On Aug. 19, OnlyFans, the online subscription based service best known for hosting adult content, announced that it will ban “sexually explicit content” from its site. The changes in content guidelines are to take effect on Oct. 1. Although OnlyFans hosts content ranging from cooking videos to pornography, sex work has brought the platform from relative obscurity to mainstream awareness.

The pandemic especially catalyzed this growth. As workers were laid off or forced to stay at home, internet sex work became a quite appealing avenue for staying alive for many people. Online sex workers are able to work at home safely, creating their own hours and establishing their own boundaries and limitations. Being your own boss, you can avoid the fear of potentially being fired, or contracting COVID-19 from coworkers or patrons.

Quarantine also led to an increase in demand for adult content — we all had to keep our hands busy one way or another! Thus, COVID-19 hit, and OnlyFans exploded. A perhaps larger-than-ever number of people became sex workers or consumers of their content, at least in the relatively open sense of posting content online, where it may remain forever. There is a conversation to be had about how this may impact the futures of OnlyFans creators, as well as the morality of sex work as whole, but let us put that aside for now and return to the expression “sexually explicit content.”

One might hear the phrase  “sexually explicit content” and think of the commercial porn available for free all over the internet, which is reasonable. OnlyFans, however, differs from your run-of-the-mill porn site in at least one crucial way: it gives sex workers total control. Commercial adult stars may find themselves dealing with seedy managers or producers who urge them to violate their boundaries for extra money, or even be pressured into signing inflexible contracts that will dictate what will happen to their bodies. If they want their content removed from a site, they may face legal barriers or difficulties with careless customer service. They must accept the idea that anyone, anywhere can access their content. They may have little say in what particular sexual acts they must engage in.

An OnlyFans creator, however, can not only upload and take down content at will, but also set their own prices, regulate who consumes their content and set firm boundaries. In this sense, the platform has afforded great freedom to their creators. During the pandemic, the site was a lifeline for many users who may have otherwise turned to more drastic measures to earn a living. 

By drastic measures, I do not mean only the sob stories you hear about people forced into prostitution — or worse — for survival. I also mean working for minimum wage, working under a cruel boss who does not allow bathroom breaks, working under dangerous conditions without hazard pay, working obscenely long hours or any of the other million poor working conditions normalized by capitalism.  

In light of the impending ban on sexually explicit content, it is clear that OnlyFans was never interested in protecting vulnerable people from unjust exploitation. They are merely another heartless corporation, and one that is loyal to the banks above all else. They stated that the reason for the changes to content guidelines was “to comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers.” To paraphrase, banks and credit card companies told OnlyFans to ban porn, so OnlyFans banned porn. If we recall when Tumblr made a similar move in 2018, subsequently dropping in value from $1.1 billion to $33 million, it is really more like banks said jump, and OnlyFans said off  of which cliff? 

Regardless of what your position on sex work is, the implications here should scare you. Although there is a case to be made for particular forms of censorship, like hate speech or child pornography, banks and credit card companies are absolutely not the appropriate means by which this should occur. In an increasingly digital world, it is chilling to know that tech companies are ultimately beholden to payment processors. 

The OnlyFans decision has set a precedent for banks to dictate what sort of content websites host. If they have the influence to get porn taken off of OnlyFans, then they also have the influence to control what you can post on social media sites, what news media outlets will cover and more. 

Although the immense influence of money over the internet is nothing new, OnlyFans has essentially told the majority of their user base that they will be laid off come October. These people will be without work, without unemployment benefits and without the means for survival on which they have depended for the duration of the pandemic. 

OnlyFans knows that in siding with the banks over their creators, they are robbing people of their livelihoods. They know that they could never have seen the success that they have enjoyed without sex workers. They know that they will likely lose a significant portion of their user base, but they do not care. They have benefitted from the labor of sex workers and now will leave them in the dust without a second thought — how senseless.

At its core, this is not only a censorship issue, but also a workers’ rights issue.  As an internet user, I am genuinely fearful of the can of worms that OnlyFans has opened. As a communist, I am horrified by the inescapable influence over the digital world that big banks have and disgusted with OnlyFans’ compliance. As someone who wholeheartedly believes that internet sex work is a legitimate and moral avenue for employment, I am furious on behalf of the content creators who will be harmed by these changes. 

Let us not forget that the world at large has a history of being enormously hostile toward sex workers. Sex workers of all kinds — OnlyFans models, commercial porn actors, strippers and full service sex workers alike — face discrimination and the threat of violence and harassment on a daily basis. They are hated for monetizing sex, despite the fact that “sex sells” is an age-old marketing slogan we can all acknowledge as simple truth and see in practice. I can only imagine the vitriol sex workers have to put up with, the insults and death threats the internet allows people to spew anonymously.

If you care at all about the well-being of your fellow human beings, your freedom of expression or your rights as a person who unfortunately needs money to survive, you should view what OnlyFans has done with nothing but dismay and outrage. 

Now, perhaps more than ever, workers of the world need to unite and fight back against the looming, dystopian future that may be upon us. We must set aside debates about whether or not sex work is liberating or oppressive, as dividing ourselves based on particular choices of employment ignores the larger threat. We must understand that sex work is work, regardless of whether one sees it as liberating or degrading. 

We must remember that OnlyFans’ decision is partially a result of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which, despite how they are named, have done little to stop sex trafficking yet a whole lot to crack down on sex workers who freely chose to make adult content on their own terms. 

Sex work will not cease to exist. Porn sites make up 30% of the internet — they get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined. Pushing sex workers into the shadows will get us nowhere as a society. We need to abandon the puritanical denial of how much sex we collectively have, record, consume, desire and buy, regardless of if you think it should be less. What we need formal legal protection for the rights and freedoms of sex workers, for they are our friends and family and a valued part of our society whether we acknowledge it or not.   

Note: As of Aug. 25, OnlyFans has announced via Twitter that they will not go forward with the intended changes to content guidelines due to backlash. However, I believe that my comments regarding the gross power of banks and my discussion of workers’ rights issues remain valid and relevant.