Sex Work in The Digital Age: OnlyFans, Camgirls, Oh My!
By: Jasmine Renae
Tags: Sex Work, Onlyfans, Sex

In the case of eroticism and sex work women have often been denied autonomy; From “full service” sex workers to pornstars, these women have too often been taken advantage of. Today, however, things are seemingly changing. Enter OnlyFans, a website catered primarily to sex workers who wish to entertain their audiences on an exclusive site. Onlyfans allows customers to subscribe to sex workers’ profiles for a monthly rate of the performer’s choosing. They receive exclusive content such as photos and videos. Simple, right? Not so much.

While this can prove to be extremely lucrative it’s not without hard work such as promotion and catering to fans. Many sex workers use various platforms to promote their work, as to maximize client outreach. Some women cater to specific fetishes and kinks, while others have a specific niche they stick to. However, the more inclusive the more money you’re inclined to make. While this may seem like easy money to many it does come with its downsides.

There are of course people who subscribe to women’s OnlyFans accounts for the sole purpose of sharing the content with others. Somewhere, in a corner of the internet exists a sect of people that dedicate their time to violating women’s autonomy and privacy. If a woman is popular enough you can find her content on any hub or tube site dedicated to pornography. There are even sites and DropBox accounts dedicated to reuploading these women’s content. Although, OnlyFans isn’t the only medium for online sex work. Some women use social media to advertise their escort services. It varies.

In the context of an individual perspective from a female sex worker, I’ve interviewed one-Keira Kinner and asked her about her thoughts regarding starting out in the industry, the costs of production, telling family and more:

Q. Was starting out as a sex worker difficult? If so, how?

A. I would say yes and no to that first question; no because I’m a very open person with my sexuality and I love sex. It’s fun for me and I enjoy giving people pleasure. The most difficult part would be telling my parents and my family because I’m from a little town; once one person knew everybody knew. My parents have actually been been pretty fucking supportive so that’s great

Q. Would you say onlyfans is a more stable route than more freelance sex work?

A. Again, yes and no. OnlyFans has given sex workers the platform to be in charge. of their money and that’s amazing. They don’t have to go through anyone to get their money and I think it’s incredible. But also, they still have restrictions. You can’t talk about certain fetishes. I know full service sex workers who have gotten their accounts wiped because OnlyFans doesn’t want to be associated with full service sex workers. If you want to support us, support them as a whole. I feel like a lot of sites or businesses are for sex workers but not actually. They want the aspects of the glamor and the “easy money”; I say “easy money” because it’s not really easy at all. It’s really glamorized especially with this stripper movement. I wouldn’t say there is a stable route for sex work. I wouldn’t say there’s a stable route for sex work until we start decriminalizing it and that’s the sad truth of it. We have no laws to protect us. Everything is against use especially if you’re full service. And that’s just really shitty.

Q. How much money goes into your equipment, clothes, hair etc.?

A. When I was first starting out any extra money I made would go to lingerie or maybe a new toy. I did add up one time how much money I spent on things like lingerie, toys, equipment and stuff for customers and it was about $3,000 to $5,000.

Q. Do you think sex work will become more “mainstream” in the future?

A. I think it is being over glamorized right now. It’s- the industry is sort of over saturated by people who have this hope in their head that they’ll start OnlyFans and make $10,000 in their first month, which isn’t unrealistic or anything but most people don’t have the platform or promotion tools that they need to be successful. And their are serious consequences to sex work. You have to take into consideration that even when you do decide to stop, anybody has access to your nudes at that point. Bad people have access to your nudes and people love to doxx-to leak private information such as phone number, address, and information about family members- sex workers and people just don’t take that into consideration. I’m okay with having my nudes on the internet forever. I’ve dealt with that internally. But some people don’t realize that and it’s sad sometimes. It’s just don’t get into this if you genuinely don’t like most of the aspects of sex and you’re not comfortable in your body. Don’t do this, this is not for you. If you don’t feel like you have sex appeal this is not for you. I don’t know, I just love sex and love myself. To be honest I didn’t get into this for the money because I was not making that much money at first. I think it will continue to be mainstream because peoplethink we just make money all day, taking nudes and having sex all day, not realizing that we have to get off of our asses and edit and produce this beautiful content.