Ultra-conservative US Christian Right groups helped ban porn on OnlyFans – the only safe source of income for many sex workers
Barely awake, before I’d even had my first sip of coffee, I turned on my computer to see BBC News proudly announcing: “OnlyFans to ban sex videos after BBC investigation”. My stomach churned.
I’d spent the previous night reading numerous anguished tweets from sex workers and sex worker activists, after OnlyFans, the UK-based content subscription service, had announced that it would ban porn. They were cries for help. People were scrambling to pool money for the most vulnerable, crowdsourcing for those suddenly left without an income.
OnlyFans – the most mainstream platform that still accepted sex workers, the platform made rich because of sex workers – had decided to cut them off. Yet again, a large corporation making money and fame on the backs of sex workers had abandoned them. With the help of a large, influential, international newsroom.
What most people don’t know is that ultra-conservative Christian Right organisations from the US have been working hard behind the scenes to make this happen.
After reading the BBC article, I had flashbacks to last year, when New York Times (NYT) columnist Nicolas Kristof went on a crusade against the website Pornhub. In his “opinion” piece, Kristof claimed that the site was “infested with rape videos” and trafficked children. In response to the article, Mastercard, Visa and Discover cut their ties with Pornhub’s parent company, Mindgeek.
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