Selling Sex in the Social Media Era
By: Madison Vanwinkle
Tags: Side Hustle, Sex Work, Social Media

Selling Sex in the Social Media Era

With a sly smile on his face, Andrew, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, casually sips on a Nitro Cold Brew as he talks loudly in a bustling Starbucks in Covina, California. Andrew has a confident demeanor, but it fades slightly when asked about his side-hustle running an account on OnlyFans, a London-based social media app for content creators and their subscribers/fans. The content is often, though not exclusively by any means, of the adult nature.

Andrew recovers quickly and with a smooth wink, tells me I should subscribe. He says, in a flat tone, that his current rate is $10 a month, but he can inflate or deflate that price. He is thinking about raising the price because the service, Onlyfans, takes a 20-percent cut and he also may have to pay taxes on his earnings. Furthermore, he only receives a payout from the service every seven days, though subscribers can tip him through Venmo and other instant money transfer services.

Courtesy of OnlyFans.com

As his leg nervously shakes underneath the metal table, Andrew glances at the men stitting at the table next to us. In a lower voice, he says his motivation to monetize explicit photos and videos of himself was financial. Andrew explains that he withdrew from San Francisco State University after one semester because it was too expensive. He currently lives at home with his mother and younger sister while working as a chef and pursuing music, visual design, and voice acting as additional side hustles. Since he was able to save up some money, he plans to return to community college in the spring to pursue a degree in business management. He describes his OnlyFans account, which obligages him to create and share content with his subscribers, as another creative outlet. But he says it isn’t necessarily fun for him and he often views it as a chore, something he has to do.

Andrew peps up, though, when he starts describing his OnlyFans work as entrepreneurial. He says many men and women would send him flirtatious messages on social media and he realized there was a demand for him, for his body. Since he was already sending nudes for free, he decided why not make money off it. “Supply and demand, you know?” he says, with a smirk on his face.

Leaning across the table, Andrew laughs and shakes his head while explaining that he was just flirting with a man on Instagram whom he convinced to subscribe to his account. He says he grossed $350 this week and he predicts he will earn more as his subscriber base grows. He describes his subscribers as clients and he interacts with some of them, charging additional fees to exchange messages with individuals and to provide exclusive content. Andrew says his target audience is both men and women, some of whom he knows. He advertises his OnlyFans account on his public Twitter, and with a laugh, he tells me that the brother of one of his friends from high school recently subscribed and tipped him $50.

His demeanor changes, though, and Andrew looks up at the sky and blushes when he, haltingly, reveals that some of his sister’s friends have subscribed to his account. The site allows subscribers to go by pseudonyms, so he is unable to confirm his subscribers’ identities unless they share them with him. Chuckling, he says that when he gets a like from someone after promoting his OnlyFans account on social media followed by a new subscriber, he can kind of assume who it is.

Andrew doesn’t attempt to hide his participation with the service. While he doesn’t use his legal name on his page, he does use his nickname and links the page to his Twitter account. He has a public, NSFW Twitter account where he posts “teasers,” pictures and videos to entice people to subscribe to his account. He says he uses this account to interact with other OnlyFans “creators,” a community he describes as a supportive, but claims that he doesn’t personally subscribe to anyone else’s accounts.