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Under the skin of OnlyFans

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Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#81

So our kids are getting older so I've been paying more attention to popular social networks and it's wild how many YouTubers, Twitch'ers, TikTok'ers, Instagram'ers have OF content directly linked from their non-porn bios. I don't like it, but I'm not sure what a good solution is. I mean, people are free to do what they'd like, but it's hard to police screen time 100% of the time and their peer group has a lot more ac…

On the other hand, I have found it pleasant how reliably non-offensive it is to ask almost any attractive* woman about their subscription content now. It is mostly freemium or they are willing to have an objective conversation about how they’ve been thinking about it.

I don’t really think it is different from a parenting perspective. Many of the women** appreciate the approach about their content because the intentions are clearer and they don’t have to guess what a guy thinks about anything while also knowing that guy finds them attractive but isn’t likely going to bother with anything non-consensual or at least not blow up on them on the spot. From what I can tell, many of the women (that I’ve met in person and subsequently asked about their streaming services) were also hostesses and strippers and/or dabbling in modeling and pivoted when the venues weren’t available through the pandemic, something that offered only a slightly greater temporary anonymity and equally outside of the view of protective parents.

When the analytics leak from these websites, I bet the demographics data would subvert all assumptions. If enough people do it, the “blackmail” potential from having digital shareable erotic content evaporates. So that should give some peace of mind with this direction of the world.

*A consensus-level of visual attraction, as opposed to something more subjective. ie. you can look at someone and guess which ones have been suggested to do content by others, and likely have a following to stay active by the time you showed up

**My perspective is only about women and isn’t suggesting that only women are content creators

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#82
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe he is not saying the site owners are traffickers but that some OF channels could be trafficker run.

Oh, if that's so then I'm even less clear on what we expect OnlyFans to do about it, unless we are going to ban the whole sector of sex work. Some restaurants launder money for the mob too, but we still have restaurants. If there are sensible steps OF could take to reduce the incidence of this, then they should. But it's hard for me to think of what that might be, given any response made over the internet could easil…

Let's engage in a hypothetical to flesh out your position; if 10% of only fans accounts were victims of human trafficking, acting at the behest of their traffickers, what course(s) of action would you recommend for only fans (as a company), and from regulatory bodies?

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#83
post #74

Fire up the throwaway! Not 100% related to the article, but directly related. I worked as developer for a product in the same niche ("democratizing adult content"). I spent almost 2 years working on the frontend, devops, and building out the analytics engine (all pre-covid). Anyway, on to the comment at hand. We had a small number of users compared to OnlyFans (when I left, there were about 20K active content creator…

I think in general there are some pretty big costs that aren't fully understood to doing sex work, even outside of the social stigma of being found out by your friends and family, there are mental health costs that are often not talked about. A lot of sex workers overtly reinforce social behaviors towards women (sexualization and objectification among other things) in order to appeal to men, which hurts them in the l…

All valid points. I guess it’s difficult to simultaneously de-stigmatize and urge caution. Instead what happens is we encourage new people to try it, and then some of the people who have tried it share their experiences with the community. That’s how people end up learning about problems with it. Since it is an experimental phase there are more failures (went poorly for some folks).

We might say the same thing happens with bad crypto schemes. Young people get excited and they can lose a lot of money. Though the stakes are potentially higher when you lose your reputation.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#84

Fire up the throwaway! Not 100% related to the article, but directly related. I worked as developer for a product in the same niche ("democratizing adult content"). I spent almost 2 years working on the frontend, devops, and building out the analytics engine (all pre-covid). Anyway, on to the comment at hand. We had a small number of users compared to OnlyFans (when I left, there were about 20K active content creator…

> The average monthly payment was $5000 (skewed massively by the top 5%). I used to work in the direct carrier billing department of a large telco and I'm still amazed by the phenomenon of whales. We'd get 98% of people spending 20 bucks on Spotify and the odd app here and there, and then there were people who would consistently spend 15k+ on Candy Crush (and pay their bills). Not the same level as what you're talkin…

Why you should always report both mean and median!

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#85

So our kids are getting older so I've been paying more attention to popular social networks and it's wild how many YouTubers, Twitch'ers, TikTok'ers, Instagram'ers have OF content directly linked from their non-porn bios. I don't like it, but I'm not sure what a good solution is. I mean, people are free to do what they'd like, but it's hard to police screen time 100% of the time and their peer group has a lot more ac…

Have you considered the alternative that this is not an evil which you are unable to control but just another way of living / thinking of sexual content? There is nothing inherently evil about this stuff so why is it terrible that it is becoming more accepted/common? If in 30 years we live in a society where people post nudes like they do facebook posts, is there anything wrong about this? Could you describe the harm…

Sexual saturation nulls intimacy. There will be little drive to explore a personal experience when kids treat their libido as a itch to scratch. Not even historical emperor's children had harems at age 14 - this is training their behaviour for instant reward at high monetary costs - instead of working towards a goal. Instant gratification is unnatural and makes for shallow character.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average monthly payment was $5000 (skewed massively by the top 5%). I used to work in the direct carrier billing department of a large telco and I'm still amazed by the phenomenon of whales. We'd get 98% of people spending 20 bucks on Spotify and the odd app here and there, and then there were people who would consistently spend 15k+ on Candy Crush (and pay their bills). Not the same level as what you're talkin…

Why you should always report both mean and median!

[deleted]

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#88

So our kids are getting older so I've been paying more attention to popular social networks and it's wild how many YouTubers, Twitch'ers, TikTok'ers, Instagram'ers have OF content directly linked from their non-porn bios. I don't like it, but I'm not sure what a good solution is. I mean, people are free to do what they'd like, but it's hard to police screen time 100% of the time and their peer group has a lot more ac…

I'm not there yet but when I am I will use it as an opportunity to explore leverage and how being a porn creator is typically a desperate move by those without leverage (e.g. from the article the woman was sleeping in her car and had no income). Porn needs to be seen through the backstage lens. What you see on camera is not what is really happening. /r/instagramreality on reddit is another good resource.

I think that's clearly nonsense and not a helpful take (if you lie to your kids, unwittingly or not, that will just erode their trust in you). Of course you can find desperate adult actors, just as you can find desperate investment bankers or desperate software engineers who would rather be doing something else. Do you have any evidence that the number of desperate adult actors is especially significant? I think a better angle is to discuss dignity and how porn affects the consumer's own world-view.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#89
post #73
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that those people are the "whales" for these content creators. Normal people with healthy real-world relationships don't spend hundreds or thousands of dollars a month on online parasocial porn addictions. It's like someone selling crack and complaining about how they have to deal with crack addicts.

Except it’s nothing like selling crack and the platform isn’t doing enough to keep performers safe.

If a person has your full name (from your Instagram account you use to cross promote your OF) and naked pictures of you what can the platform do at that point to keep you safe?

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#90
post #47
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument applies to any change. Trivially, not all the changes must be accepted, therefore the argument is flawed. UPD: rafale is right, I misunderstood the parent. It's not about any change, it's about allowing more freedoms.

The way I read it is that each generation is pushing the limit of freedoms. Sounds good if we stop right there... But is it? When does it become bad? Should a parent be accepting that their daughter opens an OF when she turns 18? Should society be accepting of it as a side "gig economy" kind of job? How about the boys who are usually on the consumers/payers end? We are monetizing intimacy and sex at a level like noth…

> Should society be accepting of it as a side "gig economy" kind of job?

No, because in a "good" society, people should be able to find work that they're happy/willing to do that pays well enough that they don't need a "side hustle" to survive.

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