When OnlyFans announced it would ban adult content from October 1, Neville Sun wasn’t surprised. After more than a year as an adult content creator on the subscription platform, the 31-year-old Taiwanese filmmaker, gay porn performer and fitness model had been aware of rumours for months. “After you keep hearing this, you start feeling insecure and frustrated,” he says, pledging to focus on building his own site even after OnlyFans changed course.
Since quitting his full-time job as a graphic designer in Taipei in January, most of Sun’s income has come from highly-produced porn videos and behind-the-scenes photos posted to OnlyFans. He treats his films as art, collaborating with a professional makeup artist, filmmaker and producer for every shoot; Sun takes on the script, costume design and props. He’s cultivated a striking brand of edgy erotica, his own heavily-tattooed torso centrestage. In one clip, he plays a “bull king husband”, wearing a set of horns handmade by a jewellery-designer friend. With around 700 subscribers, Sun earns between $3,000 (£2,200) and $10,000 (£7,200) a month from OnlyFans, sometimes more.
Sun is one of many adult content creators who make a living on OnlyFans but are now going it alone and launching their own platforms, attempting to create a solid base for their livelihoods in an online environment that is increasingly hostile to sex work.
Founded in 2016, London-based OnlyFans allows creators to charge monthly subscription fees for exclusive content, making extra from pay-per-view posts, tips and “customs” – bespoke requests from followers. It’s open to all but the site’s popularity with adult creators has made it synonymous with nudity and pornography. The platform now reports more than 150 million users, annually paying out $5 billion (£3.6bn) to more than 1.5 million content creators after booming during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Amid an explosive backlash from adult content creators, OnlyFans blamed its explicit content ban on pressure from banking partners and payment providers. The company reversed the planned policy change less than a week after announcing it, saying it had “secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community”. But the ban’s intricacies and subsequent turnaround are still murky. Fingers initially pointed to MasterCard’s new requirements for online adult content transactions but OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely denied the company’s involvement, crediting blacklisting by banks with “reputational risk” concerns.
Wading through the mess are the platform’s resident sex workers and adult content creators, who are often credited for OnlyFans’ success. Many say they feel let down since the ban, despite its suspension. Some are heading to other fan sites allowing adult content, such as JustForFans, AVNStars and Fansly. But any future policy changes are ultimately out of their hands.
“I started feeling I want to have my own website,” says Sun, unconvinced by OnlyFans’ u-turn. “My heart was broken already. I don’t know if they will eventually or temporarily ban adult content creators. Next year it might happen again.” With a filmmaking team in tow, going solo was a no-brainer. By the time of the apparent reversal, he’d already found a web developer.
Sun is looking at a tight turnaround, aiming to launch NVS.video, a website for his own content, in late-October. It will be basic at first, he says, comprising a sign-up form, age verification and a content page, where users can purchase individual videos. “It’s a little different from OnlyFans,” he says. “It’s more like Netflix … or a selected video shop.” Eventually Sun wants a creator-upload function, like those seen on fan sites, and to invite other adult creators to post their own videos.
To get around potential frustrations from banking providers, Sun is looking into a “credit” system, where subscribers can buy tokens to purchase videos, as opposed to viewers buying content directly. His business plan also includes a clothing line and LGBT art gallery and studio in Taipei, for which he says he has already rented the space. So far, he’s invested nearly one million Taiwanese dollars (around £26,250) in the company.
Elsewhere, sex workers are turning to cryptocurrency to overcome digital payment woes. Purpose-built adult industry tokens, such as CumRocket and Nafty, may help circumvent stringent banking policies. The latter launched a crypto alternative to OnlyFans – NaftyFans – just weeks before OnlyFans’ temporary porn ban. “This decentralised finance solution means you’re not really beholden to the rules of credit card companies,” Nafty’s chief business development officer Jeffrey Dillon told The Face.
Melbourne-based adult content creator Carter Brecht, who co-runs MenSpankingMen on OnlyFans with his partner, also plans to launch an independent adult content outlet. The 37-year-old, a full-time customer service professional by day, wants to jump ship from OnlyFans, claiming it is covertly wiping some adult content from the platform. After the ban-reversal, his profile photo, in which he holds a paddle while fully-clothed, was deleted, he claims. "Someone holding a paddle is not sexually explicit. I’ve seen verified accounts of celebs and their profile pictures are a lot more suggestive than what mine was,” he says, claiming the platform discriminates against kink and queer content, prioritising big names including actress Bella Thorne. "Her cover picture is more sexually explicit than anything in my profile.”
Creators blamed Thorne for changes OnlyFans made after she joined in 2020 and made $2 million in less than a week from an alleged “scam”, though OnlyFans denied any user’s sole responsibility. OnlyFans declined WIRED’s request to comment for this story.
Brecht hasn't had time to build out his platform yet, but he craves content control. "I want to not have a third party there that can ruin everything in the space of a couple of days." As an interim alternative, he's considering JustForFans, which he sees as more “kink-friendly”.
Others are branching out across the industry. Ellie Louise, a 19-year-old adult content creator from Milton Keynes is starting her own sex toy brand. “I want to do something for myself.” She’s been using OnlyFans for nearly two years, earning around $2,500-$3,000 (£1,800-£2,200) a month through subscriptions, with $50 (£36) customs on top – much more than her previous care home job, she says. “I was going to be hosting adult parties but I didn’t see much of a profit from it so decided sex toys would be a lot better,” she explains. “I can buy them in bulk from manufacturers so it’s decent profit. ” The website is ready to go, says Louise, but she’s waiting for products to arrive.
Despite creative workarounds, the longevity of adult content online is uncertain. OnlyFans’ threat to sex workers was only the latest in a long line of tech platforms purging adult content, from Tumblr to Patreon and eBay, highlighting ongoing ostracisation and instability for adult workers in the digital sphere. Sex workers say US anti-trafficking laws FOSTA/SESTA, passed in 2018, put them in danger; the UK government has looked to similar legislation. Stigma continues offline, with sex workers globally facing discrimination, violence and other human rights violations.
Of course, not every adult creator will want or be able to front the cost of their own enterprise. Brittany Babbles, an audio porn producer from Niagara Falls, Canada, wants to invest in a content platform but doesn’t yet have the funds. “It’s a little too costly for me right now. I’m not quite ready.” For creators with low incomes, there’s value in subscription-based platforms, she says. “Having those middle men dealing with payment processors is important. We don’t want to deal with the business side of it,” Babbles adds.
But too much responsibility is placed on individual sex workers to find digital safety and stability, says Elena Michael, co-founder of campaign against image-based sexual abuse, #NotYourPorn. “The burden shouldn't always be on individual sex workers to go out and find information to keep themselves safe,” she says, adding that resources aren’t accessible enough, particularly as growing numbers of women took up sex work during the pandemic. “We need to be more transparent and bridge connections between networks.”
Looking out for fellow adult content creators, Babbles recommends more than one revenue stream. “[Creators] need to have multiple sources of income. Spread yourself out so if a platform goes down, you have security.” While Babbles had a “great time” on OnlyFans, she’s now sceptical. “I don’t trust any platform that’s going to do something like that.” She proposes going for sites that are geared towards adult content, such as AVN Stars which she’s joined, as opposed to fan sites that may change tact in the future. “If they don’t want to be proud of us, why are we here?”
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
