September 3, 2020 - 10:45am
22-year-old Bella Thorne — a former Disney child actress now turned actress, model, singer, and director — claims that she was on a mission to “[r]emove the stigma behind sex, sex work, and the negativity that surrounds the word SEX itself” when she set up an account on OnlyFans, a platform that allows sellers to share sexually explicit photos of themselves with paying fans. Within 24 hours, she had set a record, earning $1 million USD. Within the week, her earnings topped $2 million.
During her brief career as an OnlyFans star, Thorne allegedly offered to send customers naked photos of herself for a price of $200, only to then send photos in which she was not actually naked. Enraged customers demanded a refund, overwhelming the customer services department, and leading to a change in policy, with new payment caps introduced.
Many media outlets framed this as a story of female intrasexual competition, with headlines reporting that “Sex workers blame Bella Thorne for changes at OnlyFans” and “Bella Thorne Screwed Over Sex Workers on OnlyFans”. After the scandal broke, Thorne issued a tearful video apology to other OnlyFans sellers, along with a series of tweets explaining her noble intention to destigmatise the sex trade. Her apology has, it seems, not been accepted.
For anyone not familiar with the OnlyFans model, let me briefly summarise: it is where love, trust, and intimacy go to die. The platform is sometimes described as the ‘Patreon of porn’, but is perhaps better understood as the ‘girlfriend experience’ of porn — since free porn is plentifully available online, OnlyFans makes money by offering something special.
Its 60 million customers (overwhelmingly male) pay a regular sum of money in order to access not only sexual images of 750,000 sellers (overwhelmingly female), but also an illusion of closeness. The most successful sellers will chat with customers, message them on their birthdays, and remember their children’s names, giving foolish men the impression that this woman has some emotional attachment to them. All this is enabled by the OnlyFans subscription model, which gives a false impression of privacy, allowing customers to delude themselves that they are in a real relationship with the woman of their dreams, and lulling sellers into a false sense of security. Although the money can be good (sometimes), sellers live under constant threat of exposure, since aggrieved clients may leak images, sometimes to a woman’s relatives or her employer. And once those images are uploaded to cyberspace, they’re never going away.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the OnlyFans sellers, most of them young and poor, whose incomes have been hit as a result of the new rules imposed following the Bella Thorne incident. But I have rather less sympathy for the argument that Thorne acted badly in signing up to the site. She is clearly clueless about the true nature of the sex trade and she seems to have a poor understanding of economics — she is, lest we forget, 22 — but spare me the outrage of the sex trade apologists who are shocked (shocked!) that a tax-dodging tech giant that feeds off male lechery and female naiveté might not have behaved entirely decently towards the women whose youthful flesh it commodifies.
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SubscribeDear Ms Perry. You seem to ignore ONE basic fact: Bella Thorne promised naked photos of herself, got paid but delivered clothed photos of herself. Immoral and immodest as it maybe, this is FRAUD !!! No other words to describe it. PS: I didn’t ask for her photo and until now I didn’t know her.
It may have been Socrates who once said ‘The male libido is like being chained to a madman’ something which a section of women through the ages have been more than willing to exploit.
You may be interested in Quote Investigator’s tracing of the history of that quote: https://quoteinvestigator.c…
Thanks for the link-very useful
I admit that I’ve never heard of the platforms in question, nor does the name Bella Thorne ring any bells. Beyond that, the article confirms to me that the chasm between generations is growing in all sorts of way. A few points: “I have a great deal of sympathy for the OnlyFans sellers, most of them young and poor.” Does Ms Perry actually know that these young women are “poor”? Secondly does being young and poor justify selling one’s body, or stealing, or harming someone? Or does Ms Perry simply repeat the leftist mantra that being poor somehow gives you a moral license to do things that if you were, what? old and rich you would not deserve? Secondly: Bella Thorne is “clearly clueless […] she is, lest we forget, 22.” At 22 I was studying and working and forming a family–but Bella at 22 should be forgiven, because she is young and clueless. So perhaps she should not be allowed to vote, or drink, being mentally underage. Sorry Ms Perry, this is more BS in a few lines than I’ve read in quite a while.
You’re right. Here’s a trope that comes to mind: if teens are old enough to cross the beaches of Normandy, etc. She’s 22 and a show biz vet. She knew exactly what she was doing. Spare us your ignorant dogmas, Perry.
Bella Thorne has alleged that she was sexually abused as a child actress, without naming names. There is plenty of evidence that sexual abuse of child actors is commonplace in US film and television. Instead of defending Thorne’s fraudulent activity, Ms Perry would be better off exposing this abuse. But then again that might not be good for her career.
Or purse.
Johnny is right-she committed fraud. I believe that prostitution should be fully legalised by repealing all laws against it.
‘The sex trade is not progressive, or edgy, or empowering. It is a capitalist industry…’
And, being capitalist, endlessly innovative in terms of giving millions of people what they want. Of course, with this comes a few rip-off artists and a lot more mugs, as in this case here. All part of life’s rich tapestry.
“Get woke, get OTHERS broke!”
I totally agree that the sex trade is “not progressive, or edgy, or empowering”, but Ms Thorne did do more than take part. She offered one product for money and then knowingly and deliberately supplied a different, and ““ in terms of the trade concerned ““ lesser product. That is fraud.
Customers were undoubtedly foolish ““ maybe even pathetic ““ but that isn’t a defence to fraud. If anything, it is an aggravating factor.
“Yes, Your Honour, I knew these were sad little people, but I thought that made it OK”?
“male lechery and female naiveté” – these characteristics should be swapped around to provide a more useful truth.
I mean, who is really being naive here, surely it’s the men who fool themselves into believing they have a special relationship with women on OnlyFans who will sell what they have to any buyer for the right money. And who is really being lecherous (meaning, showing excessive or offensive sexual desire) -surely the women who will film themselves performing sex acts to entice men to make money??
So spare us the hypocrisy please.
What is it about women who just pointblank refuse to believe that any woman could make a thoroughly lecherous and sordid life choice with real intent, and solely on account of who they are as a person?
The OnlyFans phenomenon is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, any woman (or man) can join. There is no gatekeeper, who decides who can join or sets an entry fee which is normally having sex with him. This is clearly always not the case with Hollywood, as Harvey Weinstein’s crimes have shown. Secondly, the girls who join see it as a better deal financially than others on offer. Essentially OnlyFans takes a smaller cut than the traditional agent or manager.
I love this idea that the sex trade has anything to do with capitalism. It’s like when people blame inequality on capitalism. It’s always been there and it always will. It just so happens that it is still with us now and we happen to have a capitalist system.
I hate to break it to you, Louise, but prostitution predates Wealth of Nations by quite some time. However society is organised there will always be attractive young women wiling to sell their bodies to the highest bidder. It went on in ancient Rome, Persia, Nazi Germany and Communist China. It has nothing to do with capitalism at all, it’s just an integral part of the human experience/condition.