I Made Thousands On OnlyFans And Regret Every Dollar

The world of OnlyFans claims to offer women a path to wealth that requires very little time, effort, or repercussions. Feminists have deemed this form of pornography empowering, since women make content on “their terms” instead of simply being a prop for a large studio. Gone is the shame of the leather casting couch trope; women can now “girl boss” their way through the porn industry.

The societal normalization of OnlyFans, particularly in liberal spheres, has sold young women an alluring false promise: that OnlyFans is a ticket to wealth, free of consequences to the self or the soul. This is far from the truth, and I should know; I bought into it.

Liberal feminism has a lot to do with the proliferation of sites like OnlyFans. An ideology that tells women that purity is oppression and marriage is a prison naturally ends in porn being lauded in the modern age. Once seen as a shameful industry full of corruption and exploitation, porn has now experienced a rebrand at the hands of liberals as something positive and lucrative. Since women seemingly control the content they push out, gone are the days of producers luring women into positions they are uncomfortable with for their own profit. Women ostensibly own the means of production and act as their own CEO of their online brand. A woman could enter the site for a few years, make a killing, and go on to live a normal life. This, of course, is far from the truth.

There are two potential paths women can embark on to be successful on OnlyFans. The first is to have an established following, which can result in a large turnover of OnlyFans subscribers. These are typically public figures like Bella Thorne or Blac Chyna who are already well known and then publicly promote their OnlyFans to an existing audience. This is exceedingly rare and makes up the majority of large earners on the site.

I found myself in humiliating, compromising situations just to make $50 here or $20 there.

The second, and most popular, way to find success on OnlyFans is to cater to your audience’s wants at a constant rate. Personal requests are a huge way women turn a profit, since the average subscription cost is roughly $7 per month. Users interested in building a following must be frequently available to chat or take custom requests for content. Some women rely on outsourcing their messaging to services that act as a sort of secretary, answering DMs on the site while posing as the OnlyFans “model.” Women who are not established public figures typically have to market themselves on social media platforms like X or Reddit. Thus, the idea of complete anonymity is ultimately a pipe dream. And with the average earner on OnlyFans making only around $120 per month, the promise of wealth quickly collapses.

On OnlyFans, your subscribers call the shots with their requests. In my experience, custom requests are rarely dignified. I have heard plenty of stories, and have my own lived experience, of women who break the boundaries they set in order to appease their subscribers. A woman may enter the site with an idea of the type of content she will create, only to find herself shifting to meet the demands of her consumers. This strays far from the utopian idea that an attractive woman can make millions off a few scandalous selfies. I found myself in humiliating, compromising situations just to make $50 here or $20 there. I was not “free” or “empowered.” I was a slave to the dollar and to my subscribers. There is no real autonomy when your audience controls the outcome. You may not have a studio dictating what you do with your body, but you still answer to a boss, and it isn’t you.

So how did we get here? A society that rejects purity and indulges in degeneracy will unsurprisingly see no wrong in sites like OnlyFans. Women who have bought into the idea that the most empowering thing they can do is indulge every base desire will see little issue with putting their bodies up for sale. This online prostitution is perfectly reasonable under the worldview that sex is meaningless and exists solely for pleasure. It makes perfect sense that hookup culture has evolved into a pro-porn culture. It's far from uncommon for a first date to end in a hookup today. So is it really a stretch for a man to exchange the price of dinner for a $7 subscription fee and receive essentially the same product? With this new deal, men are held to even lower standards when it comes to courting women. They don't even have to leave their homes to engage in sexual activity with a plethora of women. As stigma continues to wane, men and women need not feel shame or embarrassment in this new age. Porn is normal and healthy, after all, or so we have been told.

Eighty-eight percent of porn reviewed featured physical or verbal violence, mainly toward women.

A literature review prepared by The Behavioural Architects in the United Kingdom showed that eighty-eight percent of porn reviewed featured physical or verbal violence, mainly toward women. The review found a significant association between porn usage and men viewing women as objects, holding attitudes such as “if women wear revealing clothing, they are asking for it” after habitual porn consumption. There was also a strong correlation between porn use and men enacting verbal and physical aggression toward women. Is this empowerment?

Porn use has significant, measurable effects. The normalization of this industry holds negative consequences for both men and women. Psychology Today reports that men who engage in problematic porn use show significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety, as well as the potential for altered brain structure and function. Men bear the bulk of the repercussions of a pornified society, and when men suffer, women suffer too. Women do not go unscathed, especially those who participate in the industry. I personally know women who report regrets about participating in OnlyFans, who struggle to remove images and videos from the internet permanently, and who face dating difficulties. Men, understandably, typically do not want to settle down with a woman who has participated in sex work.

My journey on OnlyFans started like I imagine many women’s journeys do: with the false shimmer of a quick paycheck. I had acquired a modest following on social media and used it to my advantage. After only a few months, I had almost 200 subscribers, and at $10 per month, I was earning $2,000 in subscriptions alone. But the real money came from custom requests. Soon I was ordering props, outfits, anything requested by my “fans.” I sent videos and pictures I was ashamed of, but the lure of the paycheck outweighed the shame. I was consumed by materialism. My highest-earning month was just under $12,000. I was intoxicated by the rush of new income. Predictably, the success and the high were fleeting. My numbers dropped after I was banned on Reddit, and my enthusiasm waned alongside my monthly income. Morally, I still believed this was not only acceptable but good for me and for women.

Through sites like OnlyFans, women are sold a promise that can never be kept: that they can sell their bodies at no cost to themselves.

After almost a year on the site, I began facing dating troubles when I disclosed my “side hustle.” I was constantly pushing boundaries, effectively having none at all. I had lost all respect for myself. It was not until I fully accepted Jesus Christ that I was humbled and freed from exploiting myself. I did not just ask for forgiveness from God; I asked Him to help me stop. And He did. Once I accepted God, I could accept my own self-worth and finally find the clarity and dignity to stop selling myself. After leaving OnlyFans, I could see clearly the damage that had been done.

As our culture grows increasingly secular, we lose sight of the worth of others and of ourselves. The value of sex continues to deteriorate, made evident by the popularity of OnlyFans and similar sites. There is a need now more than ever to return to tradition in matters of sex and dating. Men and women must hold themselves and each other to higher standards for their own sake and for the sake of society.

We need more marriage and fewer OnlyFans models. We need more families and less hedonism. We need more worship of God and less worship of material goods. Anyone promoting the porn industry and sites like OnlyFans does a grave disservice not only to themselves but to young, vulnerable women. More women need to speak honestly about the harms of participating in an industry built on exploitation. Through sites like OnlyFans, women are sold a promise that can never be kept: that they can sell their bodies at no cost to themselves.