“I know firsthand how devastating online sexual exploitation can be. I experienced its brutality through live-cam websites similar to OnlyFans, all while maintaining a smile that concealed a reality no consumer of my content could have known. The familiar narrative of the ‘college girl paying her way through her degree’ has long been used to normalize and justify the consumption of sexual content and experiences– an excuse to appease the conscience of those consuming it.”
Founded in 2016 by Tim Stokely, a British entrepreneur, OnlyFans was created as a creator driven subscription site. Early on, the site was promoted as a platform for creators like musicians, fitness models, and chefs- however it’s important to note that while this may have been how the website was initially marketed, it wasn’t the first website that Tim Stokely had launched. Previous sites launched by Stokely- GlamWorship, a fetish website, and Customs4U, a website where consumers could order custom pornographic content- focused heavily on explicit content made easily accessible to buyers. According to Forbes, “In 2017, one year after he founded the company with his brother and father… there were around $3 million transactions recorded on OnlyFans.”
By October of 2017, Leonoid Ravinsky, who founded and owned the adult webcam streaming platform MyFreeCams since 2006, bought a majority stake in the new up and coming platform, and within a month had assumed full leadership of OnlyFans. Today, it is estimated that the annual gross revenue from the site has risen to exceed $7.2 billion.
Recently, local media outlets posted an article that referenced a report released by a website claiming that Portland, Oregon is the number 1 city in the world for Onlyfans spending. There have been a few of these types of reports released over the past year from websites that seem like they are sharing credible data, but turn out to be search engines promoting creators on OnlyFans. Many of the results that pop up from these search engines direct to creators who are making pornographic content.
These claims and related links published by local media were eventually taken down, however this is not the first example of a respected news outlet picking up a report from one of these sites, and then linking to the search engine site who shared the data. New York Post as well as multiple credible business journals and sites have picked these stories up over the past year, and reposted them with links to the search engines. Before the local article was taken down, we saw that there was a surge in online engagement with the post across multiple platforms. Thus further fueling the very same problematic exploitation dynamic that the news articles set out to address.
So often we hear a narrative of empowerment being woven into the marketing of platforms that promote pornographic content, so we invited members of the Safety Compass Survivor Advisory Council to share their thoughts, lived experience expertise, and observations about the growing acceptance of this narrative. Members shared their views, available below.
“Websites such as OnlyFans, which market themselves as platforms of freedom and independence for consensual sex work through a subscription-based model, have a darker side; one that cannot be dismissed simply because the platform appears more personal or modern than traditional online and print pornography. Like any platform or avenue that can be exploited by traffickers, these spaces can also be used to manipulate, coerce, and exploit individuals for someone else’s financial gain.
There is no way for every subscriber to know with absolute certainty whether the content they are viewing was created freely, willingly, and with genuine consent—or whether the seemingly ordinary bedroom on their screen is nothing more than a drywall box in a warehouse filled with identical rooms, where exploitation remains hidden behind a carefully constructed illusion.
I know firsthand how devastating online sexual exploitation can be. I experienced its brutality through live-cam websites similar to OnlyFans, all while maintaining a smile that concealed a reality no consumer of my content could have known. The familiar narrative of the ‘college girl paying her way through her degree’ has long been used to normalize and justify the consumption of sexual content and experiences– an excuse to appease the conscience of those consuming it.
These justifications have existed for years in the exotic dancing industry and more, particularly when it comes to younger-appearing models, dancers and escorts. Thinking that an individual is free to go or walk out whenever they want because an avenue is legal cannot be accepted. One simply cannot say definitively that every face on their screen is there by choice, free from coercion, or able to leave when they want to.
Behind closed doors, even when a platform presents itself as legitimate and the transactions appear entirely legal, there can still be a hidden underbelly of exploitation that society cannot afford to ignore,” Melissa O. who sits on the Safety Compass Survivor Advisory Committee (SCSAC), stated.
At Safety Compass, we have heard from many survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking that these crimes are not just limited to venues like outdoor solicitation or the purchase of sex through online platforms. Survivors have increasingly shared experiences of exploitation through legal venues like adult entertainment clubs and pornography.
One of our SCSAC members who wishes to remain anonymous shared, “My experience was in adult films, before OnlyFans, but I recognize the promises of money and opportunity used to disguise exploitation. My grooming began at 15½. By the time my husband was pushing me into adult films, he had spent years moving my boundaries until I felt I had no real choice. Viewers could see my body, but they could not see the coercion behind the camera. The injuries were real. There were no stunt doubles, and the PTSD did not end when filming stopped. When people glorify this industry, I want them to remember: seeing someone on camera does not tell you whether they were free to say no.”
It has become a common theme in our culture to glorify an industry that continually reduces human beings to objects intended for the entertainment and sexual gratification of another. Movies and shows like “Anora” and “Margot’s got Money Troubles”, which often portray that there is a freedom of choice in the sexual exploitation industry, have become some of the most popularly consumed mainstream media over the past few years. Karen Shultz, who serves as a SCSAC member as well as the Victim Advocate Program Director, Wasco County District Attorney's Office shared her perspective: “We have become dangerously comfortable confusing visibility with freedom, profitability with empowerment, and participation with consent. Exploitation no longer needs to hide in the shadows. It can be packaged as entertainment, marketed as opportunity, and sold to the highest bidder.
As a survivor of human trafficking and a longtime victim advocate, I know that exploitation rarely looks the way society expects it to. Sometimes it looks like independence. Sometimes it looks like success. Sometimes it looks like a choice that was never truly yours to make.
A camera can capture an image, but it cannot capture the fear, manipulation, threats, or coercion that may exist beyond its frame. Consumers see content. They don't see who controls the account, who collects and controls the money, or what happens when someone says no. Consent to create content is not consent to exploitation, and turning 18 does not magically erase years of grooming, vulnerability, or coercive control.”
Safety Compass has seen a significant increase in survivors reporting harm by buyers and traffickers through online platforms. Content creators face threats of stalking, doxxing, and content theft, including buyers sharing their material without consent.
We have also seen more individual traffickers coercing or forcing people to create and post pornographic material, alongside a growing trend of “content creation houses.” These operations often present themselves as legitimate businesses while grooming vulnerable individuals, including minors. Once someone moves in, those running the house may use manipulation, threats, or violence to compel them to produce pornographic content. Cases involving these alleged practices have emerged in the Pacific Northwest, including the Bellevue ‘Onlyfans house’.
It’s time that as a society we start recognizing the harm inherent to an industry built on the premise that consent is for sale. Survivors of commercial exploitation, regardless of the venue of that exploitation, need to be able to access services and help when they need it. As Melissa O says, “Survivors of online sexual exploitation deserve the same recognition, protection, access to resources, and opportunities for support as victims exploited through more traditional avenues. Bringing these experiences into the light is not about denying anyone’s autonomy; it is about ensuring that exploitation cannot hide behind the language of empowerment, the convenience of a subscription, or the assumption that what we see on a screen tells us the whole story.”
