A Neoliberalist Critique of OnlyFans

Introduction

The ubiquity of internet usage has accelerated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, when social distancing measures have forced many aspects of life, such as work and school, to move online. A large aspect of life that has been similarly affected was socializing and keeping in touch with friends and family. A direct outcome of the shift to digital-first has been the rise in digital social platforms for people to create and share content, as well as interact with one another.

One such platform to gain both prominence and notoriety during this time was OnlyFans, which is known for being a platform that allows creators to directly monetize their following by providing subscriber-only premium content for fans. As the platform operates on a paywall model and creators are allowed to set prices for access to their content, OnlyFans has quickly become a main, if not the main, source of income for many sex workers. While this provides many sex workers an avenue to control access to and directly benefit from their content on a platform that permits Not Safe For Work (NSFW) material, many creators end up reliant on the platform as a means of distributing their content, as well as a relatively stable income stream as their subscribers pay a monthly fee.

Acting as a middleman, the platform takes a percentage of their earnings and enforces policies to keep the community safe. However, OnlyFans’ identity as a sex-positive platform for sex workers to build their own following was recently called into question when the platform announced they would be banning explicitly sexual content. This announcement revealed the precarious position of sex workers on the platform, as many had built up followings and depended heavily upon the income the platform brought them.

While the announcement was called off in the end, this led us to wondering about the following problem statement: are these aforementioned platforms exploitative or empowering? We will be framing this problem statement with a case study on OnlyFans, with a focus on the recent incident outlined above.

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

Neoliberalism

In her paper, Brown (2005) discusses the political implications of neoliberalism alongside features of neoliberalism. Through the lens of neoliberalism, we can examine how OnlyFans can be both empowering and exploitative. Brown mentions that an exemplary neoliberal citizen “strategizes for her - himself among various social, political and economic options”, helping us to understand the concept of the commodification of the self. A feature of neoliberalism that sheds perspective on the exploitative side of OnlyFans is its amorality. Cheng and Kim (2014) purport that although neoliberalism is largely morally disinterested in how profit is made, it is far from being free of moral judgment. However, conventional moral standards judge the commodification of the self as a potential vice, and creators who engage in said commodification are viewed to be necessarily exploited – be it by themselves or others. The concept of neoliberalism helps us to understand the phenomenon of self-commodification which closely relates to OnlyFans. With this understanding, we can analyse the platform and its issues and draw conclusions on the empowerment and exploitation of its creators.

Labour

Labour provides another lens for us to examine our case study. Drenten, Gurrieri and Tyler (2018) explore the term ‘sexualised labour’ against the increasing normalisation of pornography and a ‘porn chic’ aesthetic in the digital sphere. Their paper identifies five forms of influencer labour and the integration of sexualised labour in each of these forms. Of particular interest to this paper is the category of performers, who are defined as “influencers who offer access to themselves as commodities and perform sexualized labour to nurture the devotion of social media followers for monetary compensation”. This form of influencer labour is where the bulk of OnlyFans’ creators are situated. They also looked into how the exploitative nature of platforms allow for creators’ bodies to become “commodities of the commons”, where their content is free for anyone to earn from. Labour is used to examine the power structures underlying these platforms and the implications that this power imbalance has for creators.

Utilising ideals from the overarching themes of labour representation and interpretation of the market, as well as a neoliberalism and post-capitalist point-of-view of the 21st-century globalised world we live in, we now transition into our sources that explore the nature of the gig economy within this context, with a focus on OnlyFans.

Gig Economy

Yuan, Ghafurian and Hanrahan (2018) look into the stakes that Uber drivers specifically have in relation to the corporation and passengers, then examines the economic predicaments of Uber drivers. The Stakeholder Theory argues against the notion that all management decisions should be guided by their impact on stockholders. Instead, it recognises that a core management responsibility is a general obligation to maintain an equitable and workable balance between the interests of stockholders, employees, customers, communities, and the general public at large. Thus, this study enables us to understand the position of the worker in the gig economy, leveraging on the Stakeholder Theory to frame current functionality of the multifaceted nature of the gig economy, revealing the complexities of balancing these factors within stakeholder identity and legitimacy.

Pattabhiramaiah, Sriran and Manchanda (2019)’s work facilitates understanding of current business models employed within online live-streaming. With the paywall, content creators can tier and restrict their content by only allowing consumers who pay this subscription fee access to content that they create. The source specifically focuses on the newspaper industry, concluding that the paywall is beneficial economically. Newspapers stand the risk of driving away readers who are not willing to pay for online news. As online ad revenue is heavily linked to newspaper readership, newspapers also stand to put this revenue at risk if the paywall leads to heavy reader attrition. They find a positive significant effect of the paywall on the newspaper's print circulation, in addition to the incremental online subscription revenue.

Commodification of Self

Within the context of OnlyFans, White (2021) features a 30-minute podcast on NPR, giving an overview of the controversy generated around the platform itself, presenting the issues on how OnlyFans enabled creators to adapt to the pandemic’s impact on sex work. Since the paywall is a feature implemented on the side of the platform provider, this podcast shows how several structures within governments, as well as the power these corporations have over their content creators, can lead to exploitation because of an over-prioritisation of the needs of the shareholders, rather than its community. Federal regulations of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) & Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Acts (SESTA), alongside anti-porn Christian fundamentalist values have influenced payment providers and banks to include vice clauses that prohibit them from associating with OnlyFans, creating a tenuous threeway between creators, banks and corporations.

Segwaying from this podcast’s deep dive on the individual psyche of the content creator on OnlyFans, we transition into how these factors combined - a neoliberalism world outlook as well as the nature of the gig economy - affect the perception of the individual, and how it changes and redefines the commodification of self.

Foucault (1988) highlights the premise of exploiting the self through the commodification of non-objects, namely the body and its interactions, to further serve societal demands. This explains the slippery nature of OnlyFans, and its double-edged effects.

Methodology

Our study utilizes a mixed-method approach, adopting both Semi-structured Interviews of an OnlyFans creator alongside Discourse Analysis of the wider discourse around OnlyFans. From this, we derive a holistic perspective on the issue of empowerment or exploration of creators as they engage in online sex work.

Semi-structured Interviews

Semi-structured interviewing is a form of qualitative research that reveals the views creators on the platform have on the empowering or exploitative nature of OnlyFans. With the questions outlined in our problem statement, we aim to glean first-hand insight into the interviewee’s perspective and experience of engaging with OnlyFans alongside their opinions on the contentious issues which surround it. Through a one-on-one interview with a creator, emergent themes and perspectives can be derived and compared against those identified by Discourse Analysis of larger issues.

Discourse Analysis

Discourse Analysis is the study of written or spoken language in relation to its social, political and historical context. Through an analysis of wider discourse around OnlyFans, identified themes and arguments will communicate wider beliefs, values and assumptions held by varying perspectives. Particular attention will be afforded to the arguments espoused by varying interests, and perhaps the motivations that drive their creation. These insights will be contrasted against the views derived from qualitative interviews with OnlyFans creators.

Findings

Interview Insights

Brenda initially found out about the platform in 2019 through a girl she had randomly followed on Twitter, who had started making content for OnlyFans. The idea of joining the platform and making content really piqued her interest when she saw a screenshot of said Twitter girl transferring $20,000 of her OnlyFans earnings to her mother. The thought of “If they can earn so much money, I can do it too” prompted her to start her account in August 2020, as it seemed easy enough as an additional source of income. She mentioned that she started her account to “put her narcissism to good use”, and started with lingerie content before deciding to sell nude pictures and video content.

When asked about her thoughts and feelings towards OnlyFans, she mentioned that she had “many feelings about it”. On the one hand, she thought it was great that she was earning lots of money, but it also made her “feel like shit” — “people just describe us as sex workers”. While she was aware that she was engaging in sex work, she did not want to label herself that way as she did not want people to see her as solely that. That was a thread that ran throughout the interview: while she was aware of being classified as a sex worker, she struggled with separating her “work-life” from her “personal life”.

While she was very enthusiastic about the well-paying nature of this endeavour, it was clear that there was a lack of safeguards in place to protect her. One major problem she faces is that her content constantly gets leaked on Twitter and Telegram group chats. As she’s not legally allowed to sell this content under Singaporean law, she has no recourse to stop this from happening. Not only are people leaking her content, but some individuals also sell her content at a cheaper rate on these platforms. Her only solace is when people decide to subscribe to her directly after seeing leaked content with her watermark. Thus, ironically, while leaked content does mean she loses out on potential paying customers, she also does gain subscribers from it. This situation makes her feel unsafe, as it shows that she has little to no control over her own content. She recounted another incident that made her feel unsafe - someone utilised the OnlyFans tipping feature and tipped her $50, and out of goodwill, she sent him a free pay-per-view photo. However, after he received the picture, he refunded the tip, meaning she had just engaged in labour without the payout promised.

She also shared that she does get recognised outside in public, and people will DM her on Instagram about it, often using private and anonymous accounts. While it does not happen often, this makes her feel unsafe when she goes out. She tries remaining relatively anonymous on OnlyFans by not showing her face in her content, but as she has to promote her account, anyone who happens to follow or find her on Instagram would know who she was and what she looks like. She reiterated that she did not want to be seen as her OF persona — “I’m just a merchant there to sell stuff”.

While she’s clear on what her boundaries are and OF simply being a source of income, her audience has a different idea. Brenda is clear that she’s not down for physical sex work i.e. hookups, but her subscribers still ask and offer her large monetary amounts, and she turns every single one of them down. This showed that while money was the driving factor behind her running the account, there were lines she wouldn’t cross due to her personal life (she has a boyfriend, who is aware of and supports her OnlyFans endeavours). These “bad” subscribers make up about 10% of her base, and while she could block them, she would lose out on their money, which she does not want to do.

Despite feeling unsafe from time to time, she stated that she thought OnlyFans was empowering for her. Becoming a creator has improved her confidence — her self-love increases the more she sees herself naked, and while she already thinks she looks good, she feels empowered to look even better to earn even more money. The money itself is also very empowering, as she mentioned that the payout from OnlyFans was in USD, one subscriber pays $10/month to access her content. The money is so good that while in the past she was iffy about sharing this aspect of her life with people, she now embraces it and is happy to talk about it. Brenda sees money as an enabler to both finance her lifestyle as well as a means to improve her content, which in turn would make her more money.

Despite having money as her main motivation, she does not rely on it as her main source of income, which makes her relationship with the platform more flexible. When faced with the news that OnlyFans was going to ban sexual content, she was concerned as the income was supporting her studies. However, once the ban was redacted, she became even lazier to post content as it’s time-consuming. She works two other part-time jobs on the side on top of being a student, so there’s little extra time to make content. The additional labour of interacting with subscribers on top of constantly having to take new content overwhelmed her, and she did stop posting for around three months.

For Brenda, the pros of being an OnlyFans creator outweigh the cons, and there isn’t a lot holding her back from continuing to make more content. Her relationship with her boyfriend was her main concern, but as he’s open to her pursuing this, “it’s all green lights for me now”.

Discussion and Analysis

Macro-Level: Neoliberalist Ideals Rooted within Capitalism

Authority and control over the conditions of work empower OnlyFans’ content creators. Creators are perceived to wield power, with the majority of their earnings being theirs to keep. (OnlyFans’ only takes 20% of what creators earn). Compared to traditional forms of sex work - where pimps and businessmen act as authoritarian figures, creators are now able to produce content at will and on their own terms. As mentioned by Brenda in her interview, she has autonomy over the production of her content through her own decision to switch from lingerie to nude content, as well as taking breaks from the platform whenever she wishes. Additionally, having a community creates lobbying power amongst creators, to mediate contact and interaction and curbs physical harassment and health concerns that have plagued the industry. Within the twenty-first century of neoliberal governance and the rise of digital commons, the OnlyFans creator is the embodiment of neoliberalism, where creators are independent, responsible and self-sufficient through their own capabilities, without requiring support from the state (Cheng & Kim, 2014). The command over their own livelihoods and success is what has made the platform seemingly empowering to many content creators.

Alternatively, though it may seem that being a content creator on OnlyFans gives her the autonomy and freedom to express herself freely and earn from seemingly taboo avenues within society, her motivations feed towards an unsustainable capitalistic way of life. Archaic notions that earning more money by any means necessary is the embodiment of maximising utility within the context of capitalism. However, with studies proving that democracies around the world are failing due to the manipulation of the rich to lobby for beneficial outcomes for themselves (i.e. Millions of dollars donated to potential presidential candidates on both the Republican and Democrat parties), resulting in increased social, income inequality as well as political polarisation - being on OnlyFans indirectly reiterates this unsustainable narrative that money is king. Though it incorporates aspects of neoliberalism such as cloud and platform economies as well as the power of the digital commons, the capitalist economic systems that sustain OnlyFans (i.e. PPV, subscriptions), further perpetuates income and social disparity rather than quality and equity, or other non-monetary indicators of wellbeing.

Meso-Level: Challenging Gig Economies with Perceived Autonomy

The popularity and perception of OnlyFans as social media have brought the sex work industry closer to our daily lives. The platform has lowered the barriers to entry for sex work. OnlyFans has removed the pimp and businessman from the equation, creating easy access into the industry for many women around the world. Since the pandemic, OnlyFans has been gaining traction and has reported growth from 7.5 million users to 85 million users in the span of a year (Boseley, 2020). Its position as a sex-positive platform has enabled more women to create risqué content like never before, providing many with a source of income during the pandemic.

However, it lacks the proper safeguards within the gig economy as well as necessary governmental infrastructure, to ensure that content creators are adverse from manipulation. Brenda states clearly that a big issue is the pirated distribution of her paid content through social messaging applications as well as social media platforms such as Telegram and Facebook respectively. However, due to OnlyFans being illegal in Singapore under the Films Act, Brenda cannot safeguard and protect her monetised content due to the illegal nature of her work within the Singaporean context. This coupled with the mention of her being tricked into sending pay-per-view content to a fan only for that person to rescind his tip, reveals that content creators on OnlyFans are subjecting themselves to legal dangers without safety nets, for monetary gain. Until governments around the world agree on the protection of content creators on OnlyFans, the context of being an OnlyFans content creator in Singapore only amplifies the exploitative position that they have consciously put themselves in.

Micro-Level: Sexuality and the Commodification of Self

Next, Brenda mentioned that she struggled to separate her “work” life from her “personal” life. The gradual commodification of self due to the gig economy has further stripped away her individual rights and liberties, to feed a capitalist society. Though Brenda mentions that she is more confident to openly express herself sexually, the nature of sex itself and her sexuality has been perverted for monetary gain.

Additionally, the nature of the content available on OnlyFans’ relies heavily on the commodification of the female self where the body is viewed as a product or service to be sold (Stoykova, 2021). This augments the representation of women in sex work, where they exist for male satisfaction only. This places women in a position subordinate to men in the sex work industry as well as in society. In Brenda’s interview, we see elements of this subordination present when subscribers offer large monetary amounts to engage in physical sex work despite making it clear that she is disinterested, thus disrespecting her boundaries. The way content is produced on OnlyFans feeds into the Male Gaze theory, where women are objectified and sexualised in mainstream media because of male dominance over media (Bedford et al, 2015). Brenda mentioned that she was motivated to work out to look better, because she knew that improving her appearance would lead to an increase in profit. Thus, it can be seen that creators engage in the careful construction of their identities and images to appeal to a predominantly male audience.

However, the most notorious of "frauds", represented the point where the insistence of the real forced an end to pleasure and where the pleasure found a way to surface despite the economy dictated by the real (Foucault, 1988). Commodification of the self occurs at will for creators like Brenda, where she remains conscious of the implications of it. Beyond monetary gains, Brenda has been empowered greatly through the ability to express herself sexually and confidently on the platform. Therefore, commodification could also be viewed as the purest expression of self, where creators leverage monetary gain to the end of hedonistic betterment of the individual.

Outside the Macro: Perversion by Corporate, Religious and Federal Interests

At its core OnlyFans exists as a for-profit corporate entity with a fiduciary duty to its stockholders — not stakeholders. As the platform provider, Only Fans controls the means by which creators, largely sex workers, transact with their clientele. Reminiscent of Uber’s business model, users of these platforms, creators and fans alike, lack direct influence on the centralized process of executive decision-making. Evidenced by OnlyFans’ initial decision to ‘ban explicit content’ from its platform after its payment providers, Visa and Mastercard, have indicated an unwillingness to process payments for a platform associated with pornographic content, citing vice clauses (White, 2021). With the precedent of this ban being issued to Pornhub previously[1], this can be recognized in an act of self-preservation. Thus when OnlyFans issued their initial intentions it did so to safeguard business interest, without considering the creators who not only built their platform but now depend on it for their livelihood, exploiting the labour provided by its creators.

Irony remains that OnlyFans, like many businesses, operates at the behest of yet larger platforms such as payment providers, of which all are regulated by policy set by the government and lobbied or influenced by other religious and corporate interests. Federal regulations such as Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) & Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Acts (SESTA) alongside anti-porn Christian fundamentalist values have influenced payment providers and banks to include vice clauses that prohibit them from associating with companies such as OnlyFans and Pornhub (White, 2021). This tenuous threeway between governments, corporations and the public at large has often marginalized minority interests, failing to recognize the outside damage executive decisions would have on those most affected. With a wider perspective, OnlyFans can be understood as subject to larger entrenched public or private service providers thus although responsible for jeopardizing the livelihood of creators that build their brand and platform – they too are victims of circumstance.

However if one were to look beyond and before the problematic present, OnlyFans as a platform has not only enabled many sex workers to compound their time by leveraging digital technologies but also allowed them a safe space to operate in the time of COVID-19. Evidenced by Gia’s (an escort turned OnlyFans creator) story, it was through OnlyFans and her own branding and marketing efforts that led to her successfully adapting to a time of social distancing and isolation that threatened her in-person work (Shane, 2021). It is evident that much of the critique targeted to OnlyFans stem from its success in leveraging technology to connect creators to their fan base.

Furthermore, emergent from the rising popularity of OnlyFans is a growing acceptance for sex work. As most explicit content was banned from similar platforms i.e. Patreon, OnlyFans succeeds where PornHub failed, providing creators with a means to reach their fans in the digital space. As such they are now suffering the symptoms of success when their ability to provide said platform comes under fire, this issue is emblematic of market failure. Federal regulations and accompanying corporate clauses have stifled the creation of alternative platforms of substantial size to support online sex work and thus the burden to provide such services falls solely on OnlyFans who are subject to the very interests that orchestrated this market in the first place. Context and perspective plays a pivotal role in determining if OnlyFans exploits or empowers their users, the above arguments illustrate that in some ways OnlyFans did not have as much agency as it was construed.

Concluding Thoughts

After having secured payment services, OnlyFans was able to reverse its ban on pornographic content; however, they have taken steps to distance themselves from their sexually-explicit association. By launching a separate initiative titled OFTV, a curated video platform featuring safe-for-work content, while ensuring that content on their homepage is held to the same standard. While having understood the precarity of their situation, creators have sought to diversify their revenue streams by building a presence on competing platforms, new and old.

Having enabled, augmented and provided a safe space to do online sex work, OnlyFans could be seen as beneficial to its creators, despite its role as a ‘digital pimp’. With its operations reinforcing issues such as the commodification of the body and subordination of the female under the guise of empowerment, while its deficiencies include a severe lack of creator protections. It is evident that OnlyFans is also subject to larger corporate and federal forces that have to collaboratively organize appropriate measures to meet the needs of all stakeholders.

Thus to answer the question initially posed, we concur with Brenda’s neoliberal view that it is the onus of the creator to define their relationship with the platform – while to do so with a full understanding of the implications of their choices and guarding against an overt reliance on the platform. While OnlyFans could be empowering, greater emphasis on both regulators and OnlyFans ought to appropriately recognise and reward its creators for their labour.

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[1] Payment providers, Visa and Mastercard halted services for Pornhub in December 2020 based on allegations that it hosts assault and underage content; causing severe disruption to its operations, in addition to forcing the implementation of user verification (Barry, 2021).