February 20, 2023 - 5:51pm
On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion, Western leaders have been working to demonstrate their unwavering commitment to the Ukrainian cause. As part of a surprise visit to Kyiv today, US President Joe Biden announced new military assistance and further sanctions on Moscow, while in Munich, European allies promised more military and financial support to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Yet for all the solidarity on show among the leadership, cracks may be starting to emerge back home. In America, a new AP poll has found that less than half of Americans (48%) are in favour of providing weapons to Ukraine, down from 60% in May 2022. Separately, a Pew poll from this year revealed that the share of Americans who say the US is providing too much support to Ukraine has grown from 7% in March 2022 to 26% in January 2023. What’s more, the share of Americans who said that the US is not providing enough support has dropped from 42% to 20% in the same period.
Biden may only have to concern himself with public opinion in his own country, but EU leaders must also contend with maintaining unity between their countries too. New polls reveal a wide spread in opinions about the conflict, even if most countries are generally supportive of Ukraine. According to the EU’s Autumn 2022 barometer, approval of the EU’s support for Ukraine is resilient at 74%, with the highest figures in Sweden (97%) and Finland (95%) and the lowest further south in Bulgaria (48%) and Greece (48%).
But these questions, commissioned by the EU, are (perhaps deliberately) vague. Respondents are asked whether they approve or disapprove of the EU’s ‘support’ for Ukraine without detailing what support that entails (beyond humanitarian, financial and military) and whether they are ‘satisfied’ with the cooperation between member states.
Other polls are more enlightening. For instance, one recent Ipsos survey shows a downward trend in support for sending weapons and/or air-defence systems to Ukraine in Europe, with German support falling below half for the first time (down by seven percentage points to 48% between March-April 2022 and November-December 2022) and the Netherlands (down by six percentage points to 59%).
More surprising, though, is that even among Ukraine’s loudest supporters there appears to be some degree of war-weariness: in the same Ipsos survey, there was a 10-percentage point decline among Poles supporting the most stringent economic sanctions against Russia and an 11-percentage point decline in accepting Ukrainian refugees.
Out of all the EU countries, Germany is a particularly interesting case. Despite a wholesale reconfiguration of German foreign policy, Olaf Scholz has faced heavy criticism for perceived slowness in providing military support to Kyiv. Now, he has turned into one of Ukraine’s loudest defenders, urging other countries to speed up arms deliveries to Ukraine and warning that it would be “wise to prepare for a long war”. But how have Germans received this message back home?
Previous polling may offer some clues. According to one January Forsa poll, an astonishing 80% of Germans said that it was more important to end the conflict quickly with negotiations than for Ukraine to win. Similarly, a survey of nine EU countries by Euroskopia found that over 60% of Austrians and Germans want the war to end quickly whereas the Dutch, Portuguese and Polish are strongly opposed to this idea.
War fatigue thus appears to be setting in faster in Germany than in any other country, with public opinion hardening in recent months. Almost half of Germans (43%) now agree that ‘the problems of Ukraine are none of our business, and we should not interfere’, marking an 11-percentage point increase from March-April 2022 to November-December 2022. This may go some way towards explaining the rise of Sahra Wagenknecht, one of the co-leaders of Die Linke, who is, with some success, spearheading an anti-war movement in Germany.
Western leaders displayed remarkable levels of unity during the first year of the war. One year in, however, and their voters are beginning to be more hesitant in their commitment.
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Subscribe^Yes, O.F. are tremendous heroes.^
Any strike against the porn industry should be lauded, even by such a clumsy monster as Ofcom. It may go some way toward redeeming their treatment of Mark Steyn.
Unfortunate choice of words: “Poster-child”. And:
“strictest age-verification protocols for visitors of any site in the word.”
Really? Do any of these articles ever pass before the eyes of a real editor before they go live?
So what is the motivation for going after only fans if it is actually one of the best on age restrictions, and if this is known to Ofcom?
Is it an error? Is it a soft target? Is it because only fans empowers women and we live in an oppressive patriarchy (tongue in cheek on that one)? The article seems incomplete without an answer to that question.
If I had to hazard a guess, yes, your third suggestion: the open, unapologetic and tenable commercialisation of female sexual agency it enables is an affront to the usual suspects, who have no particular problem with commercialising pornography…so long as men/big business, somewhere and somehow, can keep controlling and ticket-clipping it. Another striking thing about OnlyFans beyond being the most responsible porn platform around is that it’s also the most autonomous and direct business model for the content creators (overwhelmingly young, attractive women). The sleazy, exploitative sites that exist in the illegal and/or demi-monde internet are, paradoxically, a kind of back-handed affirmation of traditionally repressive and sanctimonious moralities. The patriarchy has never truly objected to women commercializing their sexuality. Just so long as they remain illicit, hidden and shameful with it.
OnlyFans’ and its contributors’ main sins seem to be a) being unapologetic about their business model and, for the most part b) unharmed and often very rewarded for it. Bad girls! They must be shamed and punished.
Adding a perhaps different slant to this: perhaps we are uncomfortable with the idea that some women use their sexuality to exploit men without being constrained to do so. This should perhaps be obvious, but it runs entirely contrary to the narrative of prostitution (and other sex work) as exploitation of women by their clients.
There is just too much on only fans that is too obviously exploitation of weak, even vulnerable, men by women. I’m sure it has always been thus, but as with so many things the internet lays it all bare.
Good post, thanks.
Likewise yours. Yes, not being cute, but I probably haven’t done enough, or exhaustive enough, research into OnlyFans to be confident it’s all grrr-girl capitalist empowerment and feminist agency in play! (Give me a grant and I’ll spend two years becoming an expert though…)
Yes, my post above not-with-standing, I have never really bought into feminism’s ‘sexual license = sexual empowerment’ narrative. Not collectively, as a ‘net good thing’ for women. (For some, sure – invariably the wealthy, educated, privileged ones). For most women it’s always felt (to me, anyway) more like a posh version of just another ‘external moral authority’ (once the church, nowadays ‘progressive’ consensus) demanding that women grant bullying lothario blokes everything sexually they want, as their (same-old) masculine entitlement…only calling it ‘progressive equity virtue’ rather than ‘regressive patriarchal oppression’. I have just seen too many seriously creepy, ‘sensitive, caring’ men use their ‘feminist’ credentials to get trusting women into bed…and then treat them like dirt (in the timelessly charmless way of the worst of our gender), and without even invoking the traditional civic ‘consolation prizes’ (a requisite marriage giving financial stability, at least the public expressions and accoutrements of moral and ethical obligation, an embraced ethical duty of care to resulting children, etc).
Some smart feminist – maybe it was Greer – once said that feminist’s worst ever strategic blunder was to mistake ‘becoming more like men’ for genuine gender equality. I think there’s something in that. And maybe the epidemic of young girls who think they must transtion to being actual ‘men’ is some logical endpoint extreme of that early misstep. Warm regards David.
Just did a quick check on the CEO of Ofcom. One Melanie Dawes.
I think we can fairly say she leans feminist rather than the reverse. It seems unlikely that her policy would be: go after Only Fans because it empowers women; turn a blind eye to “patriarchal” porn sites.
In so far as her ideological position is influencing Ofcom actions it is more likely to be motivated by feminist rather than patriarchal ideology.
Nope. Diversity and Inclusion Champions are the employed promoters of transgender activism, which is antifeminist. Encouraging the idea that men can become women and gain access to women’s exclusive spaces – sports, refuges, prison cells, dating sites – is systematically destroying the gains women have made in the past 50 years. The DEI practitioners also tend to agree with the ‘Sex work is work’ ideologues too.
Yep, I’d echo this. Actually, in a weirdly counter-intuitive inversion, my gut instinct is that the most overtly and aggressively ideological ‘feminists’ aren’t really feminists at all. I think their feminist ‘props’ are opportunistic, cosplay ones only, deployed (as with all the more zealous ideologues) in the much more banal, universal (and gender-neutral) pursuit of narcissistic self-interest. In that sense, someone like Dawes, psychologically and intellectually, will be – or is likely to be, I can’t say I actually know – more like the arch-typical bullying patriarchal narcissists she affects to oppose. Scratch the feminist rhetoric and crusading posturing of all ideologues and I reckon you’ll find a common psychic and emotional engine room.
So it follows entirely that a ‘feminist’ like Dawes could easily – inevitably, probably – end up being objectively anti-women’s interests, if the ideological, political and civic trends and ‘feelz’ of the moment provided more fertile bullying traction. The same would apply to the many ‘progressive’ male ideologues who have flipped from lifelong (professed) support for women’s rights, to enabling their erosion, simply because there’s more ‘low-cost zealotry’ and thus narcissistic grandstanding to be got from the trans cult.
The same figures, by the way, will seamlessly transfer their need for moralistic bullying power away from the temporarily useful men-without-willies and women-with-them, the second the righteousness of their current bandwagon fades, and a new one comes along.
There are many “feminisms” and one can be sure that a generously funded feminist like Dawes numbers among the elite shock troops of the global oligarchy
Not unreasonable point at all, but on balance I would tend to follow Unherd Reader’s counter-intuitive but I think empirically very strongly-evidenced reasoning. See my response to
his hertheir points!**See, gender-neutral language can have its spiffing uses. Why yes, thank you, Judith Butler!
It’s a trophy scalp.
Perhaps the focus of the investigation isn’t so much on the patrons but rather on the sellers—how can anyone be sure that the player isn’t a minor? Or maybe the investigators are seeking data to determine who the buyers are so they can be blackmailed tomorrow?
This title is misleading and clickbaity. Well done, Unherd. I clicked. Happy now?
I also clicked because WTF but if the author to be trusted I learned that prohibition and age verification actually work which made me ever more convinced that our tech overlords and state bureaucracy profit from the pornography
Unless it’s changed since you posted what’s misleading about it? The writer is defending Only Fans against Ofcoms treatment of it
I didn’t even know how strict they are but investigating a paid site immediately made me suspicious that it’s about protection of minors. It’s like investigating the single regulated landfill amidst piles of smoking garbage