like them, and are there because they want to be. They need to admit they're speaking for the section of the population who want to enjoy creative freedom through sex work, and not the ones who chose it because it seemed like an easy way out, or because there was no other choice, which is unfortunately the majority. And truthfully, the creative, lifestyle voice is not the crowded section of the pool given the actions that have been taken against places like CL and BP, by governments.
I've done SW other than this,but that's nobody's business, and inappropriate to go into, on this site
Okay? So have I. I did it for 7 years, and left because of how disgusted it left me feeling, and the fact that I really wasn't getting anything personally fulfilling out of it, other than money and a way to support habits that really weren't good for me. I'm not getting into it, but trying to illustrate a point.
Where are you inventing this "5%" from?
It's not an actual figure if you couldn't tell. It's a paraphasing of the "99% vs 1%" concept, which, yes, exists even in sex work. It even exists in pro cuddling. The people who take this work seriously (the 1% or 5%...whatever tiny number you want to assign it) versus the 90-99% (or whatever) who think this is something else, or that this is easy work. It's a paradigm that is represented in many, many decades of psychological research on the world of sex work; it's not a statistic.
This was me. So even by your definition, working in the sex shop was sex work. As I said, wearing a corset (dressing provocatively in general) tripled my income. Which in turn, earned me the busier shifts, thereby increasing my income even more. If you heard the things I said, to sell the $700 blow up doll, you'd stop arguing this point entirely
You still were not a sex worker. Dressing provocatively and talking seductively to sell a product, an inanimate object, not an experience, is not selling sex or the fantasy of sex. It's selling a product. You worked in a sex shop, which was probably a licensed, legal business. By this definition, burlesque dancers are not theatrical performers, but sex workers. And...they're not. Unless they do actual sex work on the side.
@CuddleDuncan
This is the usual situation.
I'm not sure why ppl are piling on the women making cash where they can
Literally nobody in this thread is doing that. This is a straw man you're presenting to try to score easy points.
It’s a very emotional subject, which makes it incredibly difficult to discuss politely, much less rationally.
At some point, in our current capitalist “culture” everyone sells the three things we actually sort of own, our time, our efforts, and our bodies.
Everything else is a transactional negotiation to find the most palatable work for the highest price we can.
The people working in coal mines are every bit as exploited as the teenagers at the fast food place, as the “retiree” greeters at the megamart, as the sex workers on street corners and in front of webcams.
If we want to do everything we can to stop non-consensual victims from being enslaved, I am entirely behind it.
But I feel that judging anyone based on the kind of consensual work they choose to do is about personal taste, not any ethical rationale.
Beyond that, to fix the problem the system must be fixed.
Or, more likely, torn down entirely.
And that quickly becomes a “the cure is more damaging than the disease.”, problem.
@CuddleWho Don't worry, man. I got your point entirely, and it's the reason I made mine. Personally, my own experiences (which included witnessing and hearing of various types of abuse and anguish of others over the years) are what made me an abolitionist of sex work for the masses. I think there needs to be more done to prevent people from getting into this world, unless they truly, truly want to, and are making an informed decision rather than having the line of thought that says, "Such-and-such instagram star has an OnlyFans and just bought a Lambo. That could be me. Screw college. Screw the 1-5 year honeymoon that I'll probably go through before feeling burnt out or gross about it at some point, and wish I could be doing something else."
Furthermore, we need to actually start listening to people who got out, and people who stayed because they had no other choice. Somebody wants to be a Domme? Somebody wants to sell stinky sneakers for $5,000 a head on Twitter? Fine, but let's not pretend that's on the same level of choice as the curious teenager who is influenced by ill-informed social media representations of what sex work looks like or is, or the single mother who doesn't want to do it, but has to for the sake of feeding her family.
I'm not even going to start on the amount of successful ones that only continue to do it because it supports an addiction. But you will find few successful sex workers who would be honest about staying for an addiction. Why? Because of shame, and also because many clients don't want the illusion destroyed by being reminded that they are supporting an addiction. Or, even creepier, you have clients who decide to willingly provide for an addiction, and it makes the provider somewhat dependent on him and loyal.
Let me also make it clear that decriminalization is the first step in getting to the point @CharlesThePoet made, which is to make sure that consenting adults can do what consenting adults want to do. But to ignore certain populations and the detrimental effects that often rear their head in such populations is to ignore more than half of the problem.
Here's what the government should be doing: Stop charging and criminalizing sex workers, period. Stop blaming them. Stop going after their (respectful) clients. Start giving them resources, start listening to them, start giving them a safe means to do their work for those who don't have one, and make it easier for the ones who want to get out, to get out. Get involved and stop these third party vendors (sites like CL, BP, etc) from operating black markets and allowing in swathes of people who shouldn't be there (traffickers, teenagers etc)
Here's what the general population should be doing: Realize that sex work is work, but it is not work for everyone, nor will it ever be. Stop romanticizing it. Realize that a few years of successful escorts being applauded on Twitter does not easily undo the thousands of years of damage and abuse that has been done to countless other women, men, and others. Also realize that these same escorts, dommes, etc. do not speak for the average sex worker. Much less the ones who got out.
It's been nice sharing. I do respectfully bow out.
So you're sensitive to this subject because of your history with exploitation and addiction Ok.
Sorry that happened to you, glad you're not there, anymore.
You still have no clue about the entirety of the industry. Maybe back when you were still in it, but you're peering through a keyhole, and trying to say you see the big picture.
@squeakytoy made a good move. Probably time for me to do the same.
@MaullySterling thanks for bringing a practical, reasoned, and intelligent perspective to this thread 😊
I apologize for interrupting, but much like @Babichev stated yesterday I think , I didn't know anything or much about Onlyfans. I was here when Craigslist and that news was happening @ 2018 ish. People predicted then that we would have a "wave" of people joining. I really don't remember that happening. Maybe I have short term memory loss
I would like to say I am learning a lot thru the dialogue of a few of you. I understand there is some disagreement but I think everyone is presenting themselves well. I for one appreciate the information as I do not know much about what's going on except thru "media" and the "google machine". I hope you continue to inform us on this topic and other topics presented.
Thank you:) ....and still missing @squeakytoy
@Sideon no I barey know how to use this feature. I was trying to copy and paste the quote
It’s always sad to see the socioeconomic system disregard sex workers and treat them as second class citizens. They are apparently doing this because they want to raise capital and banks don’t want to lend money to anyone associated with sex work. Some of those bankers making this decision will then go home and spend the evening with their sugar baby. There is so much blatant hypocrisy. Politicians also love to frequent sex workers as we know but few will stand up for them and pass laws to legalize what they do. However, I don’t think it will be too long before we decriminalize. I don’t see the Millennial generation continuing the hypocrisy. It will be similar to marijuana legalization. Everyone wanted weed to be legal but no one had the courage to stand up for it. They all thought it was a political loser. Finally, it got traction with politicians once they figured out how to reframe it as one about racism. So finally everyone was able to vote for what they wanted (weed) while pretending that they were doing it for less selfish reasons (ending uneven enforcement). So perhaps focusing on ending discrimination and persecution of sex workers will allow people to vote for decriminalizing so they can finally get what they always wanted (easier access to sexual services) without having to admit it. Then on to the next victimless crime.
So perhaps focusing on ending discrimination and persecution of sex workers will allow people to vote for decriminalizing so they can finally get what they always wanted (easier access to sexual services) without having to admit it.
@dave31415 This. And I'm actually very, very pleased that you brought up the hypocrisy of lawmakers and other elite people with power who refuse to go to bat for SWs, but will continue to procure their services. It's baffling. Kind of a "them, not me" mentality going on there, among other issues.
The millennial generation will indeed be the generation to make legalisation happen, I agree.
If you want to legalize anything, it has nothing to do with the issue itself. One word describes everything in this world: money. When the need for a new revenue stream arises, politicians become like mob guys—they will create a way. Prohibition primarily ended because state and local governments put pressure on the Feds because the Depression drained their coffers and liquor taxes are profitable. We had unprecedented numbers of states pass weed legalization this past November with support from many politicians. Amazing how it coincided with a pandemic and a significant decrease in operational funds. Sex work will be approved eventually, but people will have to crunch the numbers and demonstrate how lucrative it will be to Big Brother.
@MaullySterling Please stay. I love your intelligent pragmatism. So rare here.
@MaullySterling What Cartel said!
Who cares!!!! Lol why do people even like that stuff anyways lol
@ladypixi Great contribution to the conversation.
@ladypixi 👍I’m with ya!
So my initial interest in this seems to point to the credit card charging people like visa MasterCard etc. my uneducated guess is like @FunCartel said “money “ I’m wondering if all these married people when their spouse says hey what’s this onlyfan charge ? Then the credit card co gets a dispute? Idk. I’m just been around married guys enough that their constantly trying to hide stuff from said spouses. Heck I’m single and my credit cards get constantly compromised. Sorry not by only fans usually software virus companies and such
Back to op … I don’t think there will be a “wave”. This CC community is pretty alert I think 🧐
@ladypixi Obviously there are people that do like it or care about it otherwise this would be a non-story. But the BBC and other news outlets are reporting on this. In an age where the life cycle of a successful business can be less than a century there is a reason why the worlds oldest profession still thrives—and why it is still a story.
@OhioMike I have had my credit card skimmed at gas pumps in Los Angeles four times in the last ten years. Nothing like getting a call from bank security asking “Did you buy a big screen TV in Tijuana today for $900?”
@FunCartel - I once got a call from my credit card company. “Is anyone in Romania authorized to use your card?” Uh, no.
I never heard of OnlyFans before three days ago and it’s come up in three different conversations since then.
There will always be a platform for SW. As for everyone's reasonings and opinions on SW, I'm leaving my opinion brief.
Some of the most successful people I know came from areas in life not that great. How and what others do with their body and careers is not that interesting to me as long as it's consenting for all involved. The only thing I dislike about the SW industry is that is not decriminalized. No taxation and little to no transparency.
Oh and of course, the obvious, SEX WORK AND SEX TRAFFICKING ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS.
Rinse. Repeat. And worry about your standing in society instead of being judgey in others lives. I'm sure that energy can be used in better ways. I know I do.
I love my platonic community and all the ways I can be PRO PLATONIC VS ANTI SW. Just because it's not a role I wish to be, does not make me any better or worse to the next person who may feel differently. Just please, lol, don't do it on CC. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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