Six young women in clinging tops and Pokemon slippers line up outside a Florida mansion. A cutesy song plays; they jump in tandem, turning to show off their jiggling bodies from every angle. Welcome to Bop House, a TikTok page and digital meat market of age-ambiguous OnlyFans models with a collective following of more than 33 million. These girls have formed a sorority of sorts, creating content day in, day out and chasing algorithm-friendly trends: on Sunday, they flew to the Super Bowl on a private jet; last month, they filmed a dystopian review of viral cookie brand Crumbl, in every way seeming like a gang of teenaged friends at a sleepover.
“Bop” is Gen Z slang for “baddies on point”, but has developed the spittle-flecked cadence of “slut”; these young women dance, pose, joke and tease millions of TikTok viewers as an extended advertisement for their individual OnlyFans porn accounts. Every now and then, a young edgelord will copy and paste what has become the stock snarky response to OnlyFans content: “Wonderful! Honourable! Optimistic! Radiant! Excellent!” Calling these influencers “whores” savagely scratches an understandable itch: acknowledging the true nature of these videos, supposedly innocuous clips which act as shopfronts for wank material.
The fact is that these influencers have carved out a role in mainstream social media, with the grim nature of their trade couched in cosy euphemism: they make “spicy content”, we are told, probably to remove the shame factor of slinging a teenager a fiver a month to see her boobs. (Shame, after all, is bad for business.) Not only have many of the eight Bop House “creators” neglected to make their ages public, but they have specifically styled themselves to look incredibly young. Twenty-year-old Sophie Rain, the best known of the group, is set to make $60 million this year from her childlike looks and the lure of her self-described virginity. For the babes of the Bop House, this tactic has worked: it made $10 million in December alone.
Their fans are not just slobbering men, but girlypop supporters who crowd out their comment sections with club-bathroom-style compliments (“Camilla’s outfit eats”; “cute!!!”). For these fawning young women, the videos are more than adverts for virtual sex work; they are insights into favourite celebrities — to whom their boyfriends happen to pay a monthly subscription. These girls interpret the Bops’ playfulness not as seduction but as relatability, and they almost never express horror or concern at the reason why their favourite influencers are in that house at all. The Bops’ elision of social-media cults and pornography has achieved the unthinkable: normalising the latter so completely that there is no longer any shock, or compunction, at the fundamental transaction of their work. For many teen girls, these are aspirational figures who seem to be their own age; if it works for them, why not for me?
Part of the pull of the Bop House is its power dynamic of spectator and object, which is also inherent in traditional pornography itself. These girls are monitored at every point of their day; one mini-series sees a girl burst into rooms with a mock gun, whose trigger presents a lollipop. She marauds the house shoving it in her Bopmates’ faces, prompting looks of disdain, frustration and then occasionally seductive playing-along. These girls do not know or particularly like each other, but are forced to put up with each other in the name of content. That we are party to this hostage-like situation is part of its appeal. They are there for us. Each Bop develops her own character as the series progresses, much like traditional reality TV: the model and podcaster Camilla Araújo returned as a wildcard this month to stir up controversy amid an ongoing lawsuit, bringing her 7.6 million TikTok followers and talent for viral soundbites with her. This sex-work sorority is so profitable because it crosses the boundaries of ubiquitous, predictable OnlyFans content: its iconoclastic appeal is that it has conquered the mainstream.
The hostage dynamic has become part of the lexicon of internet virality. Last year, MrBeast locked two people in a room for 90 days with the prize of $500,000, tempting them with exorbitantly expensive “treats” such as beds and a dimmer switch for the room’s fluorescent lighting. In the end, both completed the challenge — only shelling out $20,000 on a collection of Harry Potter books and a coffee machine. The video has 341-million views. Another iteration is Fishtank Live, which sees contestants stuck in a house with no phones for six weeks — a homespun iteration of Big Brother. Divorced from the stringent regulations of established broadcasting networks, Fishtank has a viewer-interaction element which means we can pay to torment contestants, understandably framed as a morbid rerun of the Stanford prison experiment. For $300, a producer will empty a bin on the kitchen floor. For $600, they will remove a bed. Rather than being edited, Fishtank is streamed live 24/7 — the toilets are, disturbingly, available behind a paywall. All this plays into our desire for control over Sim-like subjects, and our need to inflict pain and pleasure on them, without them knowing who we are.
This is also the promise of OnlyFans, and we should see the “sellers” in that dynamic as just as strange, vulnerable and desperate as those contestants in MrBeast’s prison cell. Yes, some of the Bop House girls earn more money than I or any reader could ever hope to — but the vast majority of OnlyFans “models” do not, and leave the industry having lost priceless assets: agency, privacy and identity beyond a blur of oiled body parts. In its way, OnlyFans is its own reality show — and the Bop House in particular must truly feel like a fishtank, a panopticon, and one in which you are required not only to be constantly sexy but also constantly entertaining and likeable, given your dual role as porn star and influencer.
The boundaries of subject and viewer are collapsing, and this is affecting how real men see real women. As the Venn diagram of social media and pornography grinds towards a perfect circle, we are left with the subliminal impression that everything around us is a form of softcore pornography. Jostling with makeup tutorials, prank videos and recipes, the Bop House crucially targets everyone’s feeds; porn is fast becoming just another genre.
This was never the intention of liberal feminism; fourth-wavers would be horrified to realise that their girlboss, secure-the-bag mantra, which has casualised prostitution as a fun and consequence-free shortcut to empowerment, has landed them in servitude to the men who most despise them. But it is a product of their naivety, and of a culture of kindness which promotes tolerance at all costs — and which means that those of us who are critical of the spectre of the digital bordello are intolerant and so must be incorrect. The sacrality of tolerance is contingent on an unspoken contract of discretion, which holds that furries, hentai freaks and porn addicts have an inviolable right to arousal, as long they keep their side of the bargain by both dutifully buying our feet pics and not being complete horndogs in public life.
Yet the licensing of digital pornography, and the way it was given the green light by feminists at the dawn of OnlyFans in 2016, and seized upon as a way for young women to better themselves, has of course had unintended consequences. Ten years ago, it might have been impossible to imagine a mainstream website where young women — including my own peers — would sell homemade, bespoke pornography; now, it is difficult to imagine a world without it. This irrevocable shift came about because of aggressive marketing, with OnlyFans girls becoming their own pimps and flooding social media with adverts, something which has at points made X almost unbearable to use. Now, gooner content (look it up, or don’t) is everywhere, having bled into the mainstream so utterly that it is no longer particularly surprising to hear of a house of barely legal autopornographers hawking masturbation videos from a rented house in Florida, nor that we can expect teasers for those videos to be seen by children.
By styling themselves as teenage girls, the Bops intend to outrage viewers — and to profit from their notoriety. Liberal feminism lends “sex workers” a curious exceptionalism in that they are rarely held responsible for the grim tastes they cater to, such as teen porn. It focuses so evangelically on individual choice and identity that it has blinkered itself to uncomfortable truths — in this case, that there is another individual on the other end of this transaction, a priapic man who likes very young girls. For a movement so obsessed with individuality, it is ironic that the OnlyFans girl — the Frankenstein’s monster of fourth-wave feminism — is not allotted individual responsibility for the twisted sexualities she promotes.
For the Bops, the existence of their weird fans only becomes frighteningly apparent when, as Sophie Rain tells MailOnline, the girls are “woken up to people knocking at the door at night”. One of the problems with digital prostitution is that it has a veneer of secure remoteness which inevitably proves permeable to “fans” who already believe that access to your body is a matter of mere negotiation.
The elision of OnlyFans with conventional social media has turned all Gen Z women into porn stars-in-waiting. In a world where everything is content, the sorts of boys who grow up calling Bop House girls “whores” in TikTok comment sections will find it difficult to handle real-life crushes, which cannot be satisfied by paying for a “spicy video”. The message of OnlyFans is the same as that of Fishtank: you, a powerful viewer, can pay to control me, a desired but despicable subject, and in that way to temporarily own my body. And while we can no longer hope to regulate internet porn nor protect its stars, we can and must wake up to the value of our own dignity and privacy. Fourth-wave feminism has let vulnerable women down. The best we can do is to insist on our autonomy: take yourself offline, jump out of the tank.
At the end of the day, there is no way for any government, church, or well meaning individual to protect other individuals from the consequences of their own bad choices. These girls are simply taking advantage of the fact that biologically speaking, girls become women in terms of sexuality from about ages 12-15 and the males of our species are biologically driven to pursue fertility and youth. We have laws that protect children, as we should, but there’s no law against a twenty year old pretending to be younger or an easy way to objectively define what constitutes impersonating an underage girl if we wanted to pass one. These women are simply taking advantage of the intersection of base instinct and personal freedom to make a buck, or a lot of bucks. I can’t have much sympathy for anyone who has the combination of fame and wealth that gives one the ability to fly on a private jet to the Super Bowl, nor can I blame them for pursuing this route to wealth and prosperity. The same goes for the men who pay to see them prance about and take their clothes off. Aside from the few who take it too far and become stalkers, they are simply getting what they paid for and whatever consequences that has for their own lives are on them as well. With these I am basically content to live and let live. The problem is that the success of these few ladies encourages truly underage women to imitate. It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. How would one go about putting a stop to such things? Shutting down OnlyFans won’t end prostitution or men lusting after younger women. Those things existed before, and women were exploited before, often in much worse ways and with less power to change their situation. As sad as it is, the existence of OnlyFans constitutes progress insofar as it enables women to engage in a practice that is old as the species itself and enjoy the profits of said practice themselves rather than being dependent on possibly abusive brothel owners, pimps, and porn producers. Nobody should be celebrating this activity, but this is actually a marked improvement over most of human history. At any rate, I doubt we’ll have to witness the spectacle of disreputable behavior and sites such as OnlyFans much longer, because real women with cameras will be replaced with cheaper and more compliant virtual AI girlfriends. I suspect that despite the fact that such a scenario completely removes the possibility of abuse or exploitation of an actual person, feminists will still find reason to complain about this development as well.
Well OK, but isn’t it also normal for a grown man to find such girls (and 20 year olds who imitate them) childish, immature and frankly irritating? The most creepy thing about this is that the childishness seems to be the appeal.
I actually found them childish, immature, and irritating when I actually was 12-15 so I’m probably not the best person to ask. I’m certainly not anyone’s example of normal. Personally, I do find it creepy, distasteful, and mildly disgusting, but why should my opinion matter more than anyone else’s? As long as nobody is being abused, exploited, or forced to do things against their will, who am I to judge? I can only speak to what I know of history and biology. It’s a fact that in most cultures until very recently it was accepted if not commonplace for women as young as 14 to be married, basically whenever they reached sexual maturity. In many cultures, unmarried women over a certain age faced significant social stigmas. It’s also a fact that basically all species of mammals consider potential fitness of mates and that for males, this generally revolves around youth and fertility. We can look at documented history and understand how biology works and make the logical inference as to what’s going on here, that these men are making a connection to the appearance and behavior of the younger women that they probably were interested in when they were that age and for whatever reason couldn’t get, and are now participating in this economic transaction where the women are selling wish fulfillment and fantasy and the men are buying. As long as they’re not becoming stalkers and take it too far, it’s none of my business.
Apparently this is the case according to this article.
As an XX chromosome carrier I find this proclivity, in a way, mystifying.
I can speculate. The object of the interest is a sexual encounter without all the inconvenient baggage of emotional entanglement. The ultimate zipless f***k which as I understand from significant other, is the ultimate nirvanha – a blinding orgasm with a tight anatomy without the irritating sequelae of a small, demanding, independent human being 9 months later.
Of course there are a multitude of XY chromosome carriers on this planet who are unaware that some (increasing) number of XX carriers start menstruating at he age of 8 especially in well fed western countries.
As my father in law expounded over a campfire in the Nevadan desert “A stiff d***k has no conscience”. A wise man.
The most interesting factoid about his article is that no numbers are quoted – “many”, “a few”, “average”, “normal” – what is this in gross numbers and percentages divided into age cohorts ? – straight into the “too difficult basket” for the average innumerate journalist.
The amygdala rules and the world burns.
Males can also become victims of their infactuation by sending large amounts money to sexy online penfriend girlfriends who are actually not sexy girls but a deceptive money making schemes to exploit some mens weakness. There does need to be some moderating to ensure neither parties are harmed, like with gambling.
Again, it’s a free country and people have to be responsible for their own choices. We can give people information and education about the hazards that exist like we do with tobacco products but at the end of the day, there’s no way to eliminate self-destructive choices and behaviors without taking a sizable chunk out of our basic personal freedoms as collateral damage. In my view, this is included under the heading ‘freedom isn’t free’.
Fair points, though there may be a middle road between caveman hooker abuse and what we have here. I am unconvinced that it’s all so completely unavoidable. The content is fundamentally poisonous, and neither the production nor consumption of it is something that should be encouraged.
“…with these I am basically content to live and let live”. I would bet you do not have children, or any vested interest in the future of society.
One man, one woman, one lifetime. Every other path leads to disaster. Carthago delenda est.
I’m not quite sure why anybody is still pushing this line any more. Clearly large numbers of men are highly susceptible to this stuff, and large numbers of women are clearly willing to exploit it. In a way you can’t blame them, it’s easy money and the men are easy dupes, but let’s not be naive about who is exploiting whom here.
I wouldn’t call these men dupes. They are getting what they want for a reasonable price. Men have always had to pay for access to sex. Paying these young women is probably a lot less expensive than a girlfriend or wife. Less time consuming and disease free too.
This argument only holds true if you believe that having digital access to someone’s commercially filtered sexual social media is in any way akin to having an actual real girlfriend. Which it isn’t. No one can truly sell that directly. Yes relationships tend to have a degree of exchange of power and often that is the male’s resources/status/looks for her time and (temporary) allegiance but this still is another dimension to paid digital sex or paid real sex for that matter.
I take your point but there’s plenty of evidence to indicate that digital access is perfectly adequate for a significant , and growing, percentage of men.
Once advanced sex dolls arrive, and it’s inevitable that they will, a majority of men will be entirely satisfied to never experience the real thing.
When that time comes all that will remain for a majority of women will be exactly what these young women are already doing.
Is there some sort of rule of activism that means that the more pointless a movement becomes, the more frequently the waves come rolling in?
This is the nature of activism. It is incapable of taking ‘yes’ for an answer or accepting victory. The grift is now the point.
70 years ago, in my late teens, my grandfather told me about real female motivations … the 6 ‘A’s …. Appearance: Adornment: Aromas: attire: Accessories: Assets … all acquired by SEX and that would include any wife I married. Nonsense of course, but, call me a cynic now …… he was right enough.
Reminds me of the old Rod Stewart song. “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.”
70 years ago.
Thankfully some XX chromosome carriers have found something better to do with their energies since then.
Th best we can do is to insist on our autonomy – Isn’t that precisely what these young women are doing? Does Polly mean, “insist on using our autonomy only in ways of which Polly approves”
I think Poppy (not Polly) is referring to the autonomy of the consumer of this “content” when she urges them to get off-line. The only thing that will work if you wish to see such content disappear — and I think most people still do — is to deprive it of the oxygen of attention. Technology enabled the production and mass-consumption of this shite, so cutting the technological cord that connects producer and consumer is the simplest way to end it. Of course, some individual self-restraint is required, and that seems to be in short supply: witness the number of people who seem to think that Jeff Bezos is the anti-Christ, but are all awaiting their next Amazon delivery.
While I agree this is all perfectly terrible, I would be more impressed by the numerous UnHerd feminists decrying it, if they acknowledged just why and how feminism led to so much female anguish. I mean, will this author or her UnHerd colleagues ever just come out and say, “sex is marriage glue” so don’t have sex until you’re married and don’t cheat on your spouse? No, that would be giving a patriarchal institution of control over women legitimacy it does not deserve! Instead we get hand-wringing articles like this full of flowery evasion and studied ambiguity about why the author’s belief system has gone off the rails. They see the destruction they have wrought but still don’t have the moral courage to examine their own role in wreaking it.
None of this would have happened if our great governments hadn’t permitted free access to pornography on the Internet.
This is so sad.
No wonder religion is making a comeback, and conversions to Islam are at an all-time high.
Western societies are disintegrating before our eyes. So sad.
So this basically just replaces the rich husband with ten thousand “rich” digital boyfriends, then.
Insofar as “the men” and their dirty, seedy voyeurism, none of them were ever MeToo’d for looking at pornography. They’re now known only by their credit cards, with no awkward nor unwelcome interactions, just a spotlessly impersonal financial transaction.
Think how safe everyone is now – is this not the world feminists wanted?
This is sickening
And why would any attractive young woman take herself offline when she can make big bucks? Meanwhile her peers in university are paying high tuition and studying hard in hopes of getting an ordinary white collar job upon graduation.
We must be tolerant, for there often is no analytically defensible reason not to be. Elsewhere on one of the pages of this issue of this organ is depicted Jeff Bezos fully togged up in full evening wear regalia with only his bald pate left uncovered for us to inspect. He has a companion – suspect his wife. She is standing alongside in an expensive couture dress with half her mammaries hanging out of it. I find that intensely pornographic and would like to ban such displays of the female anatomy. But how would I justify doing so? The fact that something offends my sensibilities does not seem to be a good reason.