Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Under the skin of OnlyFans

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 615 posts

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#401

Post by AlwaysRock »

thepasswordis wrote: post #397

Who could have possibly predicted that a company which mechanized the process of targeting and turning young teenage girls into prostitutes would have a dark side? If onlyfans happened in person, the people behind it would be in prison. They market to teenagers, and as soon as they turn 18 encourage them to prostitute themselves to men over the internet. It is a disgusting, horrible company that we should be ashamed…

While I might ethically disagree with their business model I don't think your assessment is fair. Their platform is certainly a step up from those same individuals getting into the industrial porn industry.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#402

Post by zahrc »

Khaine wrote: post #326
zahrc wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These sad lonely sexless men spend all their money on this shit. It consumes them, until they are out of money, then it destroys them. It warps their expectations of relationships further impacting their datability, driving them even more towards onlyfans. IF I’d be that desperate I’d rather stick to a prostitute. Regular uploads aren’t even guaranteed. You could be paying something where you don’t even know the va…

These people want a relationship, and intimacy. They want the feeling of being loved more than sex. That’s why its a para-social relationship. These people believe that the performer thinks they are special, that they have a different and special relationship with the performer. The performer truely understands them, and they understand the performer. They twist and warp anything so that its fits that worldview. Mayb…

While I agree that OnlyFans and their creators are certainly abusing this, people need to be educated. We can’t be talking about toxic masculinity, predators and other very valid issues, without naming and shaming the enablers and abusers of these issues. And those creators are certainly abusing it, while OnlyFans is enabling them to.

I agree that what they do is economically genius and legit; but it’s morally dark grey and adds fuel to the fire.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#403

Post by sudosysgen »

FabHK wrote: post #392
leppr wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone who downvoted comment on the reasons? I actually found this post insightful and particularly level-headed so I'm curious if it's something I've missed.

It largely is insightful, but absolute statements such as "All work under capitalism is exploitative" are debatable and often indicative of further nonsense coming up.

An important distinction is that if you think that work under capitalism isn't exploitative you take on assumptions that make it very hard to argue that sex work is. It's hard to argue that being a coal miner for example isn't exploitative despite irreversible and severe, often deadly, harm to your body, but selling pictures on onlyfans is exploitative.

Ultimately the vast majority of work requires you trade away your health and youth in some way or another. If you're going to say that only some work is exploitative, you need to draw an arbitrary line, and I think if you're drawing that line to begin with you're going to include most people in the exploitative category.

Or you can take the voluntary association position and then you're back to absolutes.

So I'd argue that whatever your position is the argument is repairable. FWIW the argument that working for someone else and being their subordinate is always somewhat exploitative is not a bad one.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#404

Post by [deleted] »

blippage wrote: post #198
ayngg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I feel like these dangerous aspects of sex work are often ignored in the current zeitgeist of de-stigmatizing, I agree entirely. I heard of one young lady who started an OnlyFans, apparently did quite well, but decided to stop it because of the psychic damage. I'm going to be heavily downvoted for this, but I'm going to say it anyway ... We need to stop all the bullshit about how it empowers women. Certain sections…

[deleted]

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#405

Post by mrweasel »

throwmeawaydddy wrote: post #33

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…

> A 'fan' went nuclear and was waging all out digital war.

If I where to change profession it is things like this that would push me towards psychology. I am deeply fascinated by actions of, well, assholes. How are they broken and why?

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#406

Post by an_opabinia »

ayngg wrote: post #74
throwmeawaydddy wrote: post #33

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…

You could say all the same things about video games. Serious mental health costs. Reinforce bad behaviors (like procrastination and inability to delay gratification). There are even almost nude characters in video games, mainstream ones like League of Legends. So very much reinforces objectification of women. And that’s okay, but if a bonafide woman wants to dress up as that character, suddenly Twitch’s audience complains.

> stigmatizing… rebranding…

People are just seeking equal treatment of what they do as men treat things like video games. While I would never wish upon anyone to be abused, and while I develop video games, I am not a blowhard, there are in absolute terms more people sick people aggregating in League of Legends than in Only Fans.

That is to say that some underlying trauma, like major depression or poverty, is concentrating people in endless video games playing and sex work, and that is the underlying problem.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#407

Post by m12k »

mrweasel wrote: post #405
throwmeawaydddy wrote: post #33

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…

> A 'fan' went nuclear and was waging all out digital war. If I where to change profession it is things like this that would push me towards psychology. I am deeply fascinated by actions of, well, assholes. How are they broken and why?

I see it the other way around: Not being an asshole isn't the default, it's something you need to learn, and not everyone does. I actually have a sneaking suspicion that most people don't learn it, but just learn to fake it while others are watching.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#408

Post by throwawayboise »

sudosysgen wrote: post #403
FabHK wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It largely is insightful, but absolute statements such as "All work under capitalism is exploitative" are debatable and often indicative of further nonsense coming up.

An important distinction is that if you think that work under capitalism isn't exploitative you take on assumptions that make it very hard to argue that sex work is. It's hard to argue that being a coal miner for example isn't exploitative despite irreversible and severe, often deadly, harm to your body, but selling pictures on onlyfans is exploitative. Ultimately the vast majority of work requires you trade away you…

Coal mining and sex work are hardly representative examples of "all work."

We all lose our youth and our health, it's inevitable whether we work or not.

Yes ultimately your employer feels that they are getting more value from your work than it is costing them, otherwise there would be no point in employing you. It's a real stretch to argue that is exploitative even in most cases (to say nothing of all work).

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#409

Post by post-it »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #272
galgalesh wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sex isn't a minor variable. It re-frames the entire problem in a context where people lose the ability to appropriately parse and manage their para-social relationships What is the reason people lose the ability to appropriately parse and manage themselves in the context of sex?

What is the reason people lose the ability to appropriately parse and manage themselves in the context of sex? Because you've lost the context of what sex is and what it has been in society, and in humanity as a whole. Sex is inherently primal, bestial, even brutal in nature. We've been trained over hundreds of thousands of years to build ourselves up to it and in return we get rewarded with brain chemicals and the c…

Eating is inherently primal, bestial, even brutal in nature.

You're expected to not abuse the meat counter clerk.

Re: Under the skin of OnlyFans

#410

Post by prionassembly »

oceanghost wrote: post #111
throwmeawaydddy wrote: post #33

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…

Very interesting. There are so many things Id like to say. c) Was this done as blackmail? There is a somewhat common dating site scam where someone gets you to friend them on FB, and then to sext with them-- then they threaten to send the material to your FB friends. I'd imagine OF girls would almost be a captive audience for this. --- While I find OF personally distasteful, I realize that I paid for sex the old fash…

Not all psychological trauma is necessarily due to abuse.

When my wife was pregnant and we didn't know the gender yet I did a lot of reading on attachment theory and what truth there is to "daddy issues" etc. in case it was a girl. It's a trope, but there's something to it.

As it turns out we have a lovely baby boy. Now, to avoid traumatizing him...

Post reply on HN