PHOTO: Bella Thorne | Instagram
LONDON, U.K. – 48 hours after claiming to remove and ban any adult or porn content due to pressure from business partners, the London-based content creation platform OnlyFans, abruptly reversed course, after serious backlash on social media.
After zooming to fame—and in case of some, the next generation of adult smut—OF has provided many a stream of steady income and honest work in the midst of a divided society and global pandemic. It’s no secret in the entertainment industry that all models, actors, actresses, dancers and some celebs have an OF page.
The biting irony and hypocritical attempt of OnlyFans to ban the very kind of content that helped boost it into relevance to begin with is the very definition of biting the hand that feeds you.
Perhaps those so-called business partners got pressure from their own insecure and jealous significant others who felt threatened by the sight of seeing perfectly toned, sexy and beautiful women baring their proverbial birthday suits for all to see.
Perhaps the so-called “pressure” was the last remnants of #MeToo in that they were feeling some kind of way in seeing other women objectified, getting their flowers and all eyes—including those of their men—on them instead of her instead.
What’s sad is that in such a judgy, catty and petty society that we live in today, these so-called “business partners” are missing the point in that OnlyFans is a free and open platform for artistic expression.
As a professionally published photographer and photojournalist whose work has been featured in FHM, Maxim, as well as being a member of the Association of International Boudoir—its BOO-DWAH!—Photographers, I am friends and professional colleagues with a long and extensive list of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler models, dancers, strippers, entertainers, porn stars, etc, all of whom also have an OF page.
Some have been in “the industry” for years, some are just getting their feet wet. Some are young and innocent neophytes looking to build and explore themselves, others come from broken homes, bad relationships and toxic situations. I never judge, nor when shooting them never cared about their OnlyFans page, just in capturing them in their true sexy and artistic form, and capturing and expressing their inner Venus.
People need to learn and understand that it takes a hell of a lot of courage for a model to bare themselves—some fully nude—in front of a webcam in front of total strangers on a daily basis, and then deal with their DM’s looking like a smallpox outbreak gone Defcon-1 across social media, jealous ex’s from both genders, shady managers, hangers-on and “friends’ who only want one thing, while trying to pay their own bills and expenses, while keeping a roof over their own head.
Art is a form of expression. Modeling is an art form.
OnlyFans is a platform for those who wish to express themselves doesn’t deserve to be taken away from those who put so much into making a living, but instead deserves to be embraced, respected and judged on it’s on set of merits entirely.