Hi!
Heads up this week’s post is NSFW… or actually, maybe it is SFW… which is exactly the problem.
To state the obvious: Our current political climate is giving rise to a more puritanical societal relationship with sex. This article from 404 Media offers a comprehensive overview (as well as the revelation that TikTok has sexualized sunny side up eggs). More straightforward representations of sex are being shushed off our platforms (including OnlyFans, more on that in a sec), and replaced with strange double entendres inviting you to imagine their horniness. A friend recently asked the group chat: “Anyone else constantly being served reels of covert dicks?” alongside a screenshot post of a man “teaching you how to backflip” wearing very tight shorts. (Related note: this friend is interested in neither men nor gymnastics.)
This tactic isn’t exactly new in American culture (see: Puritans), and I still remember the thrill of seeing, on a trip to France in college, an ordinary nipple on their network TV. Qu’est ce que c’est le problème, prude American?! So I can’t imagine the confusion of this generation of kids growing up in a society where a nipple is strictly regulated but everything from eggs to grapefruits to sports highlights can be packaged to seem (in their parlance) deeply sus.
Now, with a sale of OnlyFans looming, one of the kinkier places on the internet is getting (at least partially) scrubbed in an effort to make it more SFW. (From my alt role as an investor, I’m quite familiar with the challenges sexual health companies face in overcoming investors’ “sin clauses,” which we don’t have…. #humblebrag.) And, sure, I hope OnlyFans get the valuation of their dreams, but it’s unfortunate that a key place for sex workers to get paid is resorting to the same euphemistic approach of all the other platforms. This week’s contributor has both more experience and more thoughts on this topic than I, so… over to Reece Sisto!
Sticking to scrambled eggs for now,Jocelyn
Reece Sisto is a content strategist, writer, and general malefactor based mostly in Los Angeles. He loves cold emails. You can read more of his writing here.
One thing that makes Reece feel well: a thimble of ashwaganda on an empty stomach.
Is there only one way for OnlyFans? Unsolicited brand advice from a self-proclaimed sexpert
For reasons beyond the scope of this article—and your business—I know quite a bit about OnlyFans, and it’s an admittedly ugly place. Literally speaking, the UI is rudimentary, some sort of castaway Facebook, loading times clogged by the various excretions of its 300 million users, but also existentially: investigations reveal child sex abuse and trafficking have run rampant on the site. As someone… familiar with the site, I can personally report a recent and marked shift in OnlyFans’ self-projection in an effort to rehabilitate its seedy image. From fast recruiting comedians and celebrities to scrubbing themselves of “kinkier” (more often than not, LGBTQ+) creators, OnlyFans has been rebranding with furtive desperation. If you were wondering if some moral imperative might undergird this brandstorm, don’t: OnlyFans is up for sale.
I don’t take much issue with my relationship to the site. As a gay man, I’m less implicated by than collateral to OnlyFans’ piecemeal content moderation, the ebbs and flows of which tend to disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ creators (queer sexuality is generally unfairly policed online). Less anecdotal, though equally unsubstantiable, a plurality of “those OF guys” are my friends—it’s a small world for white gay men of means, and I live in LA, the Jerusalem (Gomorrah?) of sex work. My point is: OnlyFans, however grim, is not irrecoverable and serves a large, dare I say necessary, enterprise. As their half-baked attempts to sanitize and “expert opinion” suggest, the site’s viability going forward demands diversification. And yet there’s evidence that the opposite may be what’s best. Calling all She-EOs: What happened to leaning in?