OnlyFans' Flip-flop on Porn Ban Shows the Precariousness of Sex Worker Empowerment

OnlyFans was supposed to be a game-changer for the porn industry. A field long plagued by the ease with which a casual audience can find content for free, its workers have searched far and wide for ways that they can consistently monetize their (quite literally) sweat and tears on and off the screen. OnlyFans, with its ability to have content creators price different levels of access to content and a variety of other physical and virtual goods, inadvertently promised workers in the porn industry to be paid their fair share, cutting out the porn studios, distributors, and websites that all undercut what performers can truly earn.

That is, until, supposedly, the institutional financiers of OnlyFans decided to step in. In the past weeks, the operator of the subscription website officially announced that the banks and payment gateways used by the website are forcing it to drop all hardcore sexually explicit content to shore up their own reputation in an increasingly ESG-conscious world. But after a predictable uproar from its sexual content creators and media outlets, OnlyFans decidedly, belatedly, that it will stick it to the financial services providers and continue to provide porn performers access.

Such policy inconsistency, without a doubt, hurt OnlyFans' reputation, even within the increasingly expanding world of subscription website operators. Even though it remains the most well-known among its peers, OnlyFans should be afraid that its content creators permanently migrate to its competitors. After all, if OnlyFans can flip-flop today on a porn ban, it can certainly do so again when the pressure of the financiers becomes tighter, not to mention the possibilities that the company will start revising other cherished policies when other, yet unknown policies, pile on in the future.

But OnlyFans' flip-flop reflects badly not just on the company, but the entire subscription website industry's attitude toward pornography. It is certainly not inconceivable that soon, OnlyFans' competitors will face the same kind of pressure from financial services providers to drop pornography or be unable to use the payment gateways and financing methods that keep their businesses going. And under such circumstances, other competitors may not even have OnlyFans' guts to stand up to the financiers after uproar from sex workers that depend on the platforms for steady incomes.

In the name of upholding certain moral values, the firms that work with OnlyFans and other websites like it are effectively using their economic power to trample on the livelihood of the sex workers, who, in absence of such platforms, may find themselves being marginalized again as distributors of their work exploit their vulnerability. Worse yet, while media outlets and public opinion have expressed solidarity with sex workers temporarily booted from OnlyFans, relatively few have gone deeper and identified how a few financial firms can bring a whole business model, and thousands that depend upon it, to their knees so quickly and easily.

Indeed, few have asked questions about whether big financial firms, or any firm in particular, can push their own corporate moral stances on their erstwhile business partners, in the process hurting the very livelihoods of masses of workers. Few asked whether the value of big finance companies, benefiting from a steady stream of transaction fees, is worth more than the financial health of freelancers that would be unable to pay their bills had it not for sites like OnlyFans. It begs the question of whether the values are worth cherishing if holding onto them means real economic hardships for so many.

Especially considering that sex work on OnlyFans is less accessible and, by extension, morally debilitating, than freely available porn websites, the very value of killing off the subscription model of porn access becomes even more questionable. The same analogy can be made for killing off nicotine-free e-cigarettes when the most accessible alternative is real cigarettes that are much more harmful to the smoker's body. Looked at the decision individually, the moral value stands, but if the alternative is much worse, enforcing the moral value smacks of an attempt to make oneself look good while intentionally ignoring the negative consequences.

As the world of business becomes more and more aware and enamored with the concept of ESGs in investing and operating, the economic consequences of putting values into action may only become greater. OnlyFans and its dilemma over allowing porn performers on its platform are not going to be the last instance that belief systems clash with business models. Even if governments, with their politically correct ideologies backed by regulatory prowess, step in to say yes or no to certain businesses, big businesses with moral beliefs will. That only creates uncertainties for businesses and vulnerable individuals like sex workers.