The Surprising Origins of the OnlyFans Sexual Content Ban
The site’s failed attempt at censorship has much deeper, more nefarious origins than you might think.
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This comedic news essay was originally read live at The Paper Machete, Chicago’s live magazine.
On August 19th, sexual content distribution app OnlyFans announced it would be instituting a ban on sexual content beginning in October. The announcement was vague, just as the sexual content bans announced by Tumblr and Instagram in prior years were: according to OnlyFans, artistic nudes and photography would still be permitted, but explicit depictions of sex acts would be banned.
In practice, such bans typically bring their hammer down on the people whose bodies are more likely to be viewed as inherently sexual: hence Tumblr’s famous crackdown on “female presenting nipples,” and Instagram’s tendency to keep up shots of skinny white gays’ entire asses while taking down relatively chaste bikini pics from anyone fatter or darker skinned. Shout out to baby__angel69 who still posts gorgeous photos of their hairy ass cleavage while splayed next to a waterfall to Instagram almost every day. Shine on you beautiful otter-y diamond!
The OnlyFans sexual content ban, like the ones on Tumblr and Instagram, were met with a hail out of outrage and protests from creators and users alike. But unlike the latter two sites, OF always existed solely as a platform for models and porn stars to sell sexually explicit content. The app was a crucial income source for many sex workers during a pandemic that made stripping and full-service work difficult.
Unlike say, PornHub, which historically featured a lot of repacked clips from porn studios that brought no payment to its stars, OnlyFans allowed creators to make money directly off the sale of their own photos and clips. Of course, the platform did take a healthy 20% cut of all subscriptions and tips. Still, it proved a consistent enough revenue source that civilians like Bella Thorne and DJ Khaled flocked to it. (I regret to inform you there is no luscious ass cleavage on DJ Khaled’s OnlyFans, by the way, just clips of him sipping lattes.)
