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.

Devon Price

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Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

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…

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Devon Price

He/Him or It/Its. Social Psychologist & Author of LAZINESS DOES NOT EXIST and UNMASKING AUTISM. Links to buy: https://linktr.ee/drdevonprice