‘Kinder, Nicer’ OnlyFans Upends Ordinary Lives

A series of Reuters investigations has been digging into the darker side of OnlyFans, and the latest focuses on what the outlet calls the “collateral damage” of the porn-centric site that has exploded in popularity. In one example, a husband became addicted to the site and secretly spent $135,000 on his favorite content creators. “Not only was it shocking,” says his wife—who discovered their maxed-out credit cards while undergoing chemo for cancer—”it was devastating.” The larger problem is that the way OnlyFans works, it’s easy to see how such addictions form. Customers enter their credit card information just once, notes Sex Addiction 101 author Rob Weiss. They can then return again and again to chat with models and make requests. “It’s like the drug addict who’s buying drugs and says, ‘I know I’m spending my kids’ college fund, but hey, I want to get high,'” he says.

The story also cites instances in which performers have been caught in sexual acts in public, creating content for their fans. “There’s something different happening with OnlyFans,” Meagan Tyler of Australia’s La Trobe University tells the outlet. “It’s really affecting norms and even our everyday experiences in public places, in private homes, in relationships—and it’s having that effect even if we’ve never visited the site ourselves.” OnlyFans pitches itself as a “nicer, kinder” online community than other platforms, and as a safer way for ordinary people to make extra cash, even if in risqué fashion. The investigation, however, documents how the platform “has generated ripple effects that have upended lives in unexpected and sometimes traumatizing ways.” (Read the full story, or see previous investigations about child sexual abuse material and revenge porn content on the site.)