Bear with me my darlings, for this post is more of a rant than anything else. So if you’re in the mood to read my ranting and raving, read on, and if not then feel free to skip to the nudes on my new shiny PocketStars account (which is 50% off just now 😉 hint hint)
Ok my crazy darlings, unless you’ve been living under a rock the last month, you’ll know that OnlyFans pulled a Jekyll and Hyde on it’s content creators who specialise in sexual content. Rumours circulated like mad for about 24 hours that the platform was going to be changing their policies in such a way that porn and sexual content would no longer be welcome. As you can imagine Twitter and Reddit were bouncing with furious, frightened sex workers who were justifiably concerned about the potential loss of income that could come from this. The worst part was the lack of anything even remotely resembling confirmation, with all the big news platforms discussing the new policies as fact before the creators had even had a warning message. Then on the 19th of August, OnlyFans confirmed that they were removing explicit content from their platform as of October 1st 2021. Cue an outcry of epic proportions entering stage-right! As a sex worker, it felt like being kicked squarely in the teeth. People in the industry receive a lot of hate and angry misconceptions already; the one thing none of us needed was to have a big company unilaterally pulling the rug out from under us. For people with bigger audiences that they have been building for years, it must have been especially painful… even worse when you consider the amount of money OF has made from sex workers. But even for the smaller accounts (myself included) it stung.
But OH WAIT! There’s more! While us content creators scrambled to new platforms, tried to backup as much of our accounts as we could, panicked, cried and generally stressed ourselves into caffeine-fuelled balls of anxiety, OnlyFans was swiftly realising how much they had royally fucked up. As the biggest creators closed their OF accounts and moved to more sex-positive and sex worker friendly platforms, it became evident the amount of income that OF was going to lose come the 1st of October. So on Wednesday the 25 of August, merely 6 days after being told we were no longer welcome, we received this email:
As I’m sure you can imagine this email got the sort of response you would expect. Twitter was awash with anger. How dare this platform, which only a few days previously had discarded their sex-worker creators with zero regard for the effect this would have, then email us with this nonsense about being “committed” to their creators. It felt like being slapped in the face, having already been kicked in the teeth. The bruises were definitely starting to show.
Now this isn’t only a business thing, although that is a huge aspect of it. This is a stigma issue. Not to be one of those irritating people that scream about what year it is, but it’s fucking 2021 and we are still treating sex and those that choose to work in the sex industry with scrutiny, distaste and dismissal. In the UK alone we are talking about a multimillion tax-paying industry covering pornography, legal prostitution, content creators, erotic dancers, cam workers etc per year. Almost everyone you know indulges in the industry in one form of another, be that by watching porn, reading erotica, looking at underwear models or simply by utilising the age old adage “sex sells” in marketing. So why do we still treat the people that work in this huge industry like lepers? The outcry of hate from people on social media was painful to watch. I got a fair chunk of hate myself, with followers who had previously been supportive sending messages like “you’ll just have to get a real job” or “you’ll have to keep your legs closed now.” These sort of messages didn’t particular hurt me (I have pretty thick skin) but they did surprise me. They came from people who actively followed me, shared my content, paid for my premium OF and bought custom content. The reversal of support really brought home to me how much people love watching things burn, even to their own detriment. I must admit it’s foreign to me to pull people down, and even more unthinkable to stand on them when they are already down, but it does seem to be a thing in our society to turn on people, or groups, when they show any signs of weakness. And lets be brutally honest here, it’s easy to persecute a group of people who choose a life outside of the standard status quo.
One of the strangest aspect to this stigma for me is that we are currently living in an age where we have never pushed harder for diversity, individuality and the pursuit of happiness. We scream about being our true selves at an almost obnoxious volume, but with the other hand we smack ourselves with draconian morals and self-loathing (if that doesn’t sound kinky to you, you’re probably on the wrong blog 😛 ).
“Be yourself! Aim for the stars! Be whoever you feel you are! Oh… but not that! Don’t do that!!”
Isn’t that level of societal cognitive dissonance astounding? Welcome to the 2020s ladies and gentleman, where everything and nothing has changed.
Even more baffling is that we have never been sexually safer (specifically talking about the UK here) than we are now. There are 13 temporary contraception methods and 2 permanent contraception methods freely available in the UK under the NHS, varying in invasiveness from condoms to the IUD to vasectomy. We are also constantly working on better forms of contraception, including other forms of contraception that will be available for men in the future (link). Condoms are freely available at doctors surgeries, sexual health clinics, through mail order, universities and a host of other places with just a quick google search. Your doctor can give you a sexual health check or you can pop into a sexual health clinic for free with no issues or judgement. Most STIs are completely curable, and the four which can’t be cured are perfectly manageable and by no means the death sentence we associate with the terrifying term sexually transmitted. The morning-after pill is available at pharmacies in case of emergencies, and although it should never be considered lightly, we have abortion as an option should contraception fail us. Yet we still talk about sex in whispers as if we’re doing something shameful. We don’t educate our young people in anything other than how to put a condom on. We don’t teach actual anatomy so that young men and women can actually understand their own bodies. We don’t provide effective sex education that is relevant for the LGBTQ+ community. We don’t discuss sex as a pleasurable thing, but as something to be frightened of unless you get it right. Why is this a thing?!
I think that the foundation of this stigma has a lot to do with fear and lack of that desperately required sex education. If, as a society, we can’t even teach our children a healthy respect and understanding of sex and pleasure, how the hell can sex workers expect to be treated with respect and understanding from other adults? It’s a shocking state of affairs we have come to as a species that prides itself on constant growth and development. It’s like we aren’t happy as a world unless we have someone to try and bully.
Which brings us full circle and back to this nonsense with OnlyFans and the reaction of the public. Sex workers were all well and good when they were just wank fodder with no personality, but the moment they show some humanity it is easier to attack than empathise. As for me? I plan to fight this by being loud about it. I will not quietly shy away from the fact that I am a cam-girl, that I make porn content, that I’m a kink enthusiast and advocate of open relationships, swinging and polyamory. If I want to have sex above the blankets, with the light on and feel no shame in the fact that I find immense levels of pleasure through physical intimacy then I will. And damn anyone who tries to take my voice away.
I’ll be closing my OnlyFans accounts as of the 30th of September, with my new platforms being on the PocketStars, Fansly and AdmireMe. These 3 platforms are huge advocates of sex workers rights, and all three were designed by sex workers for sex workers. Please follow me on whatever of these platforms most suits you… although my PocketStars is the only place you will have no PPV content.
Kitty xxx