LOS ANGELES — An insightful article by Rebecca Jennings, published today on news site Vox, explores the “sexfluencers” who built up OnlyFans during a burgeoning yet controversial period for the leading premium fan site.
Although male and trans creators are a substantial part of the premium fan world, Jennings’ piece focuses on “women who’ve cultivated some sort of identifiable digital persona being sent money by men in exchange for videos, photos or even just a text back.”
“The money isn’t always about sex,” Jennings explained to Vox’s mainstream readers. “Maybe the man knows you’re a struggling artist and gets a thrill out of posing as your sponsor. Perhaps he’s grown so accustomed to the system of casually contributing to random GoFundMes and Patreons and Substacks that sending a hot girl $50 over CashApp simply feels natural.”
“The money itself pretty much means the same thing: ‘Hey, notice me,’” she added.
Referring to the recent expansion and partial destigmatization of some aspects of sex work, Jennings described the novelty of “how seamlessly a DM slide can become a business arrangement” and “how influencers of the Instagram-lifestyle variety and regular people alike have used this as a meaningful stream of revenue.”
“Thanks to a pandemic that left many people at home substituting screens for IRL intimacy and the rise of platforms that merge sex work and social media, vanilla content creators are turning to sex, in all its myriad forms, as a side hustle,” she wrote.
To read the “The Sexfluencers,” visit Vox.com.